Recommended Reading
It was the twenty second breakfast he'd had that day and the examiner was starting to feel sick. He wasn't sure how many more sausages he could take.
Mmm. Making an examiner feel sick. Possibly not the shortest route to a good mark (unless, of course, this was your intention), so here come a few tips on writing great story openings that should hopefully go down a little better with your examiner than the addition of porridge to an already swimming pool of orange juice, cereal, bacon and yoghurt, topped with scrambled eggs.
Consider a story that relates the following events in the following order:
1) I got up.
2) I got dressed.
3) I had breakfast.
4) I met my friends.
5) We decided to go to the skate boarding park.
6) My friends challenged me to grind along the railings surrounding the pond.
7) I skated towards the railings.
8) I took off.
9) I landed successfully on the railings.
10) I kept my balance for a while.
11) I lost my balance.
12) I fell in the pond.
Now while this might possibly make an entertaining tale to tell your friends (and it would certainly have been entertaining if you'd been there to see it), it doesn't provide the structure for an entertaining story.
An entertaining story almost always begins with some sort of a "hook", something that triggers the reader's imagination, that makes them wonder, "Hey, what's going on here?" or "Where is this?" or "Why would someone do that?"
You get the idea. Something that makes them ask themselves some sort of a question. Something that makes them want to read on to find out the answer....
One of the easiest ways to achieve this is to think carefully about where and when you start your story. Most budding creative writers start their stories too early. They take too long to get to the interesting part.
In the list given above, the events from number 6 to number 9 would probably make the most interesting story openings. Here are a few examples to show what I mean.
6) "You'll never do it," said Dan. "Firstly, because no one's ever done it without falling in. Secondly, because you wouldn't even dare try."
Now remember, if this is where you start your story, the reader won't know what on earth Dan is talking about. Try what? Fall in what? They don't even know the story is set in a park yet.
7) I was picking up speed now. There was no turning back. What on earth had made me agree to do it?
Again, a beginning like this should hopefully kick start your reader's imagination. No turning back from what? Also note that, even though I've advised against starting your story with breakfast, you could refer back to it here to add convincing detail to your story. Now might be a good time, in fact, to describe your breakfast sloshing around your stomach in a sea of tea and orange juice. It's much more vivid than just saying you felt sick. As long as you have a reason for describing it, that's fine. Just don't be lazy about where you decide to start your story.
8) The ground dropped away. I was flying now. Tucked up like a pouncing cat. For a moment, I felt totally free.
This example is probably my favourite, but there's no absolute right or wrong way to start a story, just more or less entertaining ways, and there will always be an element of personal taste with respect to what anyone does or doesn't find entertaining. I personally love the idea of flying. That's why this one's my favourite.
By the way, because I've never skateboarded in my life, I looked at a few You Tube videos of skateboarders to observe their body posture when they jump. If I hadn't, I would never have known they tuck up their bodies like pouncing cats. In an exam situation, when you can't do this sort of research, you might want to stick to writing about something you already know about.
9) Contact! Huh, I thought. So much for not being able to do it.
Although you could start the story at this point, this example doesn't really work for me because I don't know enough about skateboarding. I wanted to describe the sound of the skateboard making contact with the railings, but realised I don't actually know what sound it does make. If I wanted to develop this story, I'd need to have a chat with my nephew, who's an amazing skateboarder. That's why it's so important to plan your story. You don't want to get half way through writing it only to realise that you don't have enough information to finish it if you need to hand it in the next day.
Maybe I should have started planning an interesting story about filing a tax return. I know a lot about that....
Don't worry. Just joking. I wouldn't do that to you. Writing for your audience is possibly just as important as writing a great beginning, but that's another lesson....
