Open your story with a tremor that builds inexorably to an earth quake. Openings should sow doubt, build tension and create interest.
“What’s happening?” your reader will say … and in a flash they are drawn into the main body of the story.
In my short story Temptations I puzzled for a long time over the opening before settling on:
‘How unfaithful is your partner?’
Alice frowned as the magazine ad caught her attention. Primly, she patted her tightly curled fair hair then self conciously seated her neat figure at the kitchen table of her tiny three bed room semi-detached - and read on..’
The opening asks a question that needs an answer. The thought of infidelity creates tension, yet Alice is clearly an ordinary, even neat and tidy person … The stage is set and the story has begun.
If you want to be successful in your writing, make your openings dramatic. Intrigue your reader, capture their attention and then start to build a relationship with them otherwise they probably won’t read past the first line or paragraph. This will also be the case if you ever send your story to a publisher.
And when you’ve created the perfect dramatic opening, enjoy it and savour it. Roll it round you tongue and speak it aloud. (Good writing reads aloud easily. It’s a great test.) Your brilliant opening will be a delight in its own right and give you great pleasure … And now you’ve captured the readers attention, it’s time to get on with writing the rest of the story!
