The Write-A-Story Calendar Day 11: An Awesome Opening

Yay, it's finally time to start writing! As we're aiming for 3,000 - 5,000 words, about 350 words per day should do it. Have trouble getting started? Set an egg timer for thirty minutes and just start writing. You'll probably end up with more words that that, easy, especially if you're writing in English. (Finnish is a lot harder, no articles or prepositions to beef up the word count.)

You can start anywhere in the story, but I tend to start at the beginning. Your opening is maybe the single most important bit of the story, because you need to hook the reader so she'll bother reading the rest of it. Here are a few things to think about before you start writing:

• Are you starting at the beginning? As in where the story begins, not with what your main character had or breakfast or something like that?
• Are you opening with action?
• Is your first line interesting, surprising, and original?
• Do you introduce your protagonist in the first paragraph, or even better, the first sentence?
• What about the main conflict, you should probably get to it as soon as possible?
• Does your first scene contain at least one hook, preferably several?

Okay, that's pretty much it. Ready, set, Write!