Opinions on Unconventional Story Starts

[OffNSFW]

I'm trying something weird with my Summer Lovin' WIP. Not for the beginning, but the story is divided into two halves with a time skip in the middle. The second half starts off with the main character cleaning his house while giving a sort of fast-forward description of everything that's happened in the intervening time. I'm also going non-chronological and ordering events by how they build up with intensity, kind of like a... well, you know.

If it doesn't work, oh well. You have to play around sometimes, and take a chance on things failing.

 

[GrushaVashnadze]

If you're introducing a new kind of world or a creature or even someone with an unusual job, then a paragraph of description often works.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it a was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

... which is why I began my story The Fockit, or, In and Out Again thus:

In a Hole in an Arse there lived a Fockit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet Hole, filled with the ends of turds and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy Hole with nothing about it worth eating or slobbering at: it was a Fockit Hole, and that means comfort.

 

[StillStunned]

What are people's thoughts about 'non standard' story beginnings? I can easily imagine it might not appeal to everyone but that's not something I'm worried about.

I'm not sure what "standard" and "non-standard" beginnings would be. Conventional wisdom is to start as close as possible to the story-triggering event, so any opening that achieves that is good.

Precisely what form that takes depends on the story, the style, POV and pretty much every other element of writing.

 

[SimonDoom]

My least conventional story start probably was for Cuckolds and Incels: A Chain Story. The story begins with a teacher's instructions to the class for writing a chain story, and the story follows, with alternating authors. I thought it worked well and some of my readers, at least, seemed to agree.