How do you start your stories?

[DannyBell]

I think the only opening that actively puts me off is when someone has their main character wake up, and then stand in front of a mirror to admire themselves for 5 paragraphs. It's so clichéd and there's almost never anything remotely interesting or unique about the description. Just a woman or a man remarking about how they have 'kept themselves in shape over the years', and maybe a quick fondle of their narcissistic tits because seeing their reflection is just too much for them to handle. How daring...

So long as there's no mirrors involved I think mornings are a perfectly fine way to start a piece of smut though! Anything that gets a hook in to the readers cheek is doing its job, no matter where or when or what's actually happening.

 

[Voboy]

There's no rhyme or reason to mine, except that they tend to start in medias res and then fill in some backstory slightly later.

 

[designatedvictim]

Mine vary by time of day and place, but usually presented as an arrival of some kind, which I hadn't actually noticed until I put some thought into what I would write here.

I really only have three stories:

1 ) TLW: College-aged guy arriving home to his off-campus rental after work and finding his landlord's daughter hadn't gone on the trip she'd been planning.

2) AWoS: older guy leading his sister into his condo where she was planning to spend the next week during some home renovations of her place after work on a Friday.

3) FSwmS: recent grad arriving late night/early morning at the airport Arrivals terminal being picked up by his older sister.

Works in progress:

4) FSomS (WIP): follow-up to #3 where we meet him at the airport Arrivals terminal again, with the sister and roommate picking him up.

5) ItDE (unrelated WIP): no arrival! At least at the start. Text conversations between MMC and FMC leading to... his arrival at her family's mountain lake cabin for the week.

Arrivals, or one sort, or another, it seems.

It wasn't deliberate, I swear!

 

[designatedvictim]

So long as there's no mirrors involved I think mornings are a perfectly fine way to start a piece of smut though! Anything that gets a hook in to the readers cheek is doing its job, no matter where or when or what's actually happening.

You could play against the trope.

I tried to open my eyes, but after how things went last night, I needed much more effort to open them than on a normal morning.

Moving my legs to hang off the side of the bed let me roll myself up into a sitting position with a not-quite suppressed grunt of effort.

Finally managing to force my eyes open, at last, I was greeted by the the reflection of an owl-eyed zombie with a desperate need for a shave and a mass of unkempt hair splayed wildly above my head in random spikes in the bureau mirror.

I closed my eyes again. I looked better, now.

 

[XerXesXu]

I find the start of my stories when I do my first full edit. I put the start at the beginning then remove anything that doesn't progress it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I think the only opening that actively puts me off is when someone has their main character wake up, and then stand in front of a mirror to admire themselves for 5 paragraphs. It's so clichéd and there's almost never anything remotely interesting or unique about the description.

Megan got out of bed and stood in front of the aging, stained mirror that she has found in a thrift store. She normally slept in just a T and panties. Unceremoniously, she pulled the former up and over her head, and the latter down her legs, stepping out of them.

She surveyed herself critically. Not bad I suppose. Too tall. That went without saying. But nevertheless carrying too much weight, for sure. But there had been a lock down just a year ago, right? And the upside was that her breasts were bigger. Megan was pretty sure her breasts would not disappoint most guys. She even had proof, Rate My Rack couldn't lie, could it? Her mound was smooth and hairless. The salon was expensive, but it was pretty much expected to be pube-free nowadays. There had been that hook up where the phrase 'scouring brush' had been mentioned. Never again.

Head hair was equally as problematic. Thick, curly, but not in a cooperative way. Megan pulled her locks away from her face. More difficulties. A bit lopsided, maybe. Jack had said that about her; he didn't hang round long. And then the scarring. The teenage years had not been easy, and there was an unevenness to her skin. Kelly had said 'pock-marked', that had been an unkind exaggeration, but still. He'd just been a drunken one nighter, and yet found time to mention her slightly troublesome complexion.

But Megan was still annoyed and depressed. Maybe she wasn't the perfect girl. But if someone would take time to get to know her... Then, in her experience, they were seldom around long enough to discuss Proust. However, one thing she was sure about was sex. She had a few tricks up her sleeve. She'd never had any complaints. A slight smile played across her face.

Still, she cursed herself for doing just the sort of things that had made her sad for so long. It hurt her to think that she'd chosen, once again, for this pattern to go on.

 

[HeyAll]

One philosophy that I like, and it might have been mentioned already here, is to start as close to the middle as possible.

 

[NotWise]

I don't think my beginnings have a pattern in time of day or location.

My most common beginning is to start my stories in dialog, but there are a lot of variations. It's something I brainstorm. I look for an opening that introduces at least one main character and includes some action meant to catch the readers' attention.

 

[ALustSupreme]

I'm new to this and I guess I've been writing scenes more than stories proper. And it's my own fantasies and wish fulfillment so I am taking my time starting from a tame beginning and escalating from there.

 

[Jada59]

I tend to write at night. But sometimes something just comes to me. I have to stop what I’m doing and write.

I usually give a little background first, but not always. Depends on where I’m going with the story.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I think, the only story I've written, or rather only WIP I've started with the protag waking up, was one where their last memory was of them getting shot. So, they wake up in an extreme state of fight, flight or freeze.

Other than that, my most common story starter, as in I have a finished story and a WIP that start this way, is with getting home from work and talking with their best friend. In one of them it's over the phone, and the other it's over discord, but ya know, still similar ways to start the story.

Otherwise, yeah, all over the place.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I agree that waking up is a bad start to a story, unless your MC is waking up with someone else in the bed and they've no idea how they got there.

Generally, I want to start right before the characters day gets interesting. Usually that involves starting with some kind of direct action or interesting speech. If you start off with (not an example from a real story)

"Honey, where's my dildo?"

Then you can grab the readers attention and introduce the character and setting (fussy mother coming to visit) while they search for it.

 

[Britva415]

No consistent formula here. My Halloween story I wrote the ending first, then the beginning.

Was that the order they appeared in the manuscript?

 

[IWroteThis]

Looking back over the stories I've posted, a few started in the morning, but after arriving in the office. The most common time for my stories to start is Friday after work/school. Second most common is after work/school on a day other than Friday or that isn't specified.

 

[Imstillfun]

Was that the order they appeared in the manuscript?

No.

 

[Soixenta]

I have started a story with my narrator waking up: Cuffed and Naked is my lowest-rated story, though.

Generally I prefer an in medias res opening, starting where the tale begins. It is a hook, to draw the reader in. Backstory can follow later, when my reader hopefully is intrigued enough to find out what happens.

This is how I began a new story just yesterday:

“Listen,” Louisa said, “you’ve spent the past hour sneaking glances at my boobs. I know you’re going upstairs for a wank.” She rose from the table and looked down, noting how his eyes lingered on the braless breasts in her linen dress before they rose to meet hers. “Now it’s my turn to watch.”

It was hardly subtle. It wasn’t meant to be.

 

[THBGato]

Reflecting on this, I think I pretty much always start stories in medias res. Attention spans are so short these days; you've got to grab people. There are two alternatives I use, though not very often:

1. Establish the world: I've got two stories that are sci fi/fantasy. So I spend a few paragraphs establishing the world before I introduce the dilemma.

2. Establish the frame: I've got a few stories told in flashback, so I'll start the story with a justification for why the story is being told e.g. somebody being pressured by a group of friends into telling the story of their first time; a narrator finding their old diaries and reminiscing.

 

[Writer61]

Not something I had thought about, so I went back and looked at a selection of my stories. Most of those I looked at start with short bio info for the MC, and then switch into the story proper. For example, from my highest rated story:

I am 17 years old with one more year before I finish school. I live in South London with my mother who is a university lecturer. Money is tight.

“But Mum, I don’t want to go to Brighton. I want to stay here, see my friends; not be held prisoner at the poxy seaside all summer. I can look after myself. I promise there’ll be no parties or anything!”

I would add that I think I have gotten better at weaving bio details into the first few paragraphs.

Thanks to this thread, I will give the opening more thought.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Reflecting on this, I think I pretty much always start stories in medias res. Attention spans are so short these days; you've got to grab people.

Grabbing attention is definitely the critical element. A clever title and description can get a reader to click on your story, but they have still only made a tiny investment in your story. If your first few sentences don't grab them, they lose little by clicking the back button and looking for something else.
It would be fascinating to see the percentage of people who click on to the second page of a story. I suspect that engagement amongst people who read to the end of the story is fairly consistent, when you have a story with "low engagement" what you are actually seeing is a story where more people noped out on the first page.

 

[BeechLeaf]

So I looked at what I'd actually written, and found that mostly I begin by setting a scene and showing the people in it: usually the main characters. The first paragraph tells the reader we're in a park or a pub, or at home or at an outside table of a café. We learn something about the people - appearance or clothes or names or interests.

In a couple of cases I begin in the middle of a conversation, which also makes the situation clear: a friendly chat at home, or a kind of business meeting. The hook here is that they're supposed to give a feeling "this sounds fun" or "this sounds interesting" respectively.

My main kind is not meant to have a 'hook' in the sense of grabbing readers. I don't actually want as many reads as possible. People who like stories that ooze sex, well I want them to find my opening boring and click away. The readers I want are those who like the scene in the park, and the first paragraph strikes them as well written, and they settle down for the writing, not the squirting, and to find out about the people.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

So I looked at what I'd actually written, and found that mostly I begin by setting a scene and showing the people in it: usually the main characters. The first paragraph tells the reader we're in a park or a pub, or at home or at an outside table of a café. We learn something about the people - appearance or clothes or names or interests.

In a couple of cases I begin in the middle of a conversation, which also makes the situation clear: a friendly chat at home, or a kind of business meeting. The hook here is that they're supposed to give a feeling "this sounds fun" or "this sounds interesting" respectively.

My main kind is not meant to have a 'hook' in the sense of grabbing readers. I don't actually want as many reads as possible. People who like stories that ooze sex, well I want them to find my opening boring and click away. The readers I want are those who like the scene in the park, and the first paragraph strikes them as well written, and they settle down for the writing, not the squirting, and to find out about the people.

Grabbing attention isn't the same as oozing sex.
It's about drawing a reader into a story.
My second example is from a 13k word story and there really isn't even a hint of sex until 10k words in.

 

[Stanfield2025]

I agree that waking up is a bad start to a story, unless your MC is waking up with someone else in the bed and they've no idea how they got there.

The one time I started a story with a character waking up, she woke up without her husband there like he usually was.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

The one time I started a story with a character waking up, she woke up without her husband there like he usually was.

That's a good example of an interesting way to do it.

The waking up trope isn't inherently bad, it's just that it has been so over used that it becomes cliché.

 

[deathlynx]

Most of my short stories start with the main character(s) going about their normal lives, then something unusual happens which throws things in a different (erotic since my short stories are pretty much all strokers for Lit) direction. My longer stories vary. Usually the opening scene sets the tone for everything else, but it may or may not be connected to the overall plot. In Undercover Ops (my current serial) the prologue has nothing to do with the rest of the story, except that it's a typical mission for the MC with a very a-typical encounter afterwards. Others jump into the plot. I have also used the trope where I show a late scene as a teaser and then jump back to the beginning of the tale (think Deadpool movies).

 

[ClintonBrooks]

I like starting my stories off with some dialog to (hopefully) hook the reader into reading more.

From my most recent story..."Be Still My Beating Heart."

"Okay...that should be the last of the little brats."

I turned to our foyer and watched my goth girlfriend, Delilah, as she switched off all the outside lights. It was the suburban homeowner's way of announcing "We're Closed" to any straggling neighborhood kids still trick-or-treating. If they hadn't knocked by 9:00, tough.

From there, it's either more of the current action, or a little background information before switching to the current action. I like to read slow-burn stories, so tend to write them as well. Occasionally I might bring some sex in - or at least flirt with it - but usually it's more narration/dialog setting up the situation before I get into any sex.

The time of day isn't a consideration for me at all.