The Guide Through Wattpad

How To Start A Story

-You don’t know what it’s like to be like me. To be hurt. To feel lost. To be left out in the dark. To be kicked when you’re down. To feel like you’ve been pushed around. To be on the edge of breaking down and no one's there to save you. No you don’t know what it’s like. Welcome to my life –Welcome To My Life by Simple Plan. 

Hey readers! Decided to change it up a bit and start with a quote from the song that I’m listening to. Maybe I should do this more often? I don’t know....

Anyways let’s just jump right on into today’s topic: How to start a story. I hope I’m not the only person here on Wattpad that has a really good story idea but then I pull up my Word document and stare at it like a buffoon for eight hours. This was true about the story I just started. So I am going to give you a few tips on how to start a story.

1)      Establish the setting: Establishing the setting is something that not only gives structure to your story but it also doesn’t make your story as sloppy. Why not start your story with some good structure and imagery? For example, She stood upon the top of the Eiffel Tower, taking in the beauty as she stared down at it in admiration.

2)      Create the mood: Creating a mood can draw in readers and let them know the direction of the story. First, you want to decide how you want your readers to feel when they read your story. Happy? Sad? On edge? Then, with that in mind start your story that creates that mood. If your story is horrifying, maybe start with “Her shadow lurked alongside her as she made her way through the abandoned home of a forgotten soul.” Or if your story is suspenseful, start with “She ran for all she had, hoping that maybe this time she could escape the enemy stalking behind her.” I just came up with those story starters as I was writing this so if you’d like you can use them.

3)      Know your Audience: What I mean by this is who this story is directed at? Is this story meant to be read by a teen or an adult? Or in other words is you story Teen Fiction or Non-Teen Fiction? Not every story has to have a directed audience but if you are directing your audience at teens start with a topic appealing to teens. Also, you’re writing style can also depend on who your audience is. Using texting language for a non-teen fiction book is just a recipe for disaster. Need I say more?

4)      Start with a quote: Starting with a quote can hook readers into your story just like when you use a quote to start an essay or an article. This is one of my favorite ways to start a story, especially if you have a quote that revolves around the story or gives the direction that you want your story to go. Or, if you don’t want the first words of your story to be a quote, I always like to choose a quote that goes with the story and I keep that quote in mind as I write. The reason starting a story with a quote could have a negative effect is when you start with a quote that gives too much away about the story. You don’t to ruin the story by giving away all of the juicy details.

5)      Build suspense to draw readers in: Starting a story with a suspenseful event can draw readers in. For example, in the book Safe Haven by Nicolas Sparks, he starts the story with her running away from her home and she goes on the run. It builds suspense and leaves a mystery, keeping the readers reading to find out why she is running away.

6)      Start with a flashback: Giving a flashback into an event that happened in the characters life can also be a great way to start a story. However, if you decide to start your story with a flashback, the event has to be meaningful to the character or relevant to the story. You don’t want to start with a flashback that has no relevance to your story.

I think that those are all of the ways that I can think of for how to start a story. I hope that these tips could help you in the future when you are stuck on how to start a story. If you have any other ideas on how you start your stories, please leave them in the comments. I’m leaving to go on vacation tomorrow and won’t be back until the day before Easter so I will try to update when I get back. It’s a 10 hour drive to Idaho from where I live so I’m going to have a lot of time to read and write.

If I haven’t told you guys enough, I love you guys! Thank you to everyone who leaves comments, votes and reads my stories. You are the reason why I love to write and I can’t thank you enough for all of the support!

Talk to you soon!

~Kim :P