Starting a Story

The start of a story is always the hardest part for me.  I can have a hundred different ideas, but when it comes to actually putting that first line on the page, I get intimidated.  I have been known to just start at the blank page, thinking over and over again about how I should write that first line.   It’s the beginning, it’s the introduction to the story, and it will set the entire tone for the piece.  It’s a big deal.

And yeah, I know that nothing is set in stone anymore.  That I can always go back and change that first line a hundred different times until I settle on exactly what I want it to say.  But nevertheless, it’s still difficult to put that first line down on paper.

A fellow writer sympathized with my hatred of writing the first line.  In my typically over dramatic fashion, I told her that the paper was mocking me, laughing at me as I failed to put pen to paper.  She gave me a very simple solution.   Across the top of the page I wrote “Take that you smug piece of carbon by-product.”   That got me laughing.  The page wasn’t blank anymore.  After another four minutes—I finally got the first line down, and started writing.

That first line was changed four or five different times before I even got finished with the first draft, but I had gotten it down, and that was the important part.  It’s what I try to remember when the pages start mocking me again.

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