WritersDigest.com I 55EXERCISES AND TIPS FOR HONING SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF YOUR WRITINGWRITER’SBs & s
THE EDGE OF THE BEGINNING
BY PAULA MUNIERY
ou know that you’ve got the right story idea when
that idea energizes you. Th at energy is your key
to completing the marathon that is writing any full-
length work. Use that energy well, and it will sustain you
throughout the process. Squander it, and your story will
falter and maybe stall out altogether.
You start, as we all must, at the beginning. Th e best story
openings are those that capitalize on the energy of the right
story idea. Take a look at your current opening. Where’s
the energy? Where’s the juice? Where’s the momentum?THE SCENE ONE FAIL-SAFE STARTER KIT
Th ere are a number of tricks to making sure that you
get your story off to a hot, hotter, hottest start, no mat-
ter what your genre. I know, literary fi ction authors are
thinking, “I don’t need a hot start to my story.” Well,
think again. Even beginnings for literary stories must
aim for, at minimum, a slow burn.
I live in the Northeast, where winters can be brutal.
When I moved here aft er nearly 20 years in California, I
learned that the secret to staying warm as the thermom-
eter plunges is to keep the fi res burning on all fronts. I
discovered the cozy beauty of cashmere sweaters, fi nger-
less gloves, and glowing woodstoves. But I also learned
that sometimes you have to break down and leave the
house. Begin a journey, even if it’s only to the grocery
store—which means venturing out into sub-zero tem-
peratures to a frigid vehicle that may or may not start. I
dreaded this prospect until I happened upon remote car
starters and heated car seats.With a remote car starter, you can start your car from
inside your warm house, wait until your automobile is
revved up and ready to go, and then slip into a warm seat
in a warm vehicle with a warm engine and hit the road.
You want to do the same thing with your story. Every
reader starts a story cold, and you want to warm the reader
up to your story as quickly as possible. You want the reader
to slip into a warm seat in a hot story with a blazing begin-
ning and take off for parts known only to you, the writer.
Th ere are literary equivalents to remote car starters and
heated car seats. Let’s take a look at these, one by one.
Start With the Scene That Introduces Your Story Idea
Th is is the easiest and most effi cient way to get your story
off to its hottest start. So if it’s possible to begin this way,
you should, just as Peter Benchley did in the fi rst scene
of Jaws.
Th e details of the novel’s opening scene and the fi lm’s
opening scene diff er—the couple in the book are a man
and a woman sharing a beach house rather than a couple
of teenagers at a beach party—but the action is the same:
Th e woman goes for her last swim in the sea while her
drunken companion passes out. And there we have it,
the big story idea of Jaws: A monster great white shark
terrorizes a seaside resort town.
Growing up, Benchley spent his summers on the
island of Nantucket and became fascinated with sharks
at an early age. He attributes his idea for the novel to a
newspaper article he read about a “fi sherman who har-
pooned a 4,500-pound great white shark off Long Island”
and two seminal works about department-store heir
Peter R. Gimbel’s expedition to “fi nd and fi lm a great