How to begin a story

[AbyssalDaemon]

I posted a variation of this elsewhere and this is rather embarrassing to ask but I was wondering if anyone here could give me any advice on how to start the beginning of a story. I've got a number of various ideas floating around in my head that I'd like to write but I can't ever figure out how to actually start the beginning of the story itself and was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on how to do so.
Dwarven Vow #16: You can do anything if you try! We're dead anyway if we fail.
-Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

[classicdrogn]

I like to kick things off with a bang - jump right into an action sequence, argument, or just a turn of phrase that made you grin and cackle and rub your hands in grinchly glee when you thought of it, to hook the reader, then use a transition that shows it to have been a flashback or flash-forward to where you need to start explaining the plot. That way, you have a bit of... narrative credit, let's call it... to spend on the set-up to really go into things in a way that makes sense. It doesn't have to be combat, either - a car chase, an adrenaline junkie riding the ragged edge of skill for a stunt, or even a well-turned description of a character taking a moment to enjoy the landscape around them will do as well, the latter having the benefit of creating a clear setting for anything the character might subsequently do to get your plot moving.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Rieverre]

There is no perfect answer. Like CD and Hitchcock before him (or was that someone else?) said, starting off with an earthquake and progressing from there is always a viable fallback.
You want the readers to stick around for whatever boring exposition you need to pull later on, after all.
So, Carpe Jugulum and all that.
Also, it might be helpful to know how you want to end the story. Then you can work your way back to the beginning.
Hell, you can even present things like that. Start at the end, or what comes a bit after the end, then segue to the beginning and continue through the middle ... go play either of the May Payne games to see this way of narration in action.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[CattyNebulart]

I personally like the satrting of with a bang bit too, it's probably the easiest way to write the first chapter. Another much harder way is to write the setup in a non-boring fashion. This is hard, but most readers will give the first chapter a little credit to spend on things like that.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Epsilon]

Start the story you plan to end.
I'll expand on that, since its kinda vague.
Basically, when you are telling a story there is a certain story arc you plan on having the narrative follow. Inevitably you have a certain climax in mind, an event or situation that you think is going to be the whole point of the story. This could be the Final Fight With Dr Evil or the Heart-Rending Decision To Give Up On Your True Love So She Can Be Happy or Finally Getting to Go Home From Oz or whatever.
The important part is that you decide what kind of story you are going to tell. Generally there are four types, which Orson Scott Card calls the MICE quotient. There are Milieu stories, which are about a certain setting and the exploration of that setting. There are Idea stories, which are about a certain idea or theoryt or mystery and the revelation of that mystery. There are Character stories which are about the development and choices of a certain Character. And their are Event stories, which are about the effects of a certain Event on the lives of the major protagonists.
You should start your story at the point in the world where your protagonist first becomes involved with the type of story you want to tell, and end it when that story is finished.
The quintesential example is the Event story. The Event story begins when Our Hero first encounters some sort of nastiness. Be it The One Ring or a natural disaster or something else. The important thing is that up until now there was a status qou and then some outside element comes in and disrupts that status quo. The story is about the hero (and his companions) dealign with the ramifications of this. The story ends when the status quo is reset, either to a new one or to the old one. Look at any number of fantasy novels for this story arc, from Lord of the Rings to Wheel of Time to Star Wars and so on.
The Idea story is your essential murder mystery. It starts by asking a question (Who killed this man? Why are ghosts appearing in the local hospital? What is the meaning of life?) and ends when that question is answered.
The Milieu story is your Wizard of Oz, Gulliver's Travels, El Hazard kind of deal. The story begins when your protagonists enter the setting, and ends when they either a) leave or b) decide to stay.
Drunkard's Walk, for instance, is a Milieu story. Note how the second step begins when Doug arrives in the BGC universe and then ends when he leaves. That makes it a classic Milieu story.
The Character story also begins with an event disrupting the staus quo but in the Character story this change is driven by the protagonist. The protagonist decides, for some reason, to change his lot in life. Either he wants to get to the girl, get a better job or what have you. The story ends when the character's search for a better life ends. Most romantic comedies are built on this model. They begin when the main characters start looking for something better (ie love), and end when they find it.
So, to answer your question you should begin your story with the scene you think begins your story. An important thing here is to remove the Myth of the story from the narrative. The Myth is everything related to the story, include background going back thousands or millions of years. You only start the story when your protagonist becomes involved in it, which is important.
I'll give you an example:
When I started Hybrid Theory I had to chose when to start the story. I wanted to tell and Event story ("What happens when a self-insert appears in a fictional universe and starts having actual consequences on events?"). This meant I deliberatly did NOT start the story with the self-insert arriving in the universe. I started it a few months later, when the self-insert decided to start mucking around with the continuity (in this regards, Hybrid Theory also has major elements of a Character story). If I had started with the arrival of the SI, the story would have been more setting based, as that was the expectation I was building in the reader. I also deliberatly didn't raise the question of -why- the SI was there until later, since this isn't an Idea story.
Bringing this rambling mess back to coherence again I'll reiterate the first line.
Start the story you plan to end.
Figure out what kind of story you are telling. Figure out when your protagonist first begins to interact with that story. THAT is your starting point.
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Epsilon

[Bob Schroeck]

Whatever you do, it should leave the reader asking questions that will keep them reading: Who is this guy? Why is he doing X? What's going on here? (That's the one ''in media res'' should prompt.) The thing is to hook the reader in such a way that he wants to keep going. You don't want to have them get to the end of the first paragraph and ask, "why am i bothering with this?"
The number one amateur story opening to avoid is anything that looks like this:

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Joe Hero was an ordinary high school student before his life changed. He was five foot twelve, 17 stone, and wore a purple waistcoat on alternate Fridays. His girlfriend was Ann Image, who made her living as a screen saver on his computer. ...

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That's about as silly and facetious as I could write it, but I'm sure you've seen intensely serious versions of this. It tries to set up the hero and his environment in one paragraph, thrown at the reader at the start. It never works. To even a halfway sophisticated reader it says, "I've just learned how to spell, and I think I can write a story. I'm wrong."
-- Bob
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...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Sirrocco]

Though, Bob, I think even *that* opening could be salvaged into a decent semi-surreal comedy piece if you took out "before his life changed", slapped a "perfectly" in front of the "ordinary", turned "five foot twelve" into, say, "six foot four", and followed it immediately with the words "They fought crime."
Of course, you'd have to immediately break to an action sequence, preferably involving martial arts and/or gunfire, but you could do it.
Challenge fic, anyone?

[drakensis]

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Joe Hero was an ordinary high school student before his life changed. He was five foot twelve, 17 stone, and wore a purple waistcoat on alternate Fridays. His girlfriend was Ann Image, who made her living as a screen saver on his computer.

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That is indeed the classic error of starting a story. Half that information is irrelevant, the other half would be better provided in the prologue scene, along with ye olde plot hook.
The rule is show, don't tell, until you have their attention. Infodumps can come later.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[WengFook]

Hmm so its more of less start with a bang and work your way towards the boring parts later once you've hooked the audience _______________________________
We are the swords in the darkness, the watchers on the walls. The fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn. The horn that wakes the sleepers. The shield that guards the realms of men. -The Brothers Black
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Sirrocco]

If you do it right, by the time you get to the boring parts, they won't be boring any more. Personally, I'm trying to get the knack of not running any exposition unless the reader's already interested in it. You run some exciting bits first, because exciting bits are exciting, and while you're doing that, you build up curiosity, which you then satasfy in bits with exposition.
There's another warning of how not to start...
There are a large number of fanfic authors, especially really shippy authors, who love to write about their favorite characters *being* together. That bit at the beginning where they *get* together is just a regrettable obstacle that you have to slog through to get to the good stuff. It's rushed, and poorly thought out, and poorly justified, and it shows. Don't give us the beginning that you have to get through to get to the good stuff. If you don't enjoy writing it, we won't enjoy reading it. Just write the good stuff from the beginning. If you're monofocally shippy to the point that, say, "the good stuff" doesn't start until after Snape and the Giant Squid have admitted their undeniably growing attraction for one another... well, you're very, very strange, but start there anyway. You can put in the explanation of how they got that way into little affectionate asides later on, and the story (though still most likely horrible) will be better for it.
Of course, this is an extreme example, but the general rule stands. If the story inspiration is a moment that burns in your brain and will not let go, and you're planning to write the events leading up to it just as a justification for how you got there - don't. Just start with the good stuff. Then keep going with the good stuff. When you run out of good stuff, seal it off and call it done. If this means that it comes across as nothing more than a series of pivotal moments in the lives of the characters, separated by spans of years in which relationships have grown and changed offstage, so be it. Toss in just enough information around the edges that the reader can figure out what's going on and run with it. It'll be a far better story than the one where both you and the reader suffer through the spans in between.
Of course, this is not universally true. In order to keep growing as a writer, eventually you have to deliberately push your own boundaries - but it's certainly a good place to begin.

[Bob Schroeck]

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Hmm so its more of less start with a bang and work your way towards the boring parts later once you've hooked the audience

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I know you're saying that tongue-in-cheek, but someone might be reading who won't understand that, so let me emphasize: If you're thinking of any segment of your story as "the boring part" you've got a problem. Ideally written, even a scene of a character brushing his teeth in the morning can be interesting, if it reveals something about him the reader didn't know before. I tend to think of my stories as being composed of "high-energy" and "low-energy" scenes rather than "exciting" and "boring". Low-energy scenes are important and interesting, too.
-- Bob
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...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[ECSNorway]

Spend some time looking at the pacing and structure of, say, a James Bond movie. It's the classic example, especially the last few.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[WengFook]

Well yeah.. I remember a few great scenes in Chris Dee's Cat Tales where the characters are talking to luffa sponges, family portraits, mirror images.. or brushing their teeth.
In each instance we discovered something new an insight into how the character works. what makes them tick, it is an absence of action but still remains interesting is the point being made here.
Yeah I can agree that there really is no boring parts intentionally written in to stories, but some things that some people find interesting and insightful, other people will find boring and shallow.
So... I guess at the end of the day, just do your best to convey the scene in your head as interestingly as you can and let others make of it what they will hopefully the way you did it, despite whatever is being described is good enough to carry the readers to the next line and the line after that _______________________________
We are the swords in the darkness, the watchers on the walls. The fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn. The horn that wakes the sleepers. The shield that guards the realms of men. -The Brothers Black
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Epsilon]

One thing I always ask myself before I start a scene is "What does this add to the story? What happens in this scene to justify me putting it in?"
If I can come up with an answer to that, I put it in. Sometimes the answer is as simple as "its a beautiful image or piece of poetry", which is good enough.
Other times I've been forced to (reluctantly) drop whoel scenes because they added nothign to the story. (sighs) My precious, precious fight scenes... so many that never got to be properly drawn out for 10~20k like I wanted...
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Epsilon

[AbyssalDaemon]

Thanks everyone, I think I understand how to get my story started and not screwed all that much.
Though I will happily take any piece of useful advice that you'll feel like sharing.
Dwarven Vow #16: You can do anything if you try! We're dead anyway if we fail.
-Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

[Sirrocco]

Hey - Epsilon. Just a random thought, but I'd be at least somewhat interested in reading at least a bit of "Overly Drawn-Out Fight Scene Theater." If you *want* to write it that way, but it wouldn't help the story - well, write a story that it *would* help. If you can't manage that, just write an enormous fight scene or two to share by itself. Why not?
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FOX is to News as professional wrestling is to the UFC.

[Epsilon]

(laugh) Dude, I'm so far behind in my actual fanfic do you think I have time to write just a few random 20-30k fight scenes?
Heck, that was half the point of the two sidestories (Look, random fight scenes and jokes!).
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Epsilon