Simple Beginnings

What’s the best way to ask a girl out on a date?  You could ask all your friends and consult a hundred articles and websites, only to become confused and anxious.

Or you could call her up and ask, “Would you go out for dinner with me on Friday?”

As it turns out, the simplest way to ask a girl out on a date is also the best way to start a story, which is to do the following:

You start it.

Before you click off this page, here is an example of a perfectly good beginning of a novel or short story:

John was about to ask Jill out for dinner,

when he remembered that her photo

was missing from their high school yearbook.

Questions already come to the readers’ minds.  And now John can set down the phone and do some research instead of talking with Jill.

Do you see the correlation?

The most clichéd story intro ever

If you disagree with me on this matter of simplicity, let me direct your attention to a phrase at the beginning of stories that has worked well for over 700 years:

“Once upon a time...”

I’m not advocating that you start your next story with that phrase, but there are some things you need to know about it.  The idea of beginning a story in this manner dates back to the 13^th century, where "The Liflade of St. Juliana" began with (translated into modern English):

“Here begins the life of St. Juliana, and tells of her life.”

“That doesn’t sound anything like

‘Once upon a time,’” you say.

After the centuries passed, a word or two changed here and there, until we have our present variant.  It’s like the game of Telephone, which evolved from a previous game called “Russian Scandal” back in 1861, before the invention of the telephone.

Notice how old these principles are.  You’ve heard the admonition, “Respect your elders?”  Now is a good time to do that.

Keep the beginning simple?

Yes, and also relatable and engaging—which comes from sincerity—which requires simple honesty.

Who among us older than 16 years old hasn’t experienced anxiety over asking someone out on a date?  And just when you’re about to make the call, you have a distracting thought.

It is said that,

A good story hook grabs the reader's attention

and makes them want to know more.

How is this done?  It’s done by starting a story!

Examples of story beginnings

In case you think I’m being too simplistic, here are the beginnings of several famous novels.  Notice how simple they are.  No dazzling action or emotional manipulations.  Just a simple opening that says, “Look! Here’s a story!”

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna, and I’d been treated by at least six of them.

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I had a telegram from the home: ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It may have been yesterday.

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

I was surprised to see a white man walk into Joppy’s bar.

Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje

She arrived in early March, the plane landing at Katunayake airport before the dawn.  They had raced it ever since coming over the west coast of India, so that now passengers stepped onto the tarmac in the dark.

The Dark Tower Volume 1 by Stephen King

The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use, or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me—into us—clearly or darkly?

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning.

Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Those who saw him hushed.  On Church Street.  Liberty.  Cortlandt.  West Street. Fulton.  Vesey.  It was a silence that heard itself, awful and beautiful.  Some thought at first that it must have been a trick of the light, something to do with the weather, an accident of shadowfall.  Others figured it might be the perfect city joke - stand around and point upward, until people gathered...

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

At dusk they pour from the sky.  They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses.  Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles.  Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say.  Depart immediately to open country.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Marsh is not swamp.  Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky.  Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace—as though not built to fly—against the roar of a thousand snow geese.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.  Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: It was a Hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

And finally, here's the beginning of my second novel, Hanover:

Dark cliffs enshrouded both sides of the Johnson Valley as it wound its way to the Pacific Ocean.  The five-hundred-foot vertical rock walls, visible from every point in the valley, were said by its residents to be unscalable.

Which of these beginnings doesn’t begin straightforwardly?  I could provide a hundred more examples, but I assure you that they’ll all appear rather simple.

They all just start a story.

What does this mean?

Sit back, breathe deeply, pick up the phone, and ask Jill out on a date. Or you can start a new story.  Either way, ignore the hundreds of websites, articles, and books that tell you how to do it.

I have absolute confidence that you can ask Jill out.  She will enjoy your company—unless she doesn’t enjoy reading books.  If she doesn’t, you'll then have the noble quest to write a book she cannot resist.

Everything after that with her will be simple.