1) “Once upon a time”…Or with a twist: “Once upon a particularly terrifying
time…”
2) “One day…” Or perhaps “One gloomy day…” “One sunny day…”
3) With direct speech- e.g. “Hurry up,” yelled Mum, “the taxi will be here any
minute…”
4) Starting with a question. E.g. “Have you ever wondered why belly button fluff
is always blue?”
5) How about a sound effect? E.g. “Eeeeek,” went the brakes as the car
skidded sideways.
6) Go straight into the action. e.g. “ A vicious right hook caught me just above
the eye.”
7) Characters can introduce themselves e.g. “ Hello, my name is Sid. I’ve go a
brain like a computer and a photographic memory. I’ve been following you now
for three weeks, two days, seven hours and thirty-two minutes.”
8) Start with a statement e.g. “ Michael was miserable.”
9) A description of a place, a character or a smell can be a good place to
start.
“ The acrid smell of smoke drifted towards me.”
10) Time can start a story e.g. “It was midnight….” Or “The clocks struck
thirteen.”
11) Weather? “The rain came down like a hail of bullets on the roof of our
car.”
12) Flashback e.g. “As I wondered the lonely cliff path my mind went back
twenty years to that terrible stormy night when my life changed forever.”