Every so often I get, not so much a question, but a comment that is trying to gather the courage to become a question. Someone will say something like, I've always wanted to write X, but I wouldn't even know where to start. I tried to help one lovely person who has a very interesting story to tell, but she backed down when she realized that she couldn't just describe the story and have someone else (me) write it for her. It would bring up too many bad memories. It would be like reliving all the horrible things that happened.
Fair enough. I've run into that fear myself, as well as other fears (of exposure, humiliation, attracting predators, etc.) It's valid, and there's no reason to force yourself to write a book, or short story, or whatever. There are lots of reasons not to write, probably more reasons than there are to write.
So, assuming you've dealt with this, where do you begin?
I'd love to give an easy, one-line answer, but of course I can't. There are lots of places that make great beginnings, and lots of bad places that stories can start that would be better off cut out completely, and places that everyone says are terrible to begin but perfectly good stories begin that way anyway.
The pros say many true and wise things like, start as close to the ending as possible. Start where the story becomes interesting. Don't start with a character waking up and beginning a normal day where nothing interesting happens. Start with action, but not with a fight scene (mainly because no one knows the characters and what's going on and who is fighting who or why … really tough to properly start with a fight scene.) And there's the ever-popular start with an outline method.
If outlining sounds like it might be fun or at least worth a go, I suggest the Snowflake Method, but with one warning. I think it's a brilliant method, but I couldn't get past step 6 without starting to feel claustrophobic and sick of the book before I've even started writing it. By all means use the Snowflake Method. I recommend it. But don't feel compelled to do the whole darned thing to the last step if you're ready to start writing like a crazy person by step four. I also highly recommend Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland.
Having suggested that, unless you do well with outlines, writing an outline may very well kill every shred of passion and joy you might have in your heart for your project. It's worth a try, but if you instinctively flinch from it, you're pretty well stuck with starting anywhere, or even more likely, you don't start at all.
So, without an outline to guide you, how the heck do you start?
Here are some ways that I begin writing a book or story. Maybe one or more ways will work for you too.
I begin with a character, with a problem, in a place. Sounds obvious, I know, but its simplicity is part of its brilliance. Your character (or you, if you're writing a memoir) will have big problems and issues that will probably (hopefully) gather into a brilliant yet subtle theme that will bring your readers back again and again to explore the nuances of what you've written. But in the beginning, you don't have to take a big bite out of that. You don't even have to know what your main problem is or what your theme will be. All you have to worry about is your character, the initial problem, and what they're going to try to do about it. The problem doesn't even have to directly relate to the rest of the book if you don't want it to.
For example, your hero may be flying to Hawaii to visit his sick aunt and to try to help her with her finances. That will have everything to do with him, the kind of person he is, and what he's willing to do for family (establishing his character). You can even add some meat to the situation by throwing a few roadblocks in his way. Maybe he can't really afford to make the flight. Maybe his wife and kids feel neglected and want him to deal with stuff at home. None of that will have anything to do with what happens when his plane wrecks somewhere in the Pacific and he finds himself washed ashore near a destitute village where no one speaks his language and weeks, even months go by without contact with the outside world. But thanks to the original starting scene, we'll know what kind of person he is, and we'll know even if he doesn't whine about it that he's worried about his aunt and his family and they'll be suffering because they all think he's dead.
In other words, don't sweat the set up too much. And remember, there's nothing in the world that demands that you keep your opening, so lighten up. Relax. Daydream a bit, or listen to music before you get going, and then just play around with the idea of your character and what his or her initial issues will be.
Next time, I'll write about how I pick and depict the character in an opening scene. Weirdly, there are choices you can make even when the character is you, or a real person you're writing about.