Fiction Tip: Start as Close to the Action as Possible

Shove your readers into the deep end right off the bat!

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As a writer — whether fiction or non-fiction — you have countless decisions to make. One of the most critical is where to begin the story. Many writers are tempted to open by relating a lot of backstory 🥱, or they think a slow build-up is a good idea 😴. I get it; they’ve created a whole world and characters that they want readers to understand.

But readers are more likely to keep reading if you begin by dropping them right into the middle of the action. Don’t tell ’em everything! They’ll have no need to keep turning those pages!

You’ve gotta grab them by the throat and hold their attention. And you do this by starting at a pivotal moment, one that creates intrigue, raises questions, or introduces conflict right from the first word.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to begin in the middle of a car chase or something equally dramatic (unless it suits your story). It just means you need to choose a moment that matters, something that will propel the story forward and make the reader need to know more.

For example, it would be incredibly boring to begin with your protagonist waking up, and taking your readers through every thoroughly uninteresting detail of…