Creating Brilliant Beginnings in Storytelling

Course details

I invite you to join me on a journey of discovery,exploring the art and craft of brilliant beginnings in storytelling. Storytellers write these opening words to draw readers across the threshold into the imaginary world of story.

For the reader, a brilliant beginning should

1. Make a promise about what kind of story this is (anticipation)
2. Stir unanswered questions in the readers mind (curiousity)
3. Contain power words that appeal to the readers emotions and curiousity, and
4. Invite the reader to cross the threshold into the story world

Think about what happens to you as a reader, when you get hooked by the storytellers first few words?

When weas humansencounter something new, our limbic systems watchdogthe amygdalais designed to give us first impressions. In the same way a dog is perpetually sniffing out associations, this instinctive brain function is constantly on the lookout, scanning for the new, the unexpected, the unexplained.

Whether its a new movie, a new novel, or the appearance of a sabre toothed tiger in our territory, our brains are hardwiredto make snap judgments. Its a survival skill.

If youre a storyteller, readers will judge your novel, your magazine article, your public speechon that first impression, those opening wordsand the way theyre presented. You want those first words to be intriguing, compellingand authentically consistent with the rest of your story. Because if you dont follow through on the rest of your story, your readers are going to be disappointed.

As storytellers we have a virtually unlimited number of talented mentors. If youre writing the kind of stories you yourself would like to read, then you cant do better than to study the authors of those books that fill you with anticipation with that first word first sentence first page.

I belong to a small writers group of multi-published authors called the pen warriors. 3 to 4 times a year we meet for weekend retreats to focus on the art and craft of storytelling. Weve been meeting for 16 years! During one of those retreats we decided that we would each analyze the beginning of a book we loved, and post it on ourblog.

After we finished our first round, we decided to do it again. And then a third time.

Thanks to my fellow Pen Warriors, Bonnie Edwards, E. C. Sheedy, Laura Tobias, and Gail Whitiker, these analyses arenow available as part of this course.

I invite you to join our journey, to share our exploration of brilliant beginnings. Remember the role the readers amygdala plays in getting the reader to cross that threshold into story. I invite you, like a curious dog, to sniff the ground around those first words, sentences, and paragraphs in the beginnings well study.

Look for power wordsand phrases that evoke images in your mind, questions in your brain, and emotions in your heart, words that stirthe need to know more, the urge to shut out the world and turn the page, crossing the threshold into the magic of story.

Lets have some fun together.

Vanessa Grant