(From What If? By Ann Bernays and Pamela Painter, contributed by Suzy Spraker)

Objective: This exercise is for writers to practice story beginnings and to practice invention techniques. In a Paris Review interview, Angus Wilson says, "Plays and short stories are similar in that both start when all but the action is finished."

A wise writer once noted that every short story should begin with its main character standing in the middle of a busy highway: either the character moves, or the story is over. We can take that metaphorically to mean that the short story depends on action (whether physical, mental, or emotional) and that the sooner we get the action of the story going, the better the story will be.

Thus, many short story writers try not only to "hook" the reader in with the beginning, but they also want to establish an opening where the story begins in medias res, or in the middle of the action.

Consider how many of the opening lines below pull you into the center of the story. What do you know about the story--situation, characters, geography, setting, class, education, potential conflict, etc.--from reading the titles and the following opening lines? What decisions has the author already made about point of view, distance, setting, tone, etc.? Notice how many of the titles are directly related to the first line of the text.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "The Saint"
I saw Margarito Duarte after twenty-two years on one of the narrow secret streets in Trastevere, and at first I had trouble recognizing him, because he spoke halting Spanish and had the appearance of an old Roman.

Heather Sellers, "FLA. Boys"
"I started driving early. I was twelve. I am a girl. It was not what I lived for."

Anton Chekov, "The Lady with the Dog"
They were saying a new face had been seen on the esplanade: a lady with a pet dog.

Amy Hempel, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried"
Tell me things I won't mind forgetting," she said. "Make it useless stuff or skip it."

Pat Rushin, "Young and Attractive Suicidal Romantic Seeks Help"
"Let's make a suicide pact," she tells her lover one night, just a week before he finally decides he doesn't want to see her anymore.

Lorrie Moore, "Two Boys"
"For the first time in her life, Mary was seeing two boys at once."

John Updike, "A&P"
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.

T. Coraghessan Boyle, "Descent of Man"
I was living with a woman who suddenly began to stink.

Toni Cade Bambara, "Medley"
I could tell the minute I got in the door and dropped my bag I wasn't staying.

Andre Dubus, "The Winter Father"
The Jackman's marriage had been adulterous and violent, but in its last days they became a couple again, as they might have if one of them were slowly dying.

William Trevor, "A School Story"
Every night after lights out in the dormitory there was a ceremonial story-telling.

Raymond Carver, "Cathedral"
This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night.

Flannery O'Connor, "Everything That Rises Must Converge"
Her doctor had told Julian's mother that she must lose twenty pounds on account of her blood pressure, so on Wednesday nights Julian had to take her downtown on the bus for a reducing class at the Y.

Kate Wheeler, "Judgment"
When Mayland Thompson dies he wants to be buried with the body of a twelve-year-old girl.