3. The blank page is intimidating for many people.

4. Questions can lead to frustration…

5. Have you ever had these thoughts? Where do I begin? How do I start? What should I say first? How do I make my introduction interesting? Im never going to finish this story if I cant even write the first line!!!!!

6. Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until blood forms on your forehead. Gene Fowler (Biographer) When asked, How do you write? I invariably answer, One word at a time. Stephen King

7. Here are some ways to help you get started…

8. What might I include in a description of the setting? Visuals…color, textures, landscape, people present, objects at that location. Time period… last year, when I was little, after my grandmothers 90 th birthday party. Sounds…traffic, nature, voices, action, construction. Weather…wind, rain, swaying of trees, snowflakes falling softly.

9. What do you see?

10. What details does this author include? The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. –Neuromancer, William Gibson

11. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. –A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

12. The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. –Babbit Sinclair Lewis

14. Begin by sharing a memory… It wasnt much, really, the whole Jessica Feeney thing. If you look at it, nothing much happened. – Firegirl Tony Abbott

15. When I was little, my uncle Pete had a necktie with a porcupine on it. - Stargirl Jerry Spinelli Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember a distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. -One Hundred Years of Solitude Gregory Rabassa

16. If you are reading this, it must be a thousand years from now. -The Last Book in the Universe, Rodman Philbrick It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. - 1984, George Orwell

17. It was a pleasure to burn. - Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

18. A screaming comes across the sky. -Gravitys Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

19. It was the wrong number that started it, the telephone rang three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. - City of Glass, Paul Auster The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. - The Gunslinger, Stephen King

20. Have your characters begin your story with their own words. Ive never seen a worse driver than you!

21. You better not never tell nobody but God. - The Color Purple, Alice Walker If I am out of my mind, its all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. - Herzog, Saul Bellow

22. Tell your reader what is true about life- in general- and how it relates to your subject.

23. Ships at a distance have every mans wish on board. - Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimension of space. - Cats Eye, Margaret Atwood

24. All children, except one, grow up. - Peter Pan, J.M Barrie When a journey begins badly, it rarely ends well. -The Floating Island, Jules Vern

25. Restate the prompt… An important memory for me was when…

26. Give away the most important part at the beginning… One important memory was when my aunt died. Oh no you diiint!

27. Talk to the reader… This story is about the time I went to… Im going to write about… Thats just WRONG!

28. Dont go too far back in time. Start from the moment the event began. BAD IDEA!

29. Start with the exact date… It was January 3, 2004… What were you thinking?!!

30. Start with an obvious onomatopoeia….. Ring! Ding dong! Vrooom! Not the Ring! Ring! Essay again!

31. Now that you know how to start your story….lets get back to work and make that introduction amazing!