Ask corrupt Brilliant Verve

Old Macd*nald had a farm.  

Like "you have to begin in the middle of the action! your first line has to be a 'hook' that draws the reader further into the story!"

This is the bullshit responsible for the amount of books that begin in the middle of some sort of pointless fucking action scene that I care nothing about because I just got here.

Like I guess this makes books easier to "sell" or whatever on some level of the process, but it's garbage storytelling advice because setup and establishment of the Way Things Are is almost always necessary.

On some level I don't think it's actually possible to begin a story right on top of the "inciting incident" because...you don't have the raw materials to "incite" anything with. If you have to set up basic things about the characters and world after the "inciting incident," it's not really the inciting incident anymore, is it?

The event that "launches" a character into their plot line is something that follows from the character's established situation, desires, traits etc. It's a follow-up to a situation that makes a Story of some kind inevitable.

It is, by definition, an event that makes no sense and does not matter to the reader at all unless the "setup" already exists.

If you try to begin right in the middle of the event that "sparks" the plot, you're going to end up including a second, "real" event that actually does the job, because you can't do the job if the character, the stakes, the rules, etc. are not there yet.

I used to read SO MANY articles, books etc. talking about beginning a story and how a good "hook" works, and all of them talked about, like, introducing something so weird or exciting sounding or inexplicable that the reader is curious about the rest, and it's so stupid thinking back on it that I want to cry, because literally none of them seemed to take into account that readers know that they're reading a story.

When you start reading a book you're automatically paying attention to specific things—interesting characters to connect with, hints of the kinds of things that might happen. You are not an idiot and you know that there is more book after the first page. You will be looking for stuff that looks like it will grow into something exciting, things that set up an interesting plot.

Your reader is already capable of projecting in their head the kinds of things that might happen in your story. It's actually kind of fundamental to being a reader. Start with the bomb, not the explosion!

No one is opening a book like "Hmm, there is no extraordinary, dramatic event happening in the first sentence...I think I can safely conclude that nothing exciting happens in the entire book!" Like. Readers know how plots work. Dumbass.

I've said before that good first lines are the ones that have that "sit down, I'm telling you a story" effect, and I haven't been able to explain it until now. A good beginning to a story is something that provides the "ingredients" for something cool.

Some men gave him shit about doing that, bitching and moaning about “Maaaaaan you’re raising the bar!” or “Isn’t picking up the kids your wife’s job?” and so on.

But more men- many more men- came to him for advice. “Where did you learn to sing?” “My wife’s allergic to flowers and doesn’t like chocolate. What should I get her for her birthday?” “How did you get time off to pick up your kids early?” “I wanna do something nice for our anniversary, but it’s right before tax day and I never remember and I feel like an ass. How do you remember?” Net, he thinks setting a good example like that ended two relationships and saved five.

Setting a good example is a good idea to inspire people to realize they deserve better, but even better is that there are lots of people out there who want to do better and will glady take notes from you.