Writing a character is easy. Bringing them to life on an empty page can be terrifying. I was fourteen when I wrote my very first opening scene, and I’m proud to say I actually finished that story. It was 70 pages or so, and looking back with adult eyes, it was mediocre at best. Then I wanted to improve and expand on it, so I started reading about how to write a story. But sometimes it’s not about how to write a story, but how to start a story. Because now, nearly 30 years later, I have chiseled out the characters, the villains, the places. It has become a universe with a geography that I know better than the real world. But I have yet to take another shot at writing that opening scene.
Because writing characters is easy. Bringing them to life on an empty page can be terrifying. I will not write my 30 year old story today, but today, Sam and his jar of hope will finally come to life as we write the opening image of Lost Boy. In the last few articles, we’ve met Sam, a ten-year-old orphan boy. His uncle left him three years ago at an orphanage with two things: a jar of hope and a promise he’d be back. Then we got Master Ironhand, the headmaster at the same orphanage. He believes that hope is poison and trust is a trap. And he teaches this to the kids.
That’s the two most important characters out of the way. Now, let’s go battle that empty page.
These ideas are inspired by the character work of Eric Edson, especially the principle that audiences need reasons to root for the hero. Edson researched movies that were successful at the box office and created a character traits list, which we base our list on. The UNFOLDING acronym simply packages those ideas in a way that is easier to remember and apply while building a story. In story writing, character traits are not just labels in a character profile. They are qualities the audience understands because the character proves them through behavior, choices, and sacrifice.
The Opening Scene vs The Opening Image
Before we delve too deeply into how to start a story, I want to clear one possible misunderstanding. We will be talking about the opening scene today, but we will also frequently refer to the opening image. The opening scene and the opening image are tightly linked, and I would even argue that they cannot be decoupled, but they are not the same thing. The opening scene simply refers to the very first scene in your story. The opening image, popularized by Blake Snyder in his book Save the Cat, is a very specific story beat, with five objectives. Because they are so tightly linked, the question of which is which becomes academic. What matters are the beats that need to be there. And that’s what we will be focusing on today.
The Opening Scene Is Where the Character Becomes Real
Before you write your opening image, it helps to know where your story is generally headed, and that’s why we made a logline. If you do not have that yet, you may want to start with the logline article first, because the logline helps you figure out the basic direction of the story.
Not sure how to start your story?
All stories start with ideas, but before you write your opening scene, it helps to know what your story is really about. Can you explain your story in one line? Otherwise, read on, and we’ll guide you through it so you get a strong foundation. If you have your logline, but you’re a bit fuzzy about your character’s wound and flaw, check out that article too.
The logline also helps to know what is emotionally wrong in your hero’s life. If you do not know your hero’s wound yet, you may want to look at the character wound article before you start building the opening scene. The opening image works best when it grows out of those earlier choices.
For this article, we are going to use Lost Boy, the story we are building throughout this series. I’m going to start Sam off inside a rattling carriage, being returned to the orphanage by a foster family.
So, ten-year-old Sam sits inside a rattling carriage.
I’m not going to have you watch me write all of this out. Instead, we’ll look at the opening image, then test it against the checkpoints.
The Opening Image for Lost Boy
Here’s the idea we are working from:
Seven-year-old Sam walks hand in hand with his uncle down a quiet street in early 1900s England. His uncle speaks in a calm, steady voice, choosing his words carefully when the talk drifts towards Sam’s parents. For a moment, the world feels manageable as long as his uncle’s hand doesn’t let go. His grip tightens as they stop outside a gated orphanage. His uncle apologizes, explaining he has no work and he can’t support them, but that he’ll be back. He takes out a small stone jar and presses it into Sam’s hands, saying it contains hope, then tucks an identical one into his own coat. But how can hope live in a jar? His uncle says that hope can live in the smallest, darkest places.
“Wake up!”
The memory abruptly cuts off as Sam jerks back to the present. Ten-year-old Sam sits inside a rattling carriage as the foster woman snaps. She explains, tired and resigned, that they tried, but some children simply don’t settle the way you hope. She chooses her words carefully, avoiding specifics, but she still shifts the blame towards Sam.
Families can only bend so far, especially for a boy who isn’t of their own blood.
Sam does not answer. He slips a hand inside his coat and clutches a concealed stone jar. It glows faintly as he touches it.
That’s our opening image. Now let’s test it.
But first, we need to address one thing. In that opening image, I use the line: “For a moment, the world feels manageable as long as his uncle’s hand doesn’t let go.” If you are writing for the screen, that line is not something you should use, at least not as written. It’s interiority, meaning it goes on inside the protagonist’s mind. If you’re writing for the screen, you should try to keep your language as visual as possible, even in an outline.
If you’re writing for a novel, interiority is no problem. In fact, it will add another layer to your prose, which can be really good. The Lost Boy treatment will be written both in novel form and in screenplay format, so I will keep that line in there for now.
With that out of the way, lets test this opening scene and see if it passes the five tests that any opening image should aim to adhere to.
Case study
What is Lost Boy?
Lost Boy is an original story inspired by classic themes from Peter Pan, developed by StorySteps as an educational case study.
Instead of only explaining story theory, we use Lost Boy to show how structure, character, theme, and plot decisions can be applied while a story is being built.
It is not a finished script, novel, or pitch-ready concept. It is a working story example, with rough edges and evolving ideas, used to demonstrate the creative process in practice.
You can follow the example throughout the series, or download the full treatment below.
Download the Lost Boy treatmentWhy the Opening Image Has to Pass These Tests
Before we start checking the opening image, it’s worth asking why we’re testing it at all. Can’t we just write an opening scene the way in our own way?
Yes, you absolutely can, and you should. Your story voice and your creativity is what makes your story unique. That also applies to the opening scene, but these tests are there as guidelines for one very specific reason: The opening image is not just the first thing that happens in your story. It’s the first promise you make to the reader or viewer. It tells them what kind of story they are entering, what kind of emotional world they are stepping into, and what kind of character they are about to follow.
Consider this: You’ve just picked up a book or turned on a new movie or TV-show that you know nothing about. You read the first few pages or watch for a few minutes, but you’re not sold yet. You have a particular preference for a particular type of entertainment or art, and you’re subconsciously looking for something that fits what you already like. So if your first few pages do a good job of telling your reader what kind of story they are entering, the chances they read on just multiplied.
Now, if the opening image is vague, the audience does not know what to feel yet. If it explains too much, the story can feel stiff before it has even started. If it gives us a random image that has nothing to do with the hero’s deeper problem, then the opening might be interesting for a moment, but it will not feel like the beginning of a journey.
Now let’s test the opening image of Lost Boy.
Checkpoint 1: Set the Mood, Story Voice, and Genre and a sense of the Ordinary World
Checkpoint one is that we need to set the mood, story voice, and genre and introduce your hero’s ordinary world. If you’ve ever asked a writer how to start a story, you’ve likely got the answer that you have to introduce the character’s ordinary world. This often comes natural to writers, and you’ll probably already think you’ve got this one covered. But note the mood, voice, and genre too. Those are important, and we’ll take a moment to discuss those.
Before we look at the example, let’s quickly separate mood from story voice, because the definitions tend to get a bit fuzzy. You can think of mood as the way you make your audience feel when they read or watch your story. Your story voice, sometimes referred to as writer’s voice or tone, is the tool you use to create that feeling. In practical terms, mood and story voice are often so closely connected that the distinction does not always matter that much. But they can be different.
For example, let’s take this line from the Lost Boy opening image:
Sam does not answer. He slips a hand inside his coat and clutches his concealed stone jar.
The story voice here is plain, restrained, and close to Sam. But the mood is lonely, guarded, and fragile.
Now let’s try a different story voice. Let’s write the same basic moment for children for a second:
Sam did not say anything. He put his hand in his coat and held the little jar tight, because it was his and no one else was allowed to have it.
We still have that same lonely, guarded, fragile mood, but the voice is simpler. It is more suitable for children, and it uses a more childlike emotional logic. That’s an example of how you can have a different story voice while creating the same mood.
Now let’s look at genre. How do we achieve that in the opening image? Let’s consider this line:
Seven-year-old Sam walks hand in hand with his uncle down a quiet street in early 1900s England.
If we look at that alone, it might sound like we are headed into a historical drama. But near the end of the excerpt, we get this line:
It glows faintly as he touches it.
That line refers to the stone jar, and it tells us there is magic in the story. We are headed into fantasy territory as well, because stone jars do not just glow. That is a subtle hint of the genre, and that is all you need.
You could argue that you don’t want to show the magic of the jar this early, or you don’t want to disclose the fantasy aspect of it until later. You can make that choice, but then you will risk that a reader with a fantasy aversion picks up your book or screenplay and then stops reading as soon as they realize this is a fantasy. Or worse yet, a fantasy fan picks up your book and puts it away before they get to the magic part because they simply don’t like historical drama with no fantasy element. The safest way you can get your audience to read on is to show them what kind of story this is right here in the opening scene.
Checkpoint 2: The Opening Scene must Create a Clear Visual Image
Checkpoint two is that the opening scene, or the opening image, rather, needs to create a clear visual image. Think of it as a snapshot. Now, if you’re a novelist, you might think that a visual snapshot belongs in screenwriting, but do read on, because it applies to prose too.
If you could freeze one moment from your opening image, frame it, and put it in an art gallery, what would we see? And if someone stopped in front of that image, would they be able to sense the mood, story voice, genre, and maybe even get a small idea of where the story is going?
In the opening scene of Lost Boy, the image is simple. Sam sits inside a rattling carriage. The bleak orphanage looms ahead. Hidden close to him is the faintly glowing stone jar his uncle gave him.
That gives us a lot in one image. We don’t know yet that Sam is headed for Neverland. We don’t know the full meaning of the jar. But we can already feel what kind of story this is. It is historical. It has a dark, lonely mood, which we can tell from Sam’s expression and the visible tension between the foster woman and Sam. And because the jar glows faintly when Sam touches it, we know there is something magical here too.
That’s the test. Can we picture it right there in the opening scene? Does the image tell us something before the story explains anything? This will always be a little subjective, of course. But if you’re honest with yourself, you can usually tell whether your opening image gives the reader something concrete to hold onto, or whether it’s just a vague start to a story. And if you’re unsure, test it on someone. Have them read just your opening image, and then ask them what kind of story this is and where it might be headed.
Checkpoint 3: Hint at What Is Missing or Wrong
Checkpoint three is that the opening image should hint at what is missing or wrong in your hero’s life. We don’t write stories where everything is perfect for the hero at the beginning. If everything is already fine, the character has nowhere to go. There’s nothing to change, nothing to heal, and nothing to win or lose.
So let’s look at what the opening scene reveals about what is wrong in Sam’s life. First, we have this line:
For a moment, the world feels manageable as long as his uncle’s hand doesn’t let go.
That tells us his uncle matters to him. Sam cares about him. He loves him. The uncle’s presence makes the world feel safe.
Then we get the moment where his uncle apologizes, explaining that he has no work and cannot support them, but that he’ll be back. So now Sam is being left by a person he cares about. We also get a subtle hint earlier that Sam’s parents are gone. So this is not the first time he has been left. He has experienced a lot of abandonment already, even before the story really gets moving.
Then we return to the present with the foster woman, who says:
Families can only bend so far, especially for a boy who isn’t of their own blood.
So even when Sam was with a family, he was not exactly getting a strong feeling of belonging. He was still on the outside. Still conditional. Still someone who could be returned like unwanted furniture. So what is he missing? We aren’t explicit, but we can still infer from the opening scene that he’s missing belonging.
That’s how we hint at what is missing or wrong. We don’t need to stop the story and explain Sam’s wound in a paragraph. We show the situation. We show the adults leaving, apologizing, blaming, or talking around the truth. Then we let the reader feel it.
Checkpoint 4: Set Up Contrast With the Final Image
Checkpoint four is that the opening image should set up a contrast with the final image of the story. The reason this is important is that one person’s ending might seem miserable, but to another person, it might be exactly what they needed. If we don’t see where someone is coming from, it gets harder to understand what they’ve achieved. So by contrasting the final image of your story to the opening image, you will highlight the change they’ve gone through for the better or worse.
But here’s the thing: you might not know exactly what your final image is going to look like yet. That’s fine. I actually never check this off in StorySteps at this point as if it’s finished and locked. What I will do is think ahead. I’ll ask: where is this story likely to end? Then I’m trying to make sure my opening scene can contrast with that likely ending.
For example, we have this line:
For a moment, the world feels manageable as long as his uncle’s hand doesn’t let go.
Maybe we’ll see his uncle return at some point. Maybe in the end, Sam walks away from the orphanage with his uncle. Or maybe it will not be his uncle specifically. Maybe the ending is simply that Sam finds a family, or a tribe, or some kind of belonging.
We can also look at the rattling carriage. At the beginning, Sam is in a carriage being returned to the orphanage. He is being taken somewhere he does not want to go. He has no power in the situation.
Maybe at the end, this is mirrored somehow. Perhaps Sam and his uncle are in a carriage again, but this time they are leaving the orphanage for a better place. Same kind of image, completely different meaning.
That’s the kind of contrast we’re looking for. A good way to think about it is this: what is your hero missing at the beginning? In the ending, you either give them that thing, or, if you’re writing a darker story, you put them somewhere even worse. But there should be contrast. The ending should answer to the beginning in some way.
Checkpoint 5: Avoid Heavy Exposition
“So, John, as you know, I’ll be taking over as manager here at the paper company tomorrow. Do you think you’re ready to go on in your normal job even though you were also considered for the manager job?”
Doesn’t that line just tear at the very fabric of what we, as writers, pretend is acceptable dialogue? And while I think lines like that are fairly uncommon among writers, there is still a surprising amount of exposition loaded material being dumped at readers at the start of the story, and sometimes right there at the opening scene.
Checkpoint five is to avoid heavy exposition.
This is where a lot of openings get into trouble. The writer knows the backstory, the wound, the world, the rules, the relationships, and the meaning of every object. And because the writer knows all of that, there’s a temptation to want to dump that all on the reader right away so that they’re “caught up”. So I will write this twice:
The opening scene must avoid heavy exposition. The opening scene MUST avoid heavy exposition.
Just because I have had a lot of discussions about this one, I will tell you why. When we start reading a story, we are still trying to figure out if this is the right kind of story for us. We need to be reassured that we picked up the right book or started the right TV show on Netflix. Even if you dump your entire world building rules on us at this point, we aren’t paying attention to it. We are still figuring out if we want to continue reading or watching. What we need is to be reassured that this is indeed the tone and genre we were looking for, and then we need to have our interest piqued.
So the opening scene does not need to explain everything. It should give us enough to care and enough to wonder.
For example, we have this line:
She chooses her words carefully, avoiding specifics, but she still shifts the responsibility towards Sam.
The foster woman is not saying:
As you know, we are now sending you back to the orphanage because we don’t want you in our family anymore, even though we have previously tried to adopt you.
Most writers know not to make it quite that obvious. But the danger is still there in smaller ways. When outlining, you aren’t writing out all the dialogue, so there will inevitably be some exposition in a treatment or outline. Still, it’s a good habit to have even at the story planning stage, and it’ll transfer to your first draft.
When you write dialogue, or even when you write something that is not dialogue, ask yourself: am I hinting at something, or am I explaining it? If it feels like you are explaining it, those lines probably need to go. Or at least they need to become more subtle. Don’t underestimate your audience. They pick up on these things.
The same is true with the jar. We get this line:
It glows faintly as he touches it.
I could have written:
Sam has a magical jar.
Or I could have put Sam in a scene where he explains to another boy:
Hey, I got this magical jar. It sometimes glows.
But that would be overexplaining. There’s no need for that. The faint glow is enough. It tells us there is something unusual about the jar, but it does not stop the story to define the whole thing. The opening scene should hold a subtle hint, not the lecture.
Does the Opening Image Work for Short Stories Too?
The same idea applies to short stories, but in a more compressed way. If you are wondering how to start a short story, you may not have room for a long setup. You may not have time for a detailed ordinary world, a long character introduction, or a slow build into the main conflict.
But you still need a first impression. That first impression should still suggest mood, tone, genre, and what is wrong or missing. It might happen in one paragraph. It might happen in a single situation. It might even happen in one sharp line of dialogue.
The point is not that every short story needs a big formal Opening Image section, but it still has an opening scene. The point is that the reader should quickly feel what kind of story they are entering and why this moment matters.
Is your hero lost in the wrong story?
A strong story does not just give the hero random obstacles. The best stories pressure the exact wound, weakness, or false belief the protagonist needs to confront.
Opening Image Checklist
So let’s look at the checklist:
Your opening image should show your hero in their ordinary world in a way that reveals mood, story voice, and genre. It should create a visual that could serve as a poster or a still image you could frame.
It should also hint at what is missing or wrong in your hero’s life. At the beginning of the story, we should sense that something needs to change, even if we do not understand the full backstory yet.
Then the opening image should set up a contrast with how your story is likely to end. You do not need to know the exact final image yet, but you should start thinking about the kind of emotional reversal your ending might create.
And finally, the opening image should avoid heavy exposition. Show, don’t tell.
Here’s the checklist in a cleaner form:
- Does the opening image show your hero in their ordinary world?
- Does it reveal mood, tone, and genre?
- Does it create a visual that could serve as a poster or still image?
- Does it hint at what is missing or wrong in your hero’s life?
- Does it set up a contrast with how the story is likely to end?
- Does it avoid heavy exposition?
Try applying that to your own story. You’ll usually find that your opening scene gets much clearer. The reader understands what kind of journey they are stepping into right from the start.
Try This With Your Own Opening Image
Now look at your own opening image and ask yourself a few questions:
What mood are you trying to create?
What tone or story voice are you using to create that feeling?
What genre are you promising?
What visual image would we remember if we froze the scene like a still frame?
What is missing or wrong in your hero’s life?
Are you hinting at it, or are you explaining it?
And where is your story likely to end? You may not know the final image yet, but you can still think ahead. Is there a possible contrast between the first image and the ending?
You do not have to get all of this perfect in the first draft. But if your opening image can answer most of these questions, you are probably doing more than just starting the story. You are setting up the journey. And remember, when you send off your manuscript or screenplay to be read by an editor or an agent, your well-written opening scene just multiplied your chances that they’ll read on.
You can also find this checklist as a downloadable pdf here.
Use the Opening Image Checklist as You Write
StorySteps gives you a practical checklist for your opening image, so you can test whether your first scene establishes mood, tone, genre, visual clarity, character conflict, and contrast with the ending.
Wrapping Up: Your Opening Scene Is a Promise
Your opening scene is not just a pretty first scene. It is a promise. It should contain an opening image that tells the reader what kind of story they are entering. It gives them a first look at the hero’s world, the emotional problem beneath the surface, and the kind of transformation the ending may eventually answer.
In Lost Boy, Sam begins in a rattling carriage, being returned to the orphanage, holding onto a jar of hope because he has very little else. That image gives us mood, genre, character, symbol, and a question: what would it take for this boy to truly find a home?
This concludes session five of the 25-day story series by StorySteps. At the end of this series, you’re going to see this Lost Boy idea go from a simple idea to a complex story with characters, conflict, and all the nuts and bolts to hold it together.
Next time, we’re going to zoom out from the opening image and look at the larger Setup phase, and we’re going to build that together.
