User blog comment:ImGonnaBeThatGuy/Passive Storytelling: Your Worst Enemy/@comment-4715955-20141010044603

I can recommend the novels of Dashiell Hammett as a beginner's example of "show, don't tell": when he writes in third-person, you NEVER see what's going on inside the characters' heads. He describes what they do and what they say, and leaves you to interpret or deduce the motive.

Starting with action is one of a number of ways to throw the reader headlong into a story: the first paragraph, if not the first LINE, has to grab the reader, or you risk losing them by chapter two. In William Gibson's "Count Zero" we're introduced to the first protagonist just as he's blown to bits by a car bomb; then we see how his corporate masters reassemble his pieces and put him back together in various genetic labs all over the world. Probably the best character introduction I ever saw in any book.

You can also start with a striking observation, if it's actually significant to the story and not immediately abandoned. NoEnd House is a good example of how to do it wrong, beginning with "Let me start by saying that Peter Terry was addicted to heroin." Peter's addiction has no real bearing on the plot, and by page 3 he's practically forgotten about for the rest of the story. By contrast, the Lovecraftian tale "The Call of Cthulhu" begins with an unforgettable line that resonates throughout the story: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."

You can also begin the story with a striking line of dialogue that instantly makes the reader go, "Okay, now I gotta know the context." Start us in the middle of a conversation that quickly illustrates who our main characters are. Maybe a conversation taking place just after someone has been murdered.