How Introductory Paragraphs Work in Creative Nonfiction
16 min readJan 5, 2020
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Thinking about how to start your story is as important as the story you tell.
While working at Powell’s City of Books, I had a routine. I would pull a story or essay collection from the literature shelves, read the first few paragraphs of every piece in it, then decide whether to buy the book. I did this for nearly six years.
As an introduction to a story, how does the above paragraph rate? In a single anecdote, it delivers a visible scene replete with action (shopping, reading, selecting merchandise), a…