Ms. Klein’s blues eyes subtly quivered behind her glasses. She was reading the redlined pages of my story as I tried to read her mind. Was she actually reading my work or just reviewing her own critiques? Other than her eyes, she remained completely still, as if affixed to the floor. Eventually, she nodded to herself, then spoke.
“Dan, you can’t start a story with dialogue. Start with the exposition. Tell the reader how you got there. Explain why you were feeling that way. Then go into the dialogue.”
I disagreed, but said nothing. She continued.
“If you start with the feeling first, it reads like this: ‘Numbness. I couldn’t feel anything . . .’”
She deepened her voice for dramatic effect, but she sounded less like an actor and more like a little boy imitating his father. I wanted her to stop reading so I could forget any of this ever happened.
This was the first time I was ever asked to write about my own life for a school assignment. Instead of an essay, we were told to write a memoir. I knew I would write about my family’s ill-fated summer vacation to Florida, where my stepdad had a brain aneurysm at the beach. My stepsiblings and I were left alone, and it took us hours before we could reach anyone back in Indiana.
It seemed like it would make a good story, and I felt fairly confident about my first draft. But when Ms. Klein handed me my paper, it was riddled with red lines, arrows, and critiques. When I tried to read the pages, my vision blurred. I froze, then crumbled. I knew she didn’t like it, and I was too embarrassed to even reread what I’d written. If I could’ve responded to her comment in that moment, I would’ve said:
“I don’t want to start with the feeling (‘numbness’), because that’s not how I remember it. My mind had faded out, and my stepsister’s words pulled me back to reality. That’s where the memory starts—with her voice.”
But I had already given up, so instead of responding, I kept to my lifelong pattern: I nodded and agreed with everything she said until she left me alone. As soon as the class was over, I threw the pages in a trashcan and resolved to never write again.
If I were an English teacher critiquing a high school student’s first draft of a memoir, I would not focus on the opening. (I would also be emotionally attuned to my students.) Beginnings are notoriously difficult, and, at least in my experience, they are better left until the rest of the story is more or less in place. Trying to exert too much control early in the process can suffocate spontaneity. You can’t force things into a predetermined pattern and expect a compelling outcome.
I can also say with some certainty that there is no “right” way to start a story. Every story is, in some sense, unique. And if ten people have the same experience, they’ll tell the story ten different ways (or more). Some beginnings will obviously work better than others, but how you start a story is not a moral issue. I’ll use the brain-aneurysm-vacation story an example.
Although it’s not very imaginative, the first option is to get right to the point:
We were on vacation in Florida when my stepdad had a brain aneurysm at the beach.
This is “telling” rather than “showing,” but it does give the reader a lot of information in one sentence. However, it doesn’t open that many doors—where can you really go from here? It’s probably more interesting to start closer to the middle of the story (this time, in present-tense):
I am standing over my stepfather. He is lying in a hospital bed. His eyelids are covered with indigo dots. I do not know if he will wake up.
This option is more dramatic. When I read it, I get the sense that a lot is at stake. You can also go past the events and look back:
It was 2003, and I was starting my 8th grade year at a small catholic school in Indiana. As the days passed, and August became September, my mind drifted back, again and again, to our family trip to Florida. The memory was beginning to seem more and more like a dream, something about a roller coaster, a headache, a beach, a hospital.
The last nine words are like a free associative chain that tells its own micro-story. It hints at what is to come, but it doesn’t give it all away upfront. Another option is to describe the experience of crafting the story:
Writing this story has been like kneading dough that refuses to hold together: every time I move my hands, the whole thing rips and tears, and I have to start over again.
The point is, even if the events of the story are identical, a different opening will lead in a different direction. Again, this is not about right or wrong. It’s about making a choice. And if you’re not in love with your first opening, you can always try another one later. So just pick something and start writing.
After Ms. Klein gave me my paper and walked away, I flipped it over on my desk. Lauren, the cute girl who sat next to me, leaned over and whispered, “Well, I really liked your story.” The way she emphasized the word “I” told me she wasn’t just trying to make me feel better. It was an honest declaration. I smiled and said thanks. Unfortunately, her compliment wasn’t enough to assuage my sense of failure. I knew I would never be a writer.
Though I continued creating cryptic song lyrics and enigmatic poems throughout high school and college, it was over a decade before I attempted to write a coherent story again. Looking back, I think the function of my early lyrics and poems was twofold: they were authentic creative expressions and they shielded my adolescent psyche. Rather than risk vulnerability or confrontation, I hid in a self-created world, a language of surreal visions, dream fragments, sensory impressions, and obscure references. If someone found my work inscrutable, I could (defensively) reassure myself, “They just don’t get it.” It was their issue, not mine.
But in the case of the brain-aneurysm-vacation story—a story which I had actually tried to make comprehensible—the feedback I received was too much for me to handle. I was psychologically fragile, easily overwhelmed, and unable to push back. It was easier to acquiesce, be agreeable, and move on, even if that meant giving up on myself. Fortunately, my desire to create with words did not end there, but it took me years to accept that I wanted to be a writer. The first signs emerged in 2015, ten years after the critique, when I bought my first book about writing.
I remember standing in a narrow aisle at a bookstore in New Jersey. It was early March, still quite cold, and I was anxious and perpetually tired for most of my trip. While perusing the shelves, I noticed a book called, The Art of Slow Writing, by Louise DeSalvo. I opened the book and began to read. Within a few pages, I calmed down and felt warm inside. As usual, I was broke, and I’d allotted myself around $20 for groceries each week of my trip. The book cost nearly that amount, but I didn’t care. It was the best I’d felt in months, so I was happy to spend the money, even if I didn’t understand why I was buying it at the time.
It seems obvious now, but I think that the literal and symbolic implications of my ever-growing writing book collection were, for many years, too painful to face. Although my English teacher’s critiques were not intentionally malicious, their overall effect was devastating. I felt like I was shamed into nonexistence. And I often wonder if I would’ve started writing sooner had those critiques been a little more encouraging. But perhaps by returning to this memory now, nearly twenty years later, I am correcting the injustice. I am reaching back through time, putting my hand on my 15-year-old shoulder, telling myself, “It’s just one story. Write it again. Or better yet, write something new. Don’t ever stop, no matter what anyone tells you.”
And I think, both then and now, past and present, I am listening. I am finally able to hear myself.
There is one moment in my story, the brain-aneurysm-vacation story, that was not included in the original version. At the time, I couldn’t see its relevance, but I do now.
On that fateful day in New Smyrna Beach, while we dried off and waited for my stepdad to return, my stepsiblings and I huddled around four wooden posts in the sand. The posts were connected by thin strands of ribbon-like paper, and within the square enclosure were many little mounds. According to a handwritten sign, several turtle eggs were buried there, and in the coming months, they would push through their shells, crawl out of the sand, and drag themselves to sea.
In retrospect, I find it fascinating, and comforting, that the three of us—ages 12, 13, and 15—hovered around these eggs for so long. We talked about when they would hatch, the risks they would take, whether or not they’d make it to the water unscathed. We were still standing there when, unbeknownst to us, my stepdad, their father, had a brain aneurysm in the changing room, an event that altered our lives forever. But looking back now, I can no longer see the ensuing drama. I only see the three of us, wrapped in beach towels, hair wet with ocean water, dreaming of new life hidden in the sand.
Daniel Siuba 
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