How should you start a short story about horror or mystery?

Answer 1

There are five ways to begin a story of any type:

1. Setting Description
2. Character Description
3. Introducing the Narrator
4. Plot Elements
5. Philosophy

1. 'The night was dark and stormy and the rain came down in torrents'
2. 'She was not your typical kind of Dames. She had the look.'
3. 'Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed.'
4. 'A bullet zipped past my ear and exploded on the cement behind.'
5. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'

The actual content is up to you.

Answer 2

One of the first things you should do is establish the parameters in which the story is to take place. If is to be a vampire or werewolf tale then the existence of such creatures is going to have to be made known or made to seem possible very near the beginning. In the first chapter of Dracula Johnathan Harker comes across an old book that deals with vampires. In the Wolfman a gypsy woman starts babbling on to a passer-by about the night wolves for no apparent reason. Frankenstein starts out with Victor arguing with his professors about the regeneration of dead tissues.

If you try and introduce the supernatural mid-way through the book the reader will balk at the unestablished criteria.

Answer 3

Joyce Carol Oates said it best: "The first sentence can't be written until the final sentence is written."

Worry about finishing your story, not about writing the perfect opening sentence! You can change anything you like once you've finished -- go back and think of a great first sentence then, instead of waiting for some magical "first sentence" to fall out of the sky and hit you in the head.

Now get off the internet and get back to writing that story!