There are no set phrases or clauses with which one must begin a story, and it would be a mistake to say that dialogue can never be used safely in opening the oral story, for the professional often uses it with fine effect; but it is easier and safer for the amateur to use the narrative beginning, and introduce dialogue as the plot develops.
Dr. Berg Esenwein, whose excellent work, Writing the Short Story, will be of value to the story-teller as well as to the story-writer, lays down these rules:
“Do not strike one note in the beginning and another in the body of the story.
“Do not touch anything that is not a live wire leading direct to the heart of the story.
“Do not describe where you can suggest.”
An examination of some of the perfect stories of the world shows that these rules hold good in every case. The tales of Grimm, Andersen, Perrault, and Bechstein are flawless in construction, and each plunges directly into the thread of the story. Take, for instance, “The Three Tasks” of Grimm:
There once lived a poor maiden who was young and fair, but she had lost her own mother, and her stepmother did all she could to make her miserable.
“The Pea Blossom,” of Hans Christian Andersen:
There were once five peas in a pod. They were green and the pod was green, and they thought all the world was green.
“Red Riding Hood,” as written by Perrault, begins thus: