Reader Question: What are some keys to a great opening scene?

Scott Myers
Go Into The Story
Published in
4 min readAug 4, 2018

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Or how to grab the attention of a script reader right away?

Question from Keith:

What are some principles you use for opening scenes? What makes an opening scene really hook the reader, and get behind our “hero” for the long haul?

This is a great subject because as we have discussed before, an opening scene can be hugely important to a script.

For starters, much of how you approach an opening scene is influenced by the story’s genre. For instance, if you’re writing an action or action-adventure movie, you’ll most likely want to begin the story with a bang, a ‘hard’ opening sequence that generates a high level of energy (as opposed to a ‘soft’ character-based opening). Good examples that come to mind: The bank robbery in The Dark Knight, Agent Smith and his guys trying to capture Trinity in The Matrix, the escape from the prison chain gang in 48 Hrs.

If your story is more character-driven, then you look for an entertaining way to introduce your main characters and set the plot into motion. Some good examples:

  • Juno: The opening scene introduces the story’s Protagonist Juno, staring at an abandoned living room set (“It started with a chair”), a snippet of a flashback where Juno drops her drawers and straddles a naked…

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