Every story must grab and hold the audience’s attention. One of the best ways to do this right from the start is to pose an interesting situation and then withhold the explanation for this situation until the very end. In this way, the audience can only satisfy their curiosity by learning about your entire story.
Watch this opening scene from “Sonic the Hedgehog” where we see Sonic being chased by a strange mustached man and we have no idea what’s going on. Then the entire story backtracks to give us the crucial information we need. Only until the end do we finally learn why this mustached man is chasing after Sonic. By then, we’re fully invested in learning how the story turns out.
This tactic poses a question and makes us wonder what will happen. A similar tactic is to give the hero (or villain) a clear goal and then make us wait until the end before we know whether the hero or villain got their goal.
In “The Martian”, the opening scene shows the hero getting knocked off his feet by debris and his suit’s signals stop working, making us (an the other astronauts) wonder if he’s still alive or not. To find out whether the hero lives or dies, the audience must now follow the entire story until the end.
Watch the opening scene from “The Martian” where we’re left in suspense on whether an astronaut will survive or not.
The basic idea is that the beginning of your story creates a vacuum with a nagging unanswered question. This forces the audience to follow your entire story until they find the answer.
The key is that every part of your story must focus on this unanswered question posed in the beginning. The more compelling this initial unanswered question, the stronger your story can be.
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