Writing tips

Ten worst story openings.

1. Waking up.

"BEEEP BEEP RIIIING RIIING, the alarm clock jerks 14 year old Jessica Parker out of a sound sleep. She groans and fumbles to shut it off. Her mom calls from the next room, 'Hurry up Jessie you're going to be late!' Jessie wills herself to get up, and get ready for school. She looks into the mirror at her frizzy red hair, which always turns into a rat's nest after sleeping. As she begins to brush out her tangled locks, her annoying little brother comes running into the room making noises and holding Tonka trucks above his head, yelling 'Jessie, Jessie! Look at my trucks!' Ugh, thinks Jessie, why me?"

Yeah. You get the picture. That actually hurt a little bit to write. Don't use the alarm clock, just don't-unless you want your story to sound like it was written by whoever made the opening to Rebecca Black's "Friday" music video.

It won't grab anyone's attention. Did it work in Groundhog Day? You bet. Will it work in your story? Probably not, unless it's extremely original, like the alarm is set to specific song or sound (like a Barney song waking up a 40 year old man, or a person's voice saying a specific sentence) that is somehow relevant to the character or story. I don't know, even that is risky.
This type of thing is just so overused, I've seen it a ridiculous amount of times. In my own naivety I've used it a ridiculous amount of times, (though I must say, I usually do it in a creative manner). Is a waking up scene possible to write in an engaging attention-grabbing way? Absolutely. I'll probably even do it again some time. Just be really careful with this one... it's so easy to be cliché! An article entitled "11 Ways Not To Start Your Novel" from darleyandersonblog.com lists specific clichés you should avoid:
A dream. Particularly a dream that starts out like a normal scene and then weird things begin to happen before, oh twist, it turns out it was all just a dream

Anyone 'sitting bolt upright in bed', 'burying their head deeper into the pillow' or the sheets being 'drenched with sweat'

Onomatopoeia. Alarm clocks, ringtones, knockings on doors - leave them out
Any of these phrases: 'Breakfast is ready', 'you're going to be late for [x]', 'sleepy head', 'wakey wakey', 'rise and shine', 'up and at them', 'just five more minutes' and any variations thereupon

The smell of breakfast rousing your protagonist from their slumber/bed

Your protagonist getting out of bed to look at themselves in the mirror (assuming they look the way they would on any other day and haven't, say, aged several years from the last morning they remember)

Your protagonist being even slightly hung-over

Your protagonist waking up on the first day of anything in particular

2. Weather/landscape description.

These used to bore me to death when I was younger. I'd crack open a book, see a description of rolling hills with mountains in the distance and purple mist, and slide the book back on the shelf. Essentially, you should avoid anything like this:

"The [adjective] [adjective] sun rose in the [adjective] [adjective] sky, shedding its [adjective] light across the [adjective] [adjective] [adjective] land."
- Chip MacGregor, MacGregor Literary

3. Clichés like "once upon a time in a land far away."

This is an obvious one, but apparently people still do it. Heck, *I* used to do it when I was way younger. Unless you KNOW it's a cliché and you are doing it to be witty or funny, skip it!

4. Description of the town/kingdom/planet/etc.

World-building can be fun, but in general it's too early in the story for readers to care about the kind of cars people drive in your world, and their system of government, and how the town got started, or the races of people that live there. Don't slam a Wikipedia page about your setting at the reader, it's your first page for heaven's sake!