Some writing has no real introduction. A sixty-word mini-bio, for example. When writing a longer piece, however, you need to give a lot of thought to your lead-in sentences. Not knowing where to start a piece can be a huge stumbling block. For some writers, this happens because of a lack of ideas, but the problem is often too many ideas. I’ve written dozens of different beginnings for a project before settling on one. For many writers, that is a workable process. No writing is wasted if it is a step on the path to a good final draft. That said, eventually, you will have to make a decision. While the choice of where to start your first paragraph is entirely personal, here are five examples of ways you could approach the problem of the introduction. Introduce the topic by stating it plainly. Jane Austin didn’t exactly bury the lede with the title of her book (Pride and Prejudice) or its famous first line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” She announced her themes, making promises to the reader right off the bat, and then delivered, and you can do the same thing when writing about yourself.  Set up your story with a separate but related story. If you’re writing an essay about your grief after your father’s death, you might start with a memory of him teaching you to fish. There should be a clear thematic or substantive connection between the teaser and the primary subject matter of your writing. Make sure to call back to the fishing story, even if briefly, at some later point in the essay. Begin with the most dramatic detail. Sometimes the best order of information is the simplest (chronological), but more often, you want to choose and order the information you include based on its impact. If you don’t grab your reader right away, they might stop reading, so don’t save the best stuff for the end.  Start with a question. Don’t get too literal or cutesy with this, but writing an introduction that engages with a question the reader finds meaningful is an excellent way to get the reader interested fast.  Establish the stakes. You’ve worked holiday retail before and know how badly one unreliable employee can mess up a manager’s week. Start your Halloween store cover letter acknowledging those stakes. Then mention that one of your references can confirm that you worked there for a year without being late once.  For some more specific prompts for writing about your own experiences, check out this article on Writing About Personal Experience.