How to Write a Story from a Given Opening Line
Quick answer: Given an opening line in an exam? Read it for the question it raises, decide the ending first, copy the line exactly, match its tense and person, then build to the answer.
Start by reading the line for what it promises. Every opening line contains a situation, a mood and at least one question the reader wants answered. 'The phone rang at midnight' promises a caller, a reason and a person woken from sleep. Your story must answer the question the line raises, and the fastest way to do that is to decide the ending before you write the second sentence. Copy the line exactly as given, continue in the same tense and person, and do not let the second sentence explain the first.
The opening-line task feels freer than an outline, and that freedom is the trap. With no points to follow, students improvise, and improvised stories in exams tend to run long, lose their tense and end nowhere.
What the line is telling you
Break the given sentence into its parts. 'I had never seen my grandfather cry until that afternoon.' Person: first. Tense: past perfect leading into simple past. Situation: a grandchild watching an adult break. Question: what happened that afternoon. Mood: serious, not comic. Everything you write must fit those five facts. A story that turns this line into a joke, or drifts into the present tense, or forgets the grandfather after paragraph one, has misread the cue.
Notice also what the line does not fix. It does not say where, when, or why. Those are your choices, and making them quickly, in your plan, is the difference between a story and a ramble.
Deciding the ending first
Write one sentence in the margin: the ending. For the grandfather line it might be 'He was crying because the letter said his brother was alive.' Now you know what the afternoon contains, and each paragraph can move toward it. Opening: the line, plus where we are and what the narrator was doing. Second: the thing that arrives, the letter, the visitor, the news. Third: the grandfather's reaction and the narrator's attempt to understand. Fourth: the explanation, shown not told, and one small image to close.
Notice that the ending answers the question the opening asked. That loop, question at the top and answer at the bottom, is what examiners mean when they say a story is complete.
Copying and continuing the line
Write the given line word for word, with its punctuation, as your first sentence. Changing it, even slightly, can cost a content mark and always looks careless. Then match its voice. A first-person line stays first person. A line in the past stays in the past. If the line is a piece of dialogue, the next sentence should tell us who spoke and where.
The second sentence is where most students stumble. They use it to explain the first, which kills the tension. 'The phone rang at midnight. It was my aunt calling about the wedding.' Better: 'The phone rang at midnight. My father was already on the stairs before I had found my glasses.' Delay the answer by at least a paragraph.
Mistakes that show up in marking
Writory's short story contest sees the same faults from adult entrants, and its scorecard out of 100 marks them down for the same reasons a school examiner does.
What writers can take from this
- Split the line into person, tense, situation, question and mood before writing.
- Write the ending in the margin first.
- Copy the line exactly, punctuation included.
- Make the second sentence add, not explain.
- Keep every paragraph pointed at the question the line asked.
- Answer that question in the last paragraph, in an image if you can.
Try it yourself
Opening line: 'Nobody in the village had ever seen the shopkeeper smile.' Write a 180-word story in which the last paragraph shows the smile without using the word 'smile' again.
Questions
Do I have to use the opening line exactly as given?
Yes. Copy it word for word as your first sentence. Examiners check it, and a changed line can cost content marks. You may add to the sentence only if the question explicitly allows it.
Can I change the tense after the opening line?
Not within the story's main narrative. If the line is in the past, stay in the past. You can use past perfect for something that happened earlier, and present tense inside dialogue, but the narration itself keeps one tense.
How long should a story from an opening line be?
Whatever the question states. Class 9 CBSE papers set 100 to 120 words, school papers 150 to 200, ICSE compositions 300 to 350. The opening line counts toward the total.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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