Ernest Hemingway’s story, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” opens like this:

It was very late and everyone had left the café except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the daytime

the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the

difference. The two waiters inside the café knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he

would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.

“Last week he tried to commit suicide,” one waiter said.

Notice how gracefully Hemingway drops us into the middle of the action through the use of description: the shadow of the leaves, the electric light, the dew and the dust, the quiet. With relatively few strokes, he paints a vivid picture of this old man while also propelling the narrative forward. The two waiters know the man is a bit drunk, and they keep watch on him, so he won’t leave without paying. Within a few sentences, Hemingway has created a dramatic situation—the overseeing of the old man who just might skip out on his bill. The premise is effective enough, but perhaps not enough to make a story. To do that, we have to know what’s happened just prior to the story’s opening. One of the waiters provides that with his line of dialogue referencing the old man’s suicide attempt. At that point, the stakes rise significantly. We know the despair the old man feels, and suddenly we have a story that’s not so much about whether he’ll pay his bill but more a story about the desire for connection in a seemingly indifferent world. We move from a clear description of the people and the events to a consideration of the heart.

We can accomplish so much if we let our readers know what our main characters are carrying around inside them. The past influences the present and actually becomes a part of what the writer has come to the page to dramatize. In the case of “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” the concrete details of the opening sentences begin to work in concert with what we know about the old man.

You might try writing the opening for a story by calling up a few details—maybe a particular time of day, a quality of light, a snowfall, a lighted window, or whatever details appeal to you—and then putting a character in the midst of those details and giving an indication of what’s happened in this character’s life prior to their appearance in the story. See what this approach does to your, and our, understanding of the center of the story you’re going to write as well as the stakes for the characters.