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[Terff]

I love to write but one thing I always have trouble with is starting a story... that first sentence or two that helps you get a feeling for whats going on.  Any general suggestions on how to start a story?   
 

[Lectorog]

Are you looking for a way to start writing, or an introduction to your story?

If it's the latter, you could always just have it start during anything. For example, every story in James Joyce's Dubliners.

You can always copy other authors until you get a feel for it yourself.

[Terff]

I'm looking for an introduction to my story, maybe I should start just by looking at what other books do until I feel confident doing it myself.

[sjm9876]

I find it's quite genre dependent, but i tend to start in some form of media. perhaps an article in a paper, or perhaps a diary entry or documentary. of course, I tend to write fictional worlds, so this also helps to set the scene.
 other books is definitely a good place to start though. find a way that feels comfortable to you.

[Lectorog]

I'm looking for an introduction to my story, maybe I should start just by looking at what other books do until I feel confident doing it myself.

Copying others' styles as directly as possible is actually really good practice. It gives you the feel for writing different kinds of introductions, and soon enough you'll be writing your own utilizing what you liked most from each style.

[Knight of Fools]

The best advice I can give is starting with something interesting. You want to capture the reader's attention in the first few paragraphs. It doesn't necessarily have to be an action scene, but that's a pretty common one in all levels of writing. If you have an interesting gimmick you can start by presenting that in a fun way.

If you're only able to imagine the "middle" of the story but don't know how to lead up to that point, then maybe the middle is where you should start. It presents a story already in motion, which easily engages the reader. There are characters with histories and backgrounds, things have happened, and there's a ball rolling. It's a perfect place to start the story, especially when everything leading up to that point isn't nearly as interesting. You can also go back and add more to the start if you need to.

Just have fun with it. Remember that writing is a lot like drawing or any other creative pursuit: You don't have to try and make a masterpiece in order to 'practice'. Doodling and sketching work just fine, so write out scenarios or ideas that appeal to you, even if there isn't much more to the idea than a single scene or a short conversation. You'll get some practice out of it, and it can always turn into something more later on.

[Truean]

Paint with words.

Start with a setting, some place. Describe how somebody sees something happening there and maybe their guess at why it's happening or a description of some object. Then tie that in with the rest of the story. http://americanbookreview.org/100bestlines.asp

Focus on something and build off it: A person, how two or more people relate to one another, a feeling, an object, a place, anything.

Direct Narrator Focus
I am a terrible man who always forgave his enemies; they never saw my vengeance coming. I cried the first time I killed a man; time took away those tears. Today, it's just another knife in my hand and soon it'll just be another knife in another corpse.

(From there, there's any number of ways to tie that into ... I presume a story about an assassin? Maybe they detail his past and how he fell to this, or maybe he's an anti hero. Who knows).

Indirect Descriptive Relationship Between Two People:
Winter's late dawns and early sunsets weren't bright enough for her to notice him walking three feet away from her in a crowd.

(Could be literal or figurative crowd. Etc.)

Direct Intentional Relationship:
He always admired her beauty; she never noticed him.

Direct Metaphorical Thoughts and Desires/Relationship
The light behind her beautiful eyes never shined upon him. He wished it would. It did not.

Indirect Object Focus (as relates to its creator)
It was another weapon. Shining, sharp, and soon to be sold, Maten made the means men murdered with.

Direct Action Focus:
He muffled the guard's scream with one hand and sank the blade into his lung through the shoulder with the other.

Indirect relationship focusing on thoughts:
Peter always thought Morrison sounded so much more intelligent when he shut up.

Then of course, there's the thesis statement:
Justice?—You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.

OR
Once upon a time, three years ago, there was a boy who grew up and hated what he became.

You might consider doing something like a web outline or ... have some means of showing what your story is about. All those links between ideas, people, places, things, etc... provide an endless amount of room to work with.

[Darkmere]

If you have trouble with a beginning, fill in the beginning later. I'm slowly working on a novel/series/whatever it will be. I started with one scene which didn't go anywhere... but I realized it had to come from somewhere. So... I worked backwards. Who is doing stuff, where did they come from, why is all this happening and what precipitated it?

One scene grew into an outline that spans a few thousand years. After that it's MUCH easier to "Zoom in" somewhere on that outline and flesh out what had to happen then for stuff to come about later. The story has grown from that point because I worked outwards instead of following a formula or tried to take it all in one chunk.

[Eagleon]

Absolutely, if you haven't, write your outline first. It helps give some sort of direction to head in, which for me is the biggest reason to be stuck on how to start it. For short stories, yes, it's not so critical to plan everything carefully, because you can have the whole thing in your head without a problem, but it's still nice to see your story in brief form and know that everything fits together logically. Nothing worse than getting to the end-point and then realizing you forgot to include critical pieces of plot in the middle to keep things sensible.

[LordBucket]

Any general suggestions on how to start a story?

Think up some characters. Flesh them out. Think up an environment, then put the characters in that environment watch them react. Try to not be too attached to any particular outcome. Avoid becoming attached to specific events that you want to happen and then compelling the characters and environment to conform to it. Write linearly, beginning to end. Don't write an outline in advance then try to flesh out the details later. It's much easier, and more natural to be here and go there than it is to be there and retroactively figure out how you got there.

The best stories, the author does not know how they end until they are written.

[Doomblade187]

Also, with people suggesting both outlining and not outlining, I'd like to put this out there- do what works for you, and not just what works for others. It's hard to get a good flow of writing going if you aren't doing what works for you.