The sample above is the very start of the short story Night on Bear Mountain which originally appeared in the Canadian magazine Challenging Destiny in 1999.

Here are some nuts and bolts points about the story:-

This story has one main character, Roy Pajelva, and the character is encountered and named in the very first paragraph.

The character's profession is important to this story, so it is indicated in the first paragraph. We are told that Roy's role will be to "ride herd" on the kids, indicating that he is (probably) a teacher or counselor or probation officer or something of the like.

The character's age is also indicated in the first paragraph. If Roy is "a natural to ride herd on the kids" then the natural implication is that he is an adult rather than a kid.

The social situation is also indicated. The characters are from New York and from something called "Clean Start House", which indicates that they are not squeaky clean kids.

Something about Roy's character is indicated in what he says, which is "I'm giving you a chance, Zinger, despite the drug test".

Now, there is no firm recipe for the details that should be in the opening of a story. For example, does the main character's name have to be in the first paragraph? Not necessarily, though if you go to a bookstore and open up some recent novels then the chances are that you will find the lead character's name right up front.

However, although there is no hard-and-fast list of ingredients which absolutely must be in an opening paragraph, one point must be made: fairly early in a work of fiction, the reader should be able to get some kind of handle on the approximate arc of that particular story.

In the case of Night on Bear Mountain the arc involves Roy, the kids, a place called Bear Mountain and an entity known as the Plastic Infinity Corporation.

When starting a story, the reader wants to know "What is this all about?" and "Is this worth my time and trouble?" If these questions are not answered fairly early on, then the reader is more likely to abandon the story than to persist (particularly if the reader is a professional editor.)