Why Once Upon a Time is the Perfect Time to Start a Story

I’ve been rolling around the words once upon a time inside my mind. Why is this the way so many fairy tales and children’s stories begin?

The power of this beginning is in its ambiguity. It’s an invitation to experience a time and place outside and beyond the familiar routines that shape our lives.

The Power of This 4-Word Preamble

The power of this 4-word preamble is in its ambiguous and open-ended framework. Let’s look at that.

Once implies a singular event. This story is unique, unlike any other, because it happened only one time.

Upon. This particular story sits on top of time. It happened in an expansive period of any-time. I find this eloquent in its economy. The story we are about to hear is beyond time. It exists apart from time. It’s timeless and yet universal. That’s a lot for a single word to accomplish. But upon is more than up to the task.

A time. These two words add insight to the expansive description of upon. That’s because the story, in addition to happening in some-when of time, also took place in a particular time. This grounds the story in a particular circumstance without imposing the sense of a specific time. It is delicious in its ambiguity.

I’ve been thinking about how to approach a ‘once upon a time’ set-up for business writing. An introduction that has the same kind of ambiguous yet intriguing statement. One that pulls the reader into a space that invites their attention.

I’m still noodling on it. But I know that thinking about a ‘once upon a time’ setup will inform and influence how I write. I hope it does the same for you.