I Just can't seem to start them.

906700
Just start writing. Start with the visceral details and start "grounding" the reader in the setting on the first paragraph. Exposition can come later. Right now at the start, just focus on getting the reader into the scene and the experience.
But the most important thing at all is just to start writing.

I always find it hard to start a story, but something often comes while outlining how I want the story to go. Take my published stories, especially Castle Life, I had no flipping clue how to get it started and I initially started the opening chapter in what's now the middle of the intro. As the chapter began to pick up steam, I was able to actually write how it began.

906700 I start with one liners, honestly.

I'll take a normal everyday mundane action, and single it out. Is it a ship with the pones? I might have one of them waiting for the other, staring off into space. Etc.

Begin with the end in mind; set a goal to write to and work towards that

Alternatively, just start writing; don't worry if it sucks, you can go back an edit it

The easiest part or at least to me is always the beginning and the end. It's the middle that gets a little difficult at times.

But as to how to start, consider what you want to establish and try to convey it. Try to avoid generic starts such as "it was a warm and sunny day" if at all possible (though if you're a beginner that's understandable) and don't worry too much about grabbing the readers attention at the first paragraph. The rest of the story should do that for you.

Start it with a bang, an opinion, or something unexpected.

The most important part of starting a story is grabbing the reader's attention.
Try to think of a one liner like Cynewulf said and start there as honestly that is probably easiest. Then, with a little practice, you may be able to weave an exiting part of your narrative into the beginning of your chapters enticing people to read more.
It's mostly about practice honesty.

First, you should lightly hit yourself in the chest a few times, then put your brain in a centrifuge. This should separate the ideas from the nonsense. Then, you have to-

Just Kidding.

For some serious advice, try introducing your main protagonist in some way. Or if it's a story about a canon character, then write them starting the day.

Well do you at least have something in mind? You can't just say 'ok im write a story' you need to have at least some kind of plot in your head.

Beginnings and ends are fun to write, because you can play with them. Make them unique and enthralling. Start with something that grabs attention. Something totally out of left field.

WHAM!

The sound of a hoof slamming against wood woke up the sleeping mare.

"Huh? Wha?"

"DAMMIT RAINBOW! JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE BEHIND A DESK UNTIL YOUR WING HEALS, DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN NAP ON THE JOB!" A gruff pegasus stallion, with a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, shouted at the groggy mare.

See? Attention grabbing, lets you know the whole premise of the story right there.

906700

It really depends on what the story is about. Me as reader, I enjoy a good hook right at the beginning - a reason to keep on reading. A good example of this is in my story Our Darkest Hour where it immediately get the reader into a dramatic sequence with the symbolism of a war-tattered banner over a besieged city that gets into the action and the wartime horrors shortly after.

Of coarse, not every story is relevant to warfare, especially in the MLP fanfiction world. Something that draws me would be the best place to start thinking about, and you don't need tons of explosions to do that (as much as I would love that ). Getting the reader curious of a character's actions, starting off in a realistic setting for the character with realistic actions and let the conflict/plot come to them, or have the character start off on their quest already and have his/her peers wonder about his/her intentions, and so on and so forth...

There are literally thousands of ways to start a story, whatever the plot is. Even if the beginning has nothing to do with the plot at all, it's fine; as long as the reader has their attention.

In all honesty; just start writing. It took me five tries to come up with war-tattered flag to start off that story after blankly staring at the Israeli flag hung on my wall for about ten minuets (Don't ask ). Just start writing, and the scene will come to you.

906700 Depends on what kind of story it is. If it is a shorter one, like a one-shot, I would recommend beginning in the middle of an event. Otherwise you could always try to describe the surroundings.
An other way to begin is to write the ending as the intro, and have the entire story as a flashback of sorts until the last chapter where everything goes back to present time.

I have that pet peeve of always starting a story slow. Like, really, really slow.

For example, I was writing something for a writing workshop Some story about two monsters living in a post-apocaliptic earth, scavenging what was left of our civilization. and it took me a whole page before I deemed appropiate to get them to do anything.

Same with my Madoka Magica crossover. I'm debating on starting the story from Twilight's perspective or from Pinkie's perspective.
If I start with Twilight then it is slightly faster but only because Twilight starts out more involved into the story but if I start with Pinkie then the first bang wakes up the dead from their sleep.
Both are terribly slow though.

906700
I'd suggest, since I assume you already have a story in mind, to start by introducing the story's main conflict, In medias res, out of nowhere. It's a corner stone of your story you'll have to get around to anyway, that's most likely more clear in your head than the general beginning.
Once that's done, I'd suggest trying to work your way backwards to what's missing to keep the reader understanding and interested.

I like to create a play-like skeleton. For instance, say I wanted to write a story that starts with Twilight going to visit Rarity. My rough draft would start out similar to:

Scene: Rarity's boutique
Characters: Rarity, Sweetie Belle, a unicorn patron
Action: Twilight enters
Dialog:
Twilight
Rarity
Twilight
Sweetie Belle
Rarity
Action
Patron

Once I get the general scene set, I flesh it out. I also like to get the ending planned out first. After that, it's just a matter of forcing myself to write. It never starts out good, but that's what editing and rewrites are for. The first time through is to get the more impulsive and spontaneous ideas down on paper.

Thanks everyone.

906708 Oddly enough that works. A lot of writing sites say to not do that, but it works just fine for me.

906700 As far as starting writing? Well the first thing you will want to do is press your space bar 3-4 times as to indent the first paragraph. Sounds silly right? Try it out.

906700
read alot... use your favorite stories/author as a reference... start writing simple stories before going in for a big picture.

You don't have to start at the begining.
Otherwise ALL stories would start "In the begining there was fire and it was good."
I've seen alot of professional writers start at the end. After that anything goes, you could work the story in reverse or any other way you like.

In this day and age the tradtional story format is not the only way to write.
Look more at it this way.

Begining / Build up / Action / Climax / Resolution / Ending explaination

These are your puzzle pieces, if yours don't fit like they should, mix em up!

Well I began mine pretty uneventfully for the first few paragraphs, but then things began escalating quickly towards the end of the first chapter (not too fast, but enough to persuade the readers to read on)

906700

Read the rules, espescially rule number 8, and modify the thread accordingly.

Anyway, what I'd recommend is to start with a statement that introduced the themes of the story. It is a little bit of an old-school approach, you espescially ee it a lot in old-school horror, such as the opening to Call of Cthulhu:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

More generally, it's a good idea to start the story of with it's main draw. If you expect the main character to be the best part of the story, start with her. And if your intention is for the theme of the story to be important, start with that.

I think the mistake many people do is that they think "buildup" means that you should hang on to the good stuff until everything is set up. No, you give the readers some of that good stuff, then you pull it back a little to establish the baseline of the story, THEN you build up to the finale.

I think that's the reason my colalbs with Luce has gone especially well, we're both one-shot writers at the core, and if your stock in trade is shorter stories, you learn to craft good openings.

Getting the reader involved is key, and you've got to do that if you want them to stay with you.
How you do that is harder, but there's always something. Borrow from life; that works for me.
You probably should find a copy of On Writing by Stephen King. It's almost an instruction manual, and has a lot of good advice, plus his usual slice-of-life examples, humorous anecdotes and references.
It helped me; it can't hurt.

906700 Think about what you want to write and then get to it.