tl;dr - An opening scene should be an actual scene, not just a massive backstory info dump. 

Feel free to ignore my rambling, I just find that writing my thoughts out helps me organize them and helps me work through my problems better.

I've noticed myself falling into writing traps lately, which tends to happen when I'm nearing the end of a project and I'm just in a hurry to get it done. 

In particular, I find myself turning chapters into info dumps rather than letting a scene speak for itself. A classic case of telling instead of showing. The latest chapter of "Autumnal Equinox" is giving me problems because of this. I'm about 1500 words in and realizing that more than half of this chapter consists of me telling my readers that the main characters are best friends rather than letting the characters act like best friends or say as much themselves. I'm probably going to have to go back and clean up this mess before I'm ready to post it.

I find that I get the temptation to tell rather than show especially when writing opening scenes or deciding how to begin a story.

Currently playing around with a performing arts school AU. The main character will be a slightly above average trainee who makes up for what he lacks in natural aptitude with mental toughness, perseverance, and heart. He got into the school off the waitlist and he's got an ongoing rivalry with the top student, whose group of goons pick on him, and he's generally considered an underdog.

The opening scene of a story like that should establish that much about his character, but rather than writing "Character A has a lot of passion and a lot of heart and has some talent, just not a lot of luck," let the readers see him struggling to keep up in class and then chasing after a custodian to ask if he can wipe down the floors in exchange for another hour or so of private practice time, or let the readers see him ignoring bullies while he works on sharpening a transition move. 

Likewise with an idea I am workshopping about a chaebol's daughter and a paleoanthropologist. Her mother has just died, and to distract himself from the grief, her father has become obsessed with paleoanthropology. The opening scene needs to establish that a) they are wealthy, b) her mother has died, c) her father is still grieving her death, d) her father has found a new obsession, paleoanthropology, e) relationship between father and daughter is slightly strained.

Instead of just telling the readers that, however, maybe let them see:

1. The girl is wearing expensive clothing in the back of a black SUV being driven by a chauffeur en route to a paleoanthropologist's dig site.

2. Her father is reading an article in National Geographic about a new Homo Erectus skeleton unearthed in East Africa and going on and on about this new excavation he's agreed to sponsor.

3. She tries to talk about her mother, but he promptly shuts her down, causing the atmosphere in the vehicle to become tense and silent. 

Or let's try a story about a girl in the big city trying to make it as a model, but she's having a tough time because people in the business don't think she has the right "look." Her roommates are this close to kicking her out because she's always late to pay her rent, she's in deep debt to her agency, hasn't eaten in over a week, and comes from a single-mom household and that mom claims to be a feminist but thinks her daughter's decision to become a model is disgraceful and playing to negative feminine stereotypes.

An opening scene needs to establish: a) she's an aspiring model, b) she's low on money, c) she's starving, d) she has a strained relationship with her mother. 

You could let the readers see her:

1. At a payphone wearing expensive-looking clothes, which she is trying not to get dirty because they are actually loans from her agency.

2. Maybe she's also clutching a piece of paper with a list of castings, all of them are crossed out except one. She pulls out a pen and crosses out the last one with a sigh.

3. She's looking down at the change in her hand, wondering if she'll have enough to call her mom and eat later.

4. She asks her mom to drop rent money into her account, promising to pay her back later, but her mom says she's tired of funding her pipe dream and tells her to come home, instead. She refuses then hangs up and bemoans that the call was more expensive than she realized and she won't have enough to buy something for dinner.

5. She eyes a guy on a motorbike making a jjajangmyun delivery and the cogs her in brain start turning. He's distracted, he's left his motorbike and two other orders unattended. She reaches down to her feet, takes off her high heels, and nonchalantly walks toward the motorbike.

I'm thinking about the opening scene I wrote for "A Thousand Purple Stars" now. I think I'd give myself a B on it. I feel like I nailed most of the big things I wanted to establish about Jisoo and her character and her relationships: a) she's a romantic, b) she hates her college major, c) she dreams of becoming a romance writer, d) she has a very important job interview. I think my issue with it is that nothing really happens in that first chapter, there's just a lot of talking. Dialogue is important, too, but I feel like I tend to rely on dialogue too much in my writing. Character should also be revealed through action.

To wrap things up on this reflection, I'll just restate: let the opening scene be an actual scene, not an info dump.