Setting up the Rules of Your Story

When you write a story it's important to set up the "rules " for the world that your characters live in.  If the story you're writing is about a magical world introduce magic at the start of the story.  In Harry Potter we are introduced to the "magical" world of wizards from the very start of the story.  This introduction allows us to know that in this story magic is real.  In The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting, the story opens with Violet locating a dead animal, allowing us to learn Violet's usual gift of locating dead things.  In  Always Running, Luis Rodriquez begins his story with a man running after his gang son, who is a gang member living in Chicago, setting up the world of teenage gangs.

It doesn't matter whether your story is based in a fantasy world or set in reality, you want to set up the world that your story resides in.