A good introduction when you don't know what to say

A good way to handle introducing your paper, any paper, is to start general and get more specific in each sentence until you end with your paper's thesis sentence. Think of how a funnel is shaped. The top is broad and the bottom is narrower. If you use the funnel image to shape your first paragraph, then a narrative introduction might go something like this:

We've had many bad smells in our house. The time my husband burnt beans on the stove comes to mind. Or some days when the wind is from the east, the smoke off our neighbor's wood stove finds its way in. We could even mention our friend who doesn't always shower before visiting. But really no foul stench infiltrating our house could have prepared us for what happened last Spring. It was the Great Skunk Debacle of 2009 and it stunk.

Notice how I start out introducing the general topic: bad smells. Then I talk about bad smells in general, but all related to our house. Finally, I move toward the more narrow topic by mentioning a specific time period: last Spring. And lastly I get to the thesis sentence, what the rest of my narrative paper will detail: It was the Great Skunk Debacle of 2009 and it stunk. The most important thing here is that I don't give details of the story until I start the second paragraph.