How to begin

[Trick]

I'm debating rearranging the beginning of my WIP. It starts with my MC recounting the first time he stole something (candy, at five years old) but in the next scene he's seven watching his father be beaten to death by a policemen (think of the policemen in my world like an overly violent version of the Nazi Gestapo, not good men risking their lives to protect the populace).

My question is, would it be too confusing to jump from seven years old back to five years old? I was thinking of making it a very short flashback to being five but I'm not sure how I feel about it. Also, is opening with a child witnessing a brutal murder a bit too darkly charged?

 

[BWFoster78]

What is the significant situation? It's generally considered a good idea in modern fiction to start as close to that as possible.

 

[Trick]

I think that's how my dilemma began. The first time he steals is significant because his life of crime starts with just stealing small things here and there. Stealing at five is something lots of kids do but it's important for my character because he understands that it is bad and continues to do it. However, the death of his father is also the death of his innocence. The part of a child that still sees the upside to the world, even in terrible conditions, is lost forever. This leads him to handle violent death without pause later in life. I simply can't decide which is more important.

EDIT: it might help to add that the working tag line is, "A boy who became a thief. A thief who became an assassin. An assassin who is now the most infamous man alive." I don't love it, hence 'working tag line' but you get the idea.

 

[BWFoster78]

The first time he steals and his dad dying sound to me like character backstory that may or may not be necessary to tell your story. What is the significant situation facing your character?

 

[Trick]

The book is in parts (I may split it depending on the length I reach) In the first part he ends up working for a mob-like organization, at the age of nine, as a thief and then a few years later as an assassin. He eventually gets caught and thrown in to prison. The climax of that part has to do with the escape from prison. In the second part he is gathering magical power, that he learned of in prison, and he ends up fighting it out with the final antagonist, though that was not his intention. He is definitely not out to save the world. He just wants revenge, at least at first. The parts about his slightly younger years are brisk and to the point but the story is framed as a memoir so I think it's important to touch on the events in his life that he feels shaped him.

 

[Scribble]

The beating of the father sounds like powerful memory.

A boy at the age of 9 can be sympathetic to an adult reader, if aged beyond his years, if dealing with moral struggles.

I, personally, and this is only opinion, would want to read about a boy on his first or second "job" for a mob, struggling with fear, dealing with bullying of fellow thieves, their doubts in him, etc... those memories making his outer shell "harder", in order to deal with it, finding a dark strength. I'd rather hear about the beating, catch glimpses in a memory sequence, etc.. than actually read it.

 

[Creed]

The beating is a good way to set a mood for the reader, so if the rest of your book is like that then no, it's not too violent or grim. While it would make a good starter (except to some sensitive eyes) I think I would prefer to read about his first experiences stealing and then the beating- just for the sake of chronological order- even if those first experiences just take up a paragraph or two. However that's being semantic and I like to think I'm flexible.
As for the idea of starting very close to the "significant situation", I would appreciate the flashbacks at the beginning- before the main plot- because a) I think I'd like it more than going back later (again chronological order) and b) as exposition first to explain why the character is the way he is.
Scribble's right that you could make a connection between the reader and the MC straight away- I wouldn't be adverse to reading it indirectly as memories or directly as a flashback. The question then becomes: How much detail and length do I want for this memory of his? Would I be okay with it as a reference that I glossed over a bit?

 

[Penpilot]

The way I think about beginnings is start with a typical day/ typical moment that encapsulates what the main character's life is like before the story really begins. Showing what a character's normalcy is like gives the reader a baseline to compare later events in the story to. It shows the reader how the characters life and the character himself has changed because they enter the story world.

You could start the story minutes after witnessing his father's death. You could start it before. You could start it years later and have the character expressing how his father's death has lead him to where he is now. It all depends on how you're telling the story.

 

[BWFoster78]

If I were going to write something like this:

I start with a 9 year old kid on an assignment as an assassin. It demonstrates the boy's life, is interesting, and has the opportunity for lots of tension. I show him motivated for revenge, but I keep the details sketchy. Then something happens that changes things (the significant situation). Maybe he's now at odds with his boss. Maybe he finds out that the boss is the one who he wants revenge on. Eventually, once the reader cares for the character, I reveal the backstory that his father was killed. I probably do this by showing him confiding in someone while he's in an emotionally vulnerable state instead of with a flashback.

Though I think this story is interesting, I'd have a hard time pulling it off because of the challenge of writing from the limited perspective of a 9 year old. Not saying it can't be done, just saying it would be a challenge.

The story you seem to want to write:

Establish a 5 year old character and show what changes his life.

Establish a 7 year old character and show what changes his life.

Establish a 9 year old character and tell his story.

The problems inherent here are:

1. There is so much developmental difference between these ages that you're almost having to establish three different characters.
2. You need to stay with each character age long enough to engage the reader and not make it feel choppy.
3. These ages are incredibly difficult to portray from a POV perspective.

Again, I'm not saying you can't do it this way, but you're starting with an awful lot of challenge. I don't know your skill level, but I'd be hesitant to attempt this.

If you're writing for the experience, just go ahead and do it. You'll learn a lot.

If you're writing in the hopes of creating something that will be commercially viable, I think that you have a lot of challenges ahead of you.

 

[Trick]

Thanks to all for the input, it is really helping me open my eyes to more options. I would mention that he commits two major thefts before the mob recruits him and they are both pretty tense so perhaps I could use one of them as a starting point? In another post: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/9092-question-long-metaphors.html I show my MC, after having done a good deed in an attempt to fix an unforeseen consequence, happily returning to his life when he is kidnapped by the mob. The following scene (not shown) is his first experience with them. I thought it might give a feel to those with ideas above. I really like the idea of starting in the middle of a theft but I had abandoned it early on for the sake of timeline. I believe I'll be rethinking that decision.

1. There is so much developmental difference between these ages that you're almost having to establish three different characters.
2. You need to stay with each character age long enough to engage the reader and not make it feel choppy.
3. These ages are incredibly difficult to portray from a POV perspective.

Well, this is in FP in the memoir of a grown man so the character I'm establishing, IMO, is who the man became and why. I do agree that it's a challenge and a learning opportunity. Basically, I want to write it, then organize it in the best way possible; cut and add where necessary, then try to make it commercially viable.

 

[skip.knox]

When I read your summary, most of it read as backstory. The conflict came when the adult escapes from prison and confronts his enemy. All the rest of it is how he got to be in prison in the first place and why he's the sort of fellow he is. If you start with the MC going through another day in prison, you can establish normal--his normal, anyway. But he's been planning his escape, so there's tension created. Most readers will sympathize with anyone who is imprisoned and will want to know why.

You can reveal parts of his past as the action unfolds, but I wasn't seeing any reason to start that far back. Think of any great adventure lead. I'm sure many things went into the shaping of Luke Skywalker, but we don't need to know that. Think how gently Tolkien fills us in on Bilbo's background, so that we understand both why he's fussy and why he shows surprising backbone.

The chronological approach is the historian's approach. The fiction writer often understands his characters this way, but he doesn't typically want to present his characters to the reader this way.

 

[Trick]

Well, I think that there's plenty of tension in a pre-teen stealing and killing for the mob. Also in his subconscious hunt for his father's killer. My MC will not even be twenty five when the book ends (and that's with years spent in prison) so his early life is still quite fresh. I don't think I'm willing to leave his past in the past.

Like I said, it's two parts and I can't start the first part with it's own climax. That would make it about one chapter long... That's like saying The Fellowship of the Ring should have started with Gandalf fighting the Balrog. Kind of a short story.

 

[BWFoster78]

Trick,

It kinda sounds like you know what you want to do. From what you told us, I agree with skip.knox that the early scenes are basically backstory. You don't seem receptive to that opinion, and that's fine. As the author, it's your decision to make, and, regardless of what ends up in the book, you're going to learn from the experience.

I'm not sure, however, that you're ever going to be able to convince us that you're not including backstory.

It's a common trait in writers; they get so caught up in their characters and world that they want to include a lot of information that may not be strictly necessary for the story they're telling. Ultimately, only they can make the, sometimes painful, decision to delete it.

 

[Caged Maiden]

IF IT WERE ME:

I would begin in prison. Show his daily life there and let the pieces of how and why fall into place, since it seems he's got people he's talking to in prison. I wrote a story about a guy who get imprisoned, falsely accused of horse-thieving, and I showed the events that led up to it (weeks), but I wouldn't have shown his early life because it wouldn't have supported the current character. I fill in his back story after he escapes a little and gets to know his traveling companion. Wouldn't it be better if those back story issues came out through his interactions with others?

I think If I were structuring this story (which I really like the concept of, BTW), I'd show his immediate situation, say, the prison and how he has come to cope with life incarcerated. I'd show how his interactions with people are affected by his past, but not show a flashback necessarily, favoring instead a relationship with maybe the person teaching hiim magic? Maybe they could talk and have developed a trust. It might be really powerful if you use the scene with the father dying as a prologue, a short scene where we don't necessarily know who the boy is? Then when he's talking about the why and how of being incarcerated, he can tell his firend that his father died when he was young. THe reader will remember the scene and have a lot more impact because at that point they are emotionally invested in the character. The problem I see with your original plan, is that it might read like a bunch of isolated incidents and therefore lack overall mpact. It's tough to make a reader care about a man dying in the beginning of a novel because we honestly, don't care who he is, or who his son is. If you show it (for effect), and then later refer back to it, it potentially has a much greater impact.

 

[Trick]

I think the issue is that I asked one question and was given multiple opinions that are not related to the question. Valid opinions all but not answers. Has anyone read the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb? It recounts a man's life in a memoir from the age of six on. It is successful and I'd say I like the first novel better than the other two (I think the MC/Narrator get's very whiny and self-pitying later on). There are many books written for adults about children. My character ends up in prison before the age of fifteen. Is it backstory to find out how he got there? Well, if my book were about a teenager in prison, then yes, it would be backstory. My story is about a child who makes mistakes. The second part is about a man who makes more mistakes but finally accomplishes something good. That may be simplistic but I think that calling the beginning of a book backstory is self defeating unless you've read it.

If you gave me the basic plot of any book, without me having read it, I could tell you, "The climax is the most tension in the whole thing, the author should have started with that."

Frodo, a halfling, is standing at the entrance to Mount Doom. Plop. The End.

I just turned a huge trilogy into a line of text with the same logic and removed the tension from an otherwise tense situation. 'Oh, but Frodo at the Shire is backstory.' No, it's not. My story is about a young person, so that fact that part of the story (a minimal part btw) takes place when he's a bit of a younger child makes perfect sense.
He has his first full time job at seven and commits the equivalent of a $100,000 robbery at the same age. That's tension, not back story.

EDIT: this post sounds angry but it's really not. I appreciate the input a great deal but if we take everyones advice we'll end up with books that we hate.

 

[Trick]

It might be really powerful if you use the scene with the father dying as a prologue, a short scene where we don't necessarily know who the boy is? Then when he's talking about the why and how of being incarcerated, he can tell his firend that his father died when he was young. THe reader will remember the scene and have a lot more impact because at that point they are emotionally invested in the character.

I like the idea of it being a short prologue but I'll have to consider it very closely because a lot of things would change.

EDIT: Actually, it just occurred to me to make him steal something for the first time and see his father die at the same age. That could be a great, although short, prologue.... thank you, Caged Maiden!

I think I confused people by mentioning prison. This is a book about a child (the first part at least which may end up standing alone) Prison is uneventful except in the fact that he meets someone who turns him onto an ancient magic of his people. If the book were about an older character I would agree more with assumptions of too much backstory but I guess it's my fault for giving the wrong impression.

 

[BWFoster78]

I think the issue is that I asked one question and was given multiple opinions that are not related to the question. Valid opinions all but not answers. Has anyone read the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb? It recounts a man's life in a memoir from the age of six on. It is successful and I'd say I like the first novel better than the other two (I think the MC/Narrator get's very whiny and self-pitying later on). There are many books written for adults about children. My character ends up in prison before the age of fifteen. Is it backstory to find out how he got there? Well, if my book were about a teenager in prison, then yes, it would be backstory. My story is about a child who makes mistakes. The second part is about a man who makes more mistakes but finally accomplishes something good. That may be simplistic but I think that calling the beginning of a book backstory is self defeating unless you've read it.

If you gave me the basic plot of any book, without me having read it, I could tell you, "The climax is the most tension in the whole thing, the author should have started with that."

Frodo, a halfling, is standing at the entrance to Mount Doom. Plop. The End.

I just turned a huge trilogy into a line of text with the same logic. Oh, but Frodo at the Shire is backstory. No, it's not. My story is about a young person, so that fact that part of the story (a minimal part btw) takes place when he's a child makes perfect sense.
He has his first full time job at seven and commits the equivalent of a $100,000 robbery at the same age. That's tension, not back story.

EDIT: this post sounds angry but it's really not. I appreciate the input a great deal but if we take everyones advice we'll end up with books that we hate.

One of the problems is that, at the end of this fairly long thread, I don't feel I've seen an well-articulated synopsis of what the story is, which is probably why you're getting so many different opinions.

IMO, you need to figure out the central core to your story. To me, it sounds really unfocused.

For example, if you asked me about my WIP, I could tell you it's about this guy who does this and his friends who do this and then this and this happen and...

That's not the story of the first book. It's about a guy who falls in love with a girl from his dreams and finds out she's real and in trouble. A lot of other stuff happens, but that's what the story centers on.

What is your story?

 

[Trick]

One of the problems is that, at the end of this fairly long thread, I don't feel I've seen an well-articulated synopsis of what the story is, which is probably why you're getting so many different opinions.

IMO, you need to figure out the central core to your story. To me, it sounds really unfocused.

For example, if you asked me about my WIP, I could tell you it's about this guy who does this and his friends who do this and then this and this happen and...

That's not the story of the first book. It's about a guy who falls in love with a girl from his dreams and finds out she's real and in trouble. A lot of other stuff happens, but that's what the story centers on.

What is your story?

I'm getting the same impression, thank you for spelling it out. Although, I need to explain the core of my story, not figure it out.

Keeping in mind that this is written by the MC as a two part memoir:

Part One: A child becomes a thief and accidentally crosses paths with a Godfather-esque character. To escape being killed or remaining family being murdered, he agrees to steal for the mob instead. As a retained thief he demonstrates an amazing talent for the work. He is then forced into the role of assassin, which he abhors. He is caught and goes to prison at about 14 years old. In prison he learns of magic. He escapes the prison to find the magic at about 19-20 years old.

Part Two: He gathers the magic and tracks his father and mother's separate killers but only kills one, becoming somewhat of a celebrity outlaw. He falls in puppy love and then loses her to the Suzerain (main villain, combo of a president and a king) and sets forth to get revenge by killing him. After a series of conflicts he faces him one on one. The end

That's a bit longer than I intended but I think it lays it out well.

 

[BWFoster78]

Trick,

Perhaps we have a different idea as to how stories should be created. When I start one, I focus on the following:

1. A character
2. A significant situation that removes him from his normal life

Therefore, to begin the story, I start with a snippet of his normal life and then have him encounter the significant situation. The rest of the story is a reaction to the significant situation.

It does not appear to me that you've identified what that significant situation is. Maybe you're using a different format and that lack of definition is okay. In my mind, however, it's a necessary step, even when your intention is to create a "memoir."

 

[Trick]

It's more of a series of situations but the catalyst is his father dying. It takes him from regular, though poor, child to working a full time job in a scrap yard; which is terribly dangerous. Right now, the snippet of his regular life is when he steals candy because he feels bad and his mother forgives him when he comes clean and his father spanks him but also forgives him. It's basically just a typical childhood experience. Does that sound about right? I'm debating right now if I want to make those things happen within a day of one another instead of years apart. I think that could add urgency.