How to start

[Androxine Vortex]

(I appologize if there is an already existing thread on this topic, I did not see one when I looked)

I have finally got (most of) my plot together and laid out, now it's time to get started. But the first words of your story have to be well written, it is the first thing that your reader will, read. I don't want to make it corny, cliche, etc. So how did you go about written those first few words?

 

[Graham Irwin]

I say write the story first, and then worry about a "killer" opening. If you wait for that, you may never write at all!

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

(I appologize if there is an already existing thread on this topic, I did not see one when I looked)

I have finally got (most of) my plot together and laid out, now it's time to get started. But the first words of your story have to be well written, it is the first thing that your reader will, read. I don't want to make it corny, cliche, etc. So how did you go about written those first few words?

Recognize that the first draft of anything sucks.

So the first thing you do is just write some words. It doesn't matter if they're good or perfect; they probably won't be, but they give you a starting point.

Yesterday I wrote about a third of a chapter, and then realized I didn't like the direction it was going in. I hadn't extensively worked out exactly what would happen, or what the POV character wanted/needed, or anything; I just had a general idea of what it was about, and started writing. After 1500 words or so, I realized it was dumb and I needed to start over, but having thrown those words down gave me at least one idea about what not to do. Then I spent a couple of hours fleshing out some world details/backstory that needed to exist in order to inform what the character wanted and had done previously.

Now I'm ready to give the chapter a crack at a real draft. I'm sure that even after I've written that, it'll still have a lot of problems, and it'll take time to resolve them.

But to start, you just put some words down. As the old saying is paraphrased: Apply butt to chair, make up some words.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

I agree with both Graham and Benjamin, you should focus on getting the backbone of the story written out first so you have actually got something to work with, even though it will be cobblers the first time around. Then you can really make it work.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

Thanks everyone, good advice! I guess I'm just making it too intimidating when really I can go back and edit anytime. Could I ask though how you opened some of your stories? I'm not trying to sound desperate for ideas, no, just curious to see what different people do.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

Thanks everyone, good advice! I guess I'm just making it too intimidating when really I can go back and edit anytime. Could I ask though how you opened some of your stories? I'm not trying to sound desperate for ideas, no, just curious to see what different people do.

I think I'm going to re-write my opening, but at the moment it starts with the protag leading a normal life but getting over bereavement. I use most of the first chapter simply to provide a view of him and his town, but I will need to draw the reader in somehow, maybe the age old trick of showing that someone is after him. Anyhoo, at the end of chapter one 3 strange people arrive who really kickstart the plot, and, to use an embarressing cliche, end up taking him with them for his own protection.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Thanks everyone, good advice! I guess I'm just making it too intimidating when really I can go back and edit anytime. Could I ask though how you opened some of your stories? I'm not trying to sound desperate for ideas, no, just curious to see what different people do.

"The day Kretten Skarline was murdered, he first attended a most eventful session of the Greater Council."

That's the beginning of the prologue. Chapter 1 starts with the main protagonist having a dress fitting as she prepares for the royal summer ball.

 

[Jabrosky]

Someone on another message board told me I had to completely rewrite the first chapter of my current WIP (The Stone of Amun). First, here's some information about my main characters:

Kasaqa: The protagonist, a former Nubian queen who was deposed by her envious younger sister after destroying a sacred meteorite (the Stone of Amun) in order to end a famine. Now she and her allies are traveling towards the kingdom of Ethiopia in order to raise an army to retake her throne. She's compassionate and wants to do what's best for her people, but also suffers from arrogance and haughtiness.
Akhom: Kasaqa's longtime platonic guyfriend, an Egyptian archer/ranger who is homosexual yet nonetheless very protective and loyal towards her. He is racially prejudiced against white people because his mother was sexually assaulted by a rebellious white slave.
Gareth: Kasaqa's love interest, this strong Anglo-Saxon swordsman claims to have been marooned on the African coast by Arabian pirates and joins her cause in search of a new purpose in life. He shares Kasaqa's compassion but his fiery temper has gotten him into a lot of deep shit in the past.
Anhurit: The main antagonist and Kasaqa's younger sister. She always resented the favorable treatment Kasaqa received from their parents and used Kasaqa's destruction of the Stone of Amun as a pretext for usurping her throne. Now Anhurit has minions searching for Kasaqa in case the latter raises an army against her.

Originally I started my chapter with Kasaqa and Akhom already on their way to Ethiopia and meeting Gareth (who saves them from hungry hyenas), but my reviewer said this wasn't a good way to begin. Where should I start instead?

 

[Graham Irwin]

Starting in the desert could be good, especially with an hyena attack. It would be a vivid environment to describe, and a scene where someone is being chased through searing heat by hyenas sounds like a reader-grabber if I've ever heard one. It could set up a small mystery, as to why they are in the desert. Were they stranded there when a storm drove them off the coast? Were they dropped there to die?

So I disagree with whoever told you otherwise. Perhaps you didn't nail it just right, but the idea is a good one

 

[Chilari]

Jabrosky: I don't see any trouble with the way you've planned to start your story, though having not read it, I can't comment on the nuances and intricacies of writing. If you have started at a point in the story that feels like an appropriate beginning, isn't going to take too long to get to the core conflict, and neither is too late, then it's not so much when as how - namely, which character(s) you have as your POV character, your writing style, what information you include and what you leave out, and other elements which are more about the technicals of writing that the where and when in the plot.

If you've only had one reviewer, I'd advise asking someone else to review. If you can get, oh, three or four opinions, you can see if this reviewer stands alone in this assessment, or if others think the same way. After all, reviewers are no more infallible than authors; it is possible for them to be wrong. It is far less likely for four to all be wrong about the same thing.

 

[Jabrosky]

Starting in the desert could be good, especially with an hyena attack. It would be a vivid environment to describe, and a scene where someone is being chased through searing heat by hyenas sounds like a reader-grabber if I've ever heard one. It could set up a small mystery, as to why they are in the desert. Were they stranded there when a storm drove them off the coast? Were they dropped there to die?

So I disagree with whoever told you otherwise. Perhaps you didn't nail it just right, but the idea is a good one

They've actually crossed into savanna now, but valid point.

 

[mirrorrorrim]

Someone on another message board told me I had to completely rewrite the first chapter of my current WIP (The Stone of Amun). First, here's some information about my main characters:

Kasaqa: The protagonist, a former Nubian queen who was deposed by her envious younger sister after destroying a sacred meteorite (the Stone of Amun) in order to end a famine. Now she and her allies are traveling towards the kingdom of Ethiopia in order to raise an army to retake her throne. She's compassionate and wants to do what's best for her people, but also suffers from arrogance and haughtiness.
Akhom: Kasaqa's longtime platonic guyfriend, an Egyptian archer/ranger who is homosexual yet nonetheless very protective and loyal towards her. He is racially prejudiced against white people because his mother was sexually assaulted by a rebellious white slave.
Gareth: Kasaqa's love interest, this strong Anglo-Saxon swordsman claims to have been marooned on the African coast by Arabian pirates and joins her cause in search of a new purpose in life. He shares Kasaqa's compassion but his fiery temper has gotten him into a lot of deep shit in the past.
Anhurit: The main antagonist and Kasaqa's younger sister. She always resented the favorable treatment Kasaqa received from their parents and used Kasaqa's destruction of the Stone of Amun as a pretext for usurping her throne. Now Anhurit has minions searching for Kasaqa in case the latter raises an army against her.

Originally I started my chapter with Kasaqa and Akhom already on their way to Ethiopia and meeting Gareth (who saves them from hungry hyenas), but my reviewer said this wasn't a good way to begin. Where should I start instead?

I feel the most important thing a first chapter needs to do, even more important than introducing the main character, is to set the tone and direction for the first part of the book. From what you've written of Kasaqa, it probably wouldn't be best to start the book with her being rescued from hyenas, because that makes her sound like a damsel in distress-type character, who has to be rescued by some big strong man (Gareth). From what you've told us about Kasaqa, that doesn't seem to fit her personality at all. If anything, the episode with the hyenas seems more like a potential turning point for her, where she begins to realize that she can depend on other people to help her.

It seems to me that a better place to start may be with her destroying the meteorite. That event seems to highlight all of her major attrubutes: compassion, in her desire to save her people from starving, arrogance, in not preserving a sacred relic because she felt she knew better than the religious clerics (or whoever it was that declared the stone sacred), and haughtiness, as she under-reacts to the anger her destruction of the stone generates.

Why is it you want to start your book so far along into the story?

 

[Jabrosky]

It seems to me that a better place to start may be with her destroying the meteorite. That event seems to highlight all of her major attrubutes: compassion, in her desire to save her people from starving, arrogance, in not preserving a sacred relic because she felt she knew better than the religious clerics (or whoever it was that declared the stone sacred), and haughtiness, as she under-reacts to the anger her destruction of the stone generates.

That could work too.

Why is it you want to start your book so far along into the story?

I'm simply excited to get to the part where she meets Gareth.

 

[mirrorrorrim]

That could work too.



I'm simply excited to get to the part where she meets Gareth.

Why is it that you're excited for her to meet Gareth?

Remember that you only get to introduce a character once. If Gareth is introduced at the same time as Kasaqa, Akhom, her other companions, and whatever backstory/setting you need to fit into the first chapter, he's just going to seem like one more character. To me, that seems like a wasted opportunity.

In writing, I normally want the reader to feel the same things when reading that I feel while writing. Is there anything you could do in, say, a single chapter before this one, that would make the reader as excited about Kasaqa and Gareth meeting as you are?

For instance, what does Gareth add to Kasaqa's life that she's lacking? Even if all you do is show the reader that void, they'll naturally be looking for people to fill it, and it'll be easy to get them to latch onto Gareth with the same hidden hopes that Kasaqa herself experiences.

 

[Jabrosky]

Why is it that you're excited for her to meet Gareth?

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I was so excited about the quest in general that I didn't want to start with the backstory.

 

[mirrorrorrim]

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I was so excited about the quest in general that I didn't want to start with the backstory.

Okay, that's completely different, then. If your story's more about the quest than about the characters, than I don't think any of my suggestions necessarily apply. George Lucas was able to create the second-most successful film of all time by starting at an exciting part in the middle of his story; there's no reason you can't write a successful book that does the same thing.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

What are your thoughts on opening a story right in the middle of action? Perhaps it opens on a war or battle going on and switches back and forth between the first character and who they are and why he/she is fighing, and then back to the battle? This way there will be action to immedietly catch the reader's attention while also giving the reader some needed background information.