So I'm stuck somehwere I didn't expect to be.

Well, I would say that if you don't know where to start and the time to begin writing has come, you should start writing.
Give some thought to which scenes you want which characters to have for sure. Once you get a bunch of scenes, gather up all your one line summaries and sort them out. Creating that kind of flow of events will give you an idea for what is missing and what is still to come. The start of the story should pop up naturally.

You don't need a beginning to start putting your story down. If I were to guess, the beginning is something that many writers tweak a lot. So don't worry about it. You're putting off your work.

 

I'd say don't worry about where to start - just have a good idea for a scene in your mind (no matter where it comes in the story) and write that. Don't worry if not everything is explained in it. You just need to write so that you get used to it.

I have similar issues - but I find thinking about the story as a series of scenes - which i can tackle in any order - helps enormously.
Every scene has a function in a story (as with screenwriting) its to put some information across, to further the plot and to show some aspect of one or more characters. It could be a couple of characters first encounter. It could be a character finding something, it could be conflict (either physical or emotional) with another character or with a decision that the protagonist has to make. It could be arriving somewhere. It could be anything - but it will help solidify your world and characters and help you decide what should come before and after it.

Then when you have a few scenes together you can start to order them and decide how everything fits together in detail.

The first intent is to just get it down - worry about getting it right in the second draft (and there will be a second draft).
The aim is to finish first - then fix things up.

 

I want to make sure I understand this. At first, I thought you meant that there were a bunch of ways you could start the story, and you got lost when you tried to decide on one. (That's a common problem, to which folks often respond by suggesting that you write one and see how it works.) But it sounds like you've already written more than one beginning, then thrown it out because it didn't work. If that's true, the problem is likely much more specific, tied directly to your premise or structure.

In other words, if you've already given it a try or two, you might need to explain more about your story.

 

With any story, there's usually some trigger point that sets a chain of events in motion. Some people call it the inciting incident. I call it the tipping point - the event that tips the main character out of his/her normal life and starts on the journey to the climax. What changes? That's the place to start (for now, anyway; you can always come back and write a different opening later).

Once you've identified a starting point, just write what happens. Don't explain everything, keep descriptions to a bare minimum (you can expand later if need be), just focus on that character, what's happening to him/her and what he/she feels about that. And take it from there.

It sounds as if you may have a complicated plot with many different characters and sub-plots. If so, I'd suggest narrowing the focus initially to stay just with a single character, until you find your feet. You can weave the rest in later.

Good luck!

 

I would suggest making an outline. Establish what are the most important events in the story and the order in which they happen. Then think of ways to link the events together. Finally think of where you want your characters to be at the end of the story both mentally and physically. For the start perhaps think of where your characters would be and what they would be doing as part of their regular life. If they are a cook then start with them in a kitchen, if a knight then on guard at a castle, etc. It this is very generic, but you can create a more unique situation whenever it comes to you. Then guide them towards whatever you want to happen.
For me the trick to dealing with not knowing what to write is to write something/anything. Once I get my head into having the characters being active it is like they come alive in my head and what they're doing and where they're going happens on its own. Hope this helps.

 

As someone who also has trouble figuring out where to begin the story, I suggest just not worrying about it. Just write and keep writing and worry about what the right place to begin the story is on the second draft. You don't need to know what the right beginning is to start writing the story. Just pick any place and go from there. Likely you need to write enough to get a better feel for the structure of your story. Possibly you won't know what the right beginning place is until you've written the ending. Then you just go back and revise your beginning. There's a good chance you'll end up just chopping off a lot of what you write at the start and that's ok. Some writers just need to write themselves into the story.

 

Hi Jtn46,

Here is a famous quote from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll:

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

My advice would be to just sit down and write. Usually, your characters will tell you the plot once you've written a few chapters. If you try to intellectualise your story too much, you will lose the creative flow.

You can always change the sequence of events once you reach the second draft stage.

 

I almost never start writing anything in the right place. Not novels, not chapters, not scenes. Sometimes I woffle around for a thousand words on a scene and then realise that NOW I've reached the point where the scene should start, and then I start over - but all of those thousand words have been useful in helping me realise the right starting point AND I reuse a lot of them in shaping the scene properly (descriptions, backstory, worldbuilding elements, even dialogue). Same applies on a novel-wide scale. When I finish the entire first draft, I have a much better idea of where it should start, and can recut the first third of the novel accordingly. (I've actually just finished doing this - I have 50k words of revised novel, and I've only just now reached chapters where I'm at 90% old material with 10% tweaking. Before this, I was mostly writing new stuff and doing major rewriting of old stuff.)

Start throwing spaghetti at the wall. You can put a frame on it later.

And in throwing your spaghetti, you've got a heap of great advice in this thread. Use all or none of it as it seems useful to you and your writing style!

 

Don't worry about the hook when you first start writing. The hook you have at the wrong beginning won't help where the real beginning is.
If you don't know where to start, just jump in and begin. The right starting point will make itself known.
I started one book at the beginning of the day, boring but it got me started. Then when the action started, I dumped the stuff before as pre-story setup and continued on.
once you figure out where to begin, find the hook then. You also will need to reintroduce the character at the new beginning, rather then at the boring(false) starting point.

Try to know where your going after you start, rambing around for several pages won't sell the book. When you know where your going, its harder to write yourself in the corner. Most of the time I find myself with no place to go, I got there because I didn't have a place in mind for a destination or forgot where I was going.
Have a purpose for every encounter. Don't send a character to the bar just to waste time. Meet someone, do something, hear something to throw the reader off or hint at something in the future. Bored character might need a brawl or might find some clue they didn't know they needed to find.

If your a planner, plan it out, if your a farmer let it grow, if it withers, prune it, if not follow it where ever it goes.