Garren Jacobsen
Auror
So, I have heard several times that your beginnings need punch, pizzazz, yahoo and how. The punch needs to be emotional somehow. Often times the advice says it needs to happen right on the first page. However, I find myself not really liking those beginnings and I feel like when I try it it's so boring, lifeless even.
I've also noticed a trend in my writing my beginnings are...normal. Not like normal in the writing world but normal in the sense that characters are doing normal things. One character is coming home from an early morning job and starts flirting with a girl, conlfict ensues at the end when his family tries to dissuade him from going to the magical college of his dreams, which he of course tells his family to go suck a salty nut. Or, in another book, a middle aged father comes home from work, plays with his son, and watches helplessly as his son kidnapped on the last page of the first chapter by magic cultists. Another book, an attorney is making his closing arguments, accepts a new and crazy case, then loses the case he argues.
Those book openings are very...normal. Emotional? Sure, but normal. Do those openings fly in the face of convention? Is that a bad thing? Will readers be bored? Am I overthinking this and misunderstanding the advice (this is likely), tell me oh sages!
I've also noticed a trend in my writing my beginnings are...normal. Not like normal in the writing world but normal in the sense that characters are doing normal things. One character is coming home from an early morning job and starts flirting with a girl, conlfict ensues at the end when his family tries to dissuade him from going to the magical college of his dreams, which he of course tells his family to go suck a salty nut. Or, in another book, a middle aged father comes home from work, plays with his son, and watches helplessly as his son kidnapped on the last page of the first chapter by magic cultists. Another book, an attorney is making his closing arguments, accepts a new and crazy case, then loses the case he argues.
Those book openings are very...normal. Emotional? Sure, but normal. Do those openings fly in the face of convention? Is that a bad thing? Will readers be bored? Am I overthinking this and misunderstanding the advice (this is likely), tell me oh sages!