Young Writers Society

I read somewhere that your story should begin where something has changed for your characters. So, example. Molly is an average student in an average high school, until one day she wakes up to find she has grown a tentacle out of the left side of her head. Obviously, this is an extreme, physical example. But an example none the less.

Do you think this is always the case? Is there something you can pin point about how you begin your story?

Also, with regards to the change - does the change come on page one, or can it come ten pages later, or in the second chapter? When is the "Beginning" too late or too soon?

I'm slowly pulling the threads out of an old idea and recrafting it. Of course, I'm questioning the beginning and how it should be done. I'd love to hear everything on how you begin.

Try not to start with a big long paragraph- short and snappy is always the way.
So, if your character has just grown a tentacle out of her head, going with the example you gave, start right there.
If it's a comedy, start with something like "My name's Molly. I've brown hair, brown eyes and the tentacle growing out of my head is about 7 inches long."
If it's a gruesome horror; "When I peered through the mirror at the pale green growth on my scalp, I swear to God the mirror cracked."

Write accordingly, but when the opening line is concerned, keep it snappy.

Sentences seem like atoms to me. I appreciate your reply greatly, though.


I am, however, looking for a more overarching thought. The concept of a beginning, not the creation (through writing) of one.

For me, I put my beginning at the start of conflict.

However, it is rarely the start of the main conflict.

I quite like plots with lots and lots of layers. So I start with a seemingly mundane (in the scheme of the story, that is) conflict and slowly reveal the larger arc of the plot (to the heavy conflict).

The trick is to not start so early there's a genre shift when you reach the main conflict. I usually start at an early conflict with the promise of something more later on. So the conflict gets to evolve naturally as the story progresses, and you don't hit the confusion of in medias res (I have a bias against that type of beginning, though, primarily because I'm not that minimalist and always feel I need the time to explain the situation before I chuck readers into the main conflict).

That's my own preference, though. That's not to say I actively dislike in medias res, it's just that I find for worlds that aren't earth, or unrecognizable as earth, I find starting midway through the main conflict very confusing because of how much context we need to know.

I'll just add a bit to Rosey's reply.

So yeah, starting with a conflict is really nice, as it gets you to the plot as soon as possible. Well, conflict, action, or something going on, to be exact.

Compare starting with exposition of, say, the appearance of the MC. I think this is fine if it has something to do with the conflict(like that tentacle growing out of the MC's head), but if the MC looks normal, then the reader won't care.

Exposition of this fantasy kingdom and their century-long war? This is also an option, but in my opinion, readers give more concern to a character(or a standpoint), than objective explanation of things(in this case, Kingdom X) that may not have anything to do with the standpoint character in the bigger story. This doesn't only apply to fantasy story, another example would be expositions about a certain high school, family, neighborhood, etc.

Starting with a thought? Whether it's the narrator's thought or, in a 3rd person POV, a character's thought(which most likely be the MC), gives a good chance for characterization, indirectly show the character's appearance, the standpoint, and maybe the conflict. But then again, assume it's in 3rd person view, it's always better to show the conflict as it happen(or part/result/cause of the conflict) than giving the reader walls of text of how s/he feels about the conflict.
As for the 1st person version of this option, I personally have no idea as it's an issue I'm having problem with myself...

edit:
Forgot an important point.
Rosey said she doesn't like InMediasRes, I feel the same way, but only because it can cause confusion(and sometimes readers may be annoyed when they feel the writer expects them to understand things easily when sometimes it's not).
But all in all, InMediasRes is a brilliant way to start stories(assuming the readers have no problem following) as it lets the reader jump in to the bat-mobile and feel the intensity of the ride exactly how batman feels the ride.
The key here is, only do it if you can set a simple scene to throw your reader right in the middle of it, a scene that anyone can understand who to root for, who to despise(if any), when to laugh, what to feel regarding the situation, etc.



edit2:
Actually, I was about to open a thread about this myself but here's one already.

So, for me it's basically about beginning in 1st person. How should I start it? Since it's in 1st person, that means the viewpoint character need to have a reason why he goes all "I woke up, fell out of bed and even skipped breakfast. I hurried to my garden to check if the bloody object from last night was still there. blabla", and that reason is often because he's talking about a certain conflict he's having.

Of course, it can also start in a seemingly normal mood such as "The birds were chirping and I sent the alarm clock flying right when it started to ring. blabla. blabla. I never thought I'd have another normal morning after what happened yesterday" <-- My point is, even if it starts normally, the MC's story will definitely leads to the conflict he had.

Right?

My question is, what if the conflict is either not so simple that the reader can sympathize straight away, or if the conflict is actually a collection of conflicts, and these conflicts concerns the MC(as in, drove the MC to start being the narrator/tell his story) just recently, after this one single conflict that sealed the deal.
That 2nd point may be kind of hard to understand so I'll just an example.
Lets just say the MC is a government official and the collection of conflicts are, say, aliens coming to earth, setting up a place to stay and hogging up land space, and this super humongous alien finally reached earth to take shelter and this one alien is what makes the MC(who is a government official) to start this movement/law/treaty/whatever, and the story starts from there.

So yeah, in 1st person case, what if that's the case(the conflict is not so simple/actually a collection of conflicts), and what if, to top it off, it's set in a heavy fantasy world(the only way I can make an example about the alien there is because it's not set in a fantasy world, so readers can at least relate straight away. That one's based on Men in Black anyways).

In 3rd person, I think it'll be easy. But in 1st person, how can this be done? This is the issue I'm having and I haven't been able to progress at all, all because of not knowing how to begin it.



edit3:
Sorry for the very very long post >_<

You start a first person story pretty much the same way as you'd start a third person story.

You don't have to start the story right after they wake up, unless you have a good reason like the "didn't think the morning could be normal after yesterday".

Some rules of thumb for first person that might not apply to third:

1- Keep in mind how your character would react. Not everybody reacts the same way, and that determines the tone of the whole beginning.
2- Start with only what the character knows. Your conflict can be superomgcomplicated but it's unlikely the MC knows all of it, especially at the start of the story. Use this to your advantage to simplify the whole thing.
3- What makes your character so important that they're the ones reporting on the event?

Past that, it's keeping in mind general beginning advice. First person could mean that you take a clueless reader along for the same ride as a clueless MC, or you spend the extra time filling in a slowly unfolding situation.

As with all beginnings, you need to remember that no matter how complicated the situation, you need to unfold it slowly. Even if the MC knows everything about the situation, only have him run into parts of the conflict one at a time, with enough space to have the plot sink in. Avoid a beginning infodump.

Does that help?

Yeah, in a way.
Unfolding things slowly/one at a time seems to be the key. Lots of people have told me that many times.
I'm having a really hard time trying to apply it to my works, though...

It's like, if the viewpoint character/MC is a typical hero, then having him start not knowing everything seems possible.
But what if the viewpoint character is someone like Gandalf from LotR, who have lived for a long time. Lets call the conflict that drove him to tell his story as Conflict X, and he happens to know the root of this conflict X(lets just say, Sauron's prime motive, what happened to the ring, who defeated him and made him lose the ring, etc), and the start of the story doesn't start with him(as the MC) wondering/learning about what's going on, but straight away to the stage of 'what to do to this situation'.

Why I'm saying it's so much easier in 3rd person is because, 3rd person can limit it's exposition from going to a character's mind too much, so, like in LotR's case, the narrator can easily say things like 'Gandalf looked worried, but didn't say anything to Frodo. Instead, he left the house calmly, leaving Frodo behind with confusion.', instead of explaining everything that's running in Gandalf's mind.

If your character knows it all, and the conflict is being removed because of it, then you have to figure out what else makes the main conflict. Think about the situation differently than the typical "find the motive" plot. You have to focus on other conflicts to take the book forward, because there has to be a reason the super old MC is involved in the first place.

Think about them in more detail. Destroy the old "MC finds the solution" paradigm and replace it with "MC implements the solution." You have to toss in more subplots, and find ways to keep things more interesting besides discovering the motive, but it should be doable.

Also, why does this character have to be in first person? My rule of thumb for first person is, unless they come with their own voice that cannot be captured in third person, and the other factors surrounding the story make it possible to use first person, don't use it. The reason I ask is that you seem to be convincing yourself to use first person, when you'd much rather do it in third.

I'm doing it in 1st person for some critical reason. It doesn't have much to do with the beginning so I guess it's not important to bring it up(and it'll be another 2000 words essay post so I'll refrain from talking it up)

Think about them in more detail. Destroy the old "MC finds the solution" paradigm and replace it with "MC implements the solution."

This is what the main plot is all about, and everyone I've told this to thinks it's super cool. But of course, beginning it will be hell, since the biggest problem here is how can I make the reader 'care' about the situation enough to care about the solution, much less care about the MC implementing the solution.
It's like following the start of LotR with lots of histories about the battles in the past, just to find yourself in Bilbo's birthday scene as the scene in focus. That's why LotR didn't have the long history of the previous battles centuries ago in the prologue/beginning. There IS a boring 20 page prologue full of exposition, in fact, but it's an explanation of only one thing, the Hobbits, which is acceptable because the story starts in the Hobbit village.

You have to toss in more subplots, and find ways to keep things more interesting besides discovering the motive, but it should be doable.

Desperately trying this, but fails every time the feeling of 'why is the MC talking/thinking/doing about other things besides getting on with implementing the solution already?' Every time I put myself in the readers' shoe and read my own 1st chapter by going with a subplot, I have that feeling that the writer(which is myself) is giving too much courtesy and trying to avoid the plot that matters, since the 'solution' itself is very simple that adding a subplot to 'smooth-en the reader's ability to digest what they're reading is not necessary.
The conflict and the root of the problem is the one that's difficult for me to deliver.

Your beginning is going to be bad your first draft. You can think whatever you want about it, but it's going to be bad. The way I've found to improve beginnings is to write past it. Once you're past it, and have stopped working about how to introduce everything, you start to settle into the plot's rhythm and character's voice. This is especially true for first person, when you do need a lot of time to settle into the character's voice and how they're going to describe events. It's taken me a few years and 5+ drafts over 20k to dial in on my MC's voice.

Do not rewrite just the beginning over and over again. What you think is important at the beginning changes the farther down you go. In my drafts, I've always tried to write as far into the story I can before rewriting, just to get the best idea about the situation as possible.

Also, when I said "subplots" I didn't mean "secondary plot that distracts from the main plot." I meant, "thing stopping the main plot from being implemented that are big enough to add tension for how they'll get out of the situation." Basically, lots of road blocks.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:Also, when I said "subplots" I didn't mean "secondary plot that distracts from the main plot." I meant, "thing stopping the main plot from being implemented that are big enough to add tension for how they'll get out of the situation." Basically, lots of road blocks.

Ah, Ok. Wow, this gave me a lot of ideas all of a sudden.

Anyways, what you said was awesome! I'll see what I can do now. Thanks !