z

Young Writers Society


How to start your story!



User avatar
547 Reviews

Supporter


Gender: Female
Points: 49345
Reviews: 547
Mon Apr 12, 2010 12:04 am
View Likes
captain.classy says...



Ever have a great idea and you just can't start it? Then you get frustrated and start from the middle, even though you know that it's not going to turn out right? I hope I can help you, because I have issues with that myself...

(I will be using my story Wolf Wars for examples)

You don't want your story to have a cliche beginning (such as "once upon a time...) but you could use those cliche's to help you! Use it as a filler, just to get you started. Sometimes I do that to get myself going!

Example:

Once upon a time, a wild pack of wolves ran through the forest...


changed to

Under the green of the trees, and above the brown of their roots, a small pack ran, hoping to reach their destinations by sundown.


Sometimes you just need a start!

Now... when you get down to the first few paragraphs, there are specific things you want to do.

You need to figure out what is your story about? What is the question you or your character will be answering in this story? Ex. Does love exist? Will they accept me? Things like that need to be introduced to us.

For example:

Wolf Wars is about this young society that tries to gain back territory that the wolves have taken from them. In the first paragraph I say:

The dominating species had run them out of their homes, and taken everything they had, including those who could not survive against them.


Now, you might not want to be as blunt as this, but you should hint towards in issue in your first few paragraphs.

If you use the above tactic and your characters appropriately, you should have readers on the hook! What I mean by using characters is creating that character that everyone wants to hear about.

Of course I'm not talking about a Mary-Sue, I'm talking about a corrupt character with a big heart, maybe one with a heart for you MC, or maybe they will be your MC! A character that people want to be saved. It will be hard to do this in the first few paragraphs, I know, but you have to do it!

Hope this helped! Writing first paragraphs and such is hard. :)
  





User avatar



Gender: Female
Points: 300
Reviews: 0
Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:37 pm
View Likes
GummiBearNinja72 says...



http://www.writingfix.com/right_brain/story_starting_sentences1.htm

This helped me alot ^^^^ :D lots of very good ideas!
"I FEEL IT'S ONLY FAIR TO WARN YOU THAT I AM IN FACT A LIBRARIAN!!"

"I'm gonna steal it."
"Yea....what?"
"I'm gonna steal the declaration of independance."
"Uh - BEN!"

"Because...you love me?"
"Aye little one. I do."
  








GET ON IT PEEPS
— Nate