Young Writers Society

as stated in the title, I need some help. I just can not write down that first sentence!

I have the same problem sometimes. What I found helps is reading a bunch of other beginnings to get me in the mood- take down some novels and read their beginnings.

Also it helps to remember that the first draft isn't perfect; just start writing, it doesn't have to be pretty. Even if you hve to start with "once upon a time" at least you've started. It could even be a decent hook with that, like: "once upon a time I shot my boyfriend". Now we're wondering why the MC would do that, so we keep reading.

Those are my tips for starting a story- but for writing something that will keep people reading, I'd pass on the advice to start with the story. Don't start when the MC wakes up, and go through their daily routine, don't start with a character thinking about some deep thoughts about the universe. Start at a cliff. Start where it's either jump or face their fears, or both. Start where the story begins- we can learn about their favourite cereal later, for now we want to be told a story.

Hopefully I made some sense. Best wishes!

One thing that will help you figure out where to start your story is to ask yourself what kind of story you're trying to tell. What is going to change about your main character over the course of the story? Is this a revenge story, a love story, an adventure? Once you figure that out, you'll be able to start figuring out the "promises" you need to make to the reader, the things you need to set up at the beginning for the rest of your story to be satisfying. Once you know what you need to set up, you have an idea of where to start.

The other thing I find works really well for some people is to not start at the beginning at all.

Seriously. Almost every writer has those four or five scenes that they've been dying to write ever since they first thought of the story. Start there. Start at the part you're most excited to write about, and sort of fill in the rest of the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle as you write. Remember, editing can always come later.

Ooh, this is a hard one. There are different ways you can write your opening, and it all depends on the story. I think these are the most common approaches,

Connect with the audience;
"Call me Ishmael" - Moby Dick, Herman Melville.
This is renown as one of the best opening sentences in literature because it immediately connects with the audience. It does a powerful thing. In three words it creates a complex relationship between the reader and the narrator. 'Call me X' is a phrase usually used when telling someone to use a more familiar name, which instantly binds that relationship as something familiar, however, the light use of instruction in this case sets an immediate precedent of leader/follower. Essentially what it's saying is 'call me by a familiar name and I'll lead you the rest of the way.'

Dive in head first;
"They shoot the white girl first." - Paradise, Toni Morrison.
The trick with this kind of opening is that it's not about the action at all, but the amount of significance it carries. You have to remember to create an environment as well as a state of panic. It invites themes of murder, hostage, innocence and racism in the time it takes for an unknown antagonist to pull a trigger.

Create a mystery;
"First the colours. Then the humans. That's usually how I see things. Or at least, how I try. Here is a small fact; you are going to die." - The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak.
This opening is broken into several sentences that each play a different part of a jigsaw puzzle. The intrigue is not so much in a particularly grand occurrence, but more in figuring out how these things are meant to fit together and why they, in this instance, don't. The important part is that it creates a sense of character in the narrator. A mystery without a sense of character is just a riddle with a punch line.

There are probably other approaches, but I think this is a topic I need to research more to give any kind of depth to.

Oh! Important thing to remember; once you have your opening sentence, write it down and stick with it. If in the future you come up with a better idea you can come back to edit it, but it's very easy to get bogged down trying to write and rewrite a great opening, and eventually it'll drag down your self confidence, especially when you realise five chapters in that you have a new idea but don't want to overwrite the previous that you worked so hard on.

Hope this helps!

Ah, an easy age-old question to ask, that has sparked entire books, discussions, and arguments. Unfortunately there's no right answer, especially since everyone disagrees on what a hook even is.

The first sentence is one part of the bigger picture. Personally, I think first sentences are overrated. I think the first paragraph is where the power is. But when it comes to thinking about the hook... it's tricky. You need a hooky first sentence so they read the first paragraph. You need a hooky first paragraph so they read the second paragraph. You need a hooky first page so they go on to page two. You need a hooky first chapter so they'll read the second chapter. Is any specific one THE hook, more than the others? Idk. You need them all.

Not every book has a first-line zinger. Kind of depends on the world, the character, the situation. Taking two examples from my favourite author, Brandon Sanderson, here's one that really does slap you in the face immediately:

Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eternity.

Wow. Must know what happened there, huh?

But in another book, he goes for a more setting-evocative line.

Ash fell from the sky.

It's not a zinger, but I still find it effective. It establishes what's unique about the world, it raises questions, it paints an interesting picture. It's not HOLY CRAP, but it's EFFECTIVE.

My first line, at least until an editor changes it, is...

Iari drew a shaky breath and checked the time, dark digits on the frosted glass of the lounge window.

My first PARAGRAPH, on the other hand, is...

Iari drew a shaky breath and checked the time, dark digits on the frosted glass of the lounge window. 7:92. Eight minutes until he betrayed his best friend.

My recommendation is don't overthink the first sentence. If you can get an amazing awesome zinger, great. But what you really need is a strong first paragraph. I strongly believe people's reading momentum will get them through the first paragraph before they've had time to stop and think too much about the first sentence. But there's a natural pause before the second paragraph, so you need to have grabbed them by then. I think that first paragraph needs elements of plot, setting, and character. If any one of them is missing, you're going to have to play catch-up in paragraph 2.

The other thing is... you won't know where to start until you've written the ending. Honest to god, I PROMISE, your first chapter will change once you know the ending. The very ending. There's something about needing the symmetry, needing to know what promises to make, what call-backs the last chapter is going to utilize. It's tempting to frustratedly tweak the opening over and over again, but no matter how much you do, it WILL change once you've written the rest of the book. So don't waste too much time stressing over it until then. After all, you may end up scrapping the entire chapter and starting in a whole different place, in which case, that beautiful perfect first line you spent a month perfecting, is going down the drain.

Here is a 15 minute podcast from Writing Excuses on first paragraphs. I'm sure they've talked about first lines and hooks in MANY different episodes, but this was the first one that came up when I searched:
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/08/1 ... aragraphs/

Write the whole book first, then pick your opening line for the rewrite.

I am of the firm believer you can't know where to start unless you know where you're going to end. So, to start a novel, literally just pick a place that sounds cool, and go. As you write, you will find that the plot would be so much better if you tweaked the beginning one way. Write that idea down and keep going. As you keep writing, you will find the plot would be so much better if you tweaked the beginning another way. Write that idea down and keep going.

Repeat until you're done.

Once you know where the story ends, in nitty gritty detail that only comes from writing it all, then you can start your novel.

Gonna echo Rosey here and say that your hook, prologue, even opening chapter will be of low quality until you know where you're going, who's going where, what's going to blow up, and really where the readers' emotions will fly.

Because you want to be that author, right? That author who is gawked over for foreshadowing MASSIVE EVENT X during tiny event a, yeah? The hook will come as more meat comes into the story. As more emotions come in and flow out. Once you understand them as a whole, you'll likely have no trouble at all choosing the hook, prologue, and opening chapter.

Then you redraw the whooooole fish scale by scale (but this time you know where the gills are.)

Something no one else has addressed that I think also needs addressing is to know your genre and its conventions.

Let's take Megrim's example of a gripping first-liner, a la Brandon Sanderson:

Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eternity.

Clearly it's a fantasy opener, and it works great as a fantasy opener, but imagine if this were the opener to a modern-day teen romance. That leaves a very different impression than if it were the opener to a historic murder mystery.

The perceived genre of your work adds a layer of context that you can exploit to give your hook an extra bit of oomph by playing to or counter to genre conventions, and you can look at successful works within your genre for ideas on how to tackle the hook.