Starting a story

[SamScribble]

I had an interesting discussion with a couple of writer friends the other day.

We all started writing back in the 1960s. (Yeah, I know – some of you are wondering if we even had pencils back in those days. I can assure you that we did. We even had typewriters: the epitome of hi-tech.)

All three of us were lucky enough to have good mentors. But each of our mentors had a different view on how the start a story.

Liz’s mentor stressed ‘establishing the scene’. Greg’s mentor counselled ‘build the drama’. And Don, my mentor, used to say: ‘Remember … write a first sentence that leaves the reader with no option other than reading the next sentence.’

I think I have spent the past 50 plus years with Don’s voice in my ear. But what about you? What advice did you get when you started out? And has it served you well?

 

[GoldenCojones]

The Catch

My first creative writing teacher told us we had to start with a catch. A sentence or paragraph that "hooked" the reader.

Trouble is, I suck at taking advice and I suck at the first sentence of a story. So I tend to go with another writers advice given when I was young "Start at the beginning of the story." Sometimes it's hard to know where the story really begins though. I've gone back to stories I've written and slapped my forehead going, "duh! the story started here, not there. Damn."

 

[sr71plt]

In the 60s, I was told to establish a mood and mystery. Trends change, though, Since John Grisham, I most often hear "start in action and chaos and make the reader work out of it."

For erotica, I more often then not start in the sex.

I haven't worked about the first sentence for years.

 

[Hypoxia]

I usually start with something.

Then I follow that with something else.

Otherwise there's no formula -- it happens, or not.

This ain't like writing software, with initialization-process-termination stages, nor tech manuals, with overviews and closeups and checklists, nope.

Sure, formulas are nice; tragedy works for me, and excessive sex.

But I'm still fairly new at this.

Should I sell out?

 

[TxRad]

Where or even when to start a story is never easy. I've started storyies on both ends and everywhere in the middle. Listen to the voices of the story and they will usually tell you. Hooks at the start are good. There's nothing like a happy hooker but not all stories have them.

My first story ended up being a 287 page novel. I started it at one place and then five chapters later I rearranged the whole mess to start somewhere else. Sometimes the start ain't where you think it is.

 

[Handley_Page]

Quote: "Begin at the beginning, go to the end; then stop"


BTW. I have an old Olivetti electric if anyone wants it. And yes, you can plug it into your computer (but don't ask which sort).
.

 

[le_kitty]

I had an interesting discussion with a couple of writer friends the other day.

We all started writing back in the 1960s. (Yeah, I know – some of you are wondering if we even had pencils back in those days. I can assure you that we did. We even had typewriters: the epitome of hi-tech.)

All three of us were lucky enough to have good mentors. But each of our mentors had a different view on how the start a story.

Liz’s mentor stressed ‘establishing the scene’. Greg’s mentor counselled ‘build the drama’. And Don, my mentor, used to say: ‘Remember … write a first sentence that leaves the reader with no option other than reading the next sentence.’

I think I have spent the past 50 plus years with Don’s voice in my ear. But what about you? What advice did you get when you started out? And has it served you well?

Typewriters! You mean those clunky things that you can't backspace on? I've got to go buy myself one.

Starting out I found mentors in online articles and magazines on the craft of writing. The one line that stuck and got repeated by everyone was "show don't tell".

I'd say the advice is pretty solid, it's so ingrained it's always there now. I think of it as painting with words. Storytelling itself is linear, even if behind the scenes can be everywhere. So there's a sense of forward momentum in that piece of advice which I like. Not sure if it's the tip of the iceberg or just another portion of it.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Whatever you do make it interesting.

Only the dregs remain.

The junkies, who punch holes in their arms with hypodermic needles and live in a world of cocaine and heroin and morphine, a sticky pink world of nothing happening, a world where the only important activity is taking a fix and the only important person is the connection, the pusher, the Man.

The queers, male and female. Fags, dykes, queens, swishes, homos, lesbos, butches. The gay set, a subculture with a thousand nicknames. Drifting back and forth in shadows, men with false breasts and lipstick on their mouths, women in pants who swagger and curse like truck drivers.

And the Sick Ones—Not junkies or queers necessarily, but sick, twisted, perverted men and women out on a hell-for-leather hunt for kicks, for something new and something different.



Block, Lawrence (2012-07-17). 69 Barrow Street

 

[Weird Harold]

Sit down at the keyboard and let the words flow through your fingers until you run out of words.

Then delete the two-thirds that are total crap and edit what remains into a story.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

There's no one way.

My most successful series is Why I Hate My Roommate. The first paragraph: "I kind of hate my roommate."

It would be hard to be more banal. But there's a very low barrier to entry: if you got past the title you're already inclined to accept the first paragraph verbatim. The second paragraph starts to define why it's not really hate, and within a few sentences you're sucked into the main character's world. I get you interested in the drama of the main character.

I use the same trick to a very different effect in "Why I Love My Job." First paragraph? "I work for the Company; and I have to tell you, it’s great." Again, banal. But here the hook isn't personal drama. The reader stares for a moment at that "the Company" and gets primed for an alternative universe setting where a corporation is in control. I'm hooking you on the setting. The main character is an asshole (it takes him many chapters to be anything else) so starting with a focus on the setting was all I could do.

My favorite opening is a total cliche, but everyone I showed it to instantly begged me to continue it, so I knew I had a good hook:

The year is 122 in the year of the Caliphate Which Is Fallen; or 2616 in the common calendar. My name is Alani, and I am or was a princess of the nation of Kilmjada in the world of Harvi 4. The title is in doubt because I have been captured by the marauding armies of the Raja Nir, I believe my people to be defeated, and I fear for my life and honor. There being no hope of rescue, I will die by my own hand at the first opportunity, but for now I am chained by the ankle and locked inside a crate used for livestock, with a few of my possessions. The pod I scribe on has been disabled so that it cannot transmit or record, but at least I can still scribe on it.

The first three sentences do all the heavy lifting. It's a future history story in sentence one, and there's political chaos hinted at; it's about a princess in sentence two and the drama of her ambiguous state is established by the "am or was", and by sentence three you're fascinated by her plight and feeling sympathy. I doubt I'll ever write a better hook. It even survives that crappy last sentence.

There's some risk in a good hook. That last one generated everyone's sympathy for Alani. But I decided to write it "realistically", and very little good happens to her in the story, though in the end she does escape alive. The series rated ok, all over the place from 4.5 to 4.75, but a number of readers were furious because they basically demanded a Disney Princess who kicks ass and rules all. The hook at the beginning pointed to an ending that I wasn't going to write, and that cost me in the ratings.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Best opening line in modern(-ish) movie dramas, imo:

'course you have to have the right voice...

"How does a nightmare begin?" (Rod Serling).

(And I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the initial explanation in that flick of the 'how,' there was also something about late nights, tiredness, being lost, and only the dregs remaining.)

 

[karaline]

I'm not very good at posting pictures on here, so I'm giving you a link instead. I saw the other day -about your opening line and I found it interesting.

https://www.facebook.com/writerscir...10046421290/10153786835631291/?type=3&theater