How do you start your stories?

[YendorHawk]

Pardon me if this has been asked before, but here goes. First, second time posting to the literotica boards (I often do not have many questions of this nature). Second, my question. How do you start your stories? I have the basic plot worked out in my mind (at least the middle) but can't think of how to start it. Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks.

 

[AngeloMichael]

Starting stories is the hardest part for me. I hate staring at a completely white page. If I can just imagine what my character is doing I can describe it and then let that lead into some exposition. I can always edit the beginning later, which I normally do. Once I have at least a page written it goes smoother from there.

Lately I've tried beginning stories with a bit of dialogue that grabs you. I find I get involved faster with others' stories that begin that way.

 

[Tom Collins]

Starting stories is the hardest part for me. I hate staring at a completely white page. If I can just imagine what my character is doing I can describe it and then let that lead into some exposition. I can always edit the beginning later, which I normally do. Once I have at least a page written it goes smoother from there.

Lately I've tried beginning stories with a bit of dialogue that grabs you. I find I get involved faster with others' stories that begin that way.

Hmmm...I'm having this same problem, for the first time, and your suggestion just might help me out.

Thanks, Angelo baby.

 

[3113]

Simple rule: The story starts the day the universe changed.

Now that change can be a in a person's small, personal universe (the day he walked up to her window at the bank, or the day his wife left him, or the day he finally decided to open his mouth and say something to her...). The Good Earth starts on the day a young man gets married and his wife changes his life. Hamlet starts the day a ghost appears on the battlements.

OR it can be a change in the greater universe: the day Pearl Harbor was bombed and suddenly all young men had to go to war. The Grapes of Wrath starts with the "day" that the dust storms arrived and put farmers out of business and on the road.

Does that help?

 

[YendorHawk]

The story is going to be about a young man (25, so not really that young), who gets into a car accident and, while in the hospital, the doctors discover the car crash jarred a benign tumor, causing it to separate from (or attach to?) the brain, but is located in an area they cannot operate. From there, he's going to discover various psychic abilities, such as telepathy, the ability to alter memories, etc. I don't want to start with the car crash itself, was thinking about starting with the area he lives in (not even a description of him). Starting with an "overview" of the area he lives in, then "zooming" in to the neighborhood, his apartment, then him. My problem is, starting with that first **** sentence.

(Had to fix a wording issue, hence the edit)

 

[AngeloMichael]

Hmmm...I'm having this same problem, for the first time, and your suggestion just might help me out.

Thanks, Angelo baby.

You're welcome.

 

[3113]

The story is going to be about a young man (25, so not really that young), who gets into a car accident and, while in the hospital, the doctors discover the car crash jarred a benign tumor, causing it to separate from (or attach to?) the brain, but is located in an area they cannot operate. From there, he's going to discover various psychic abilities, such as telepathy, the ability to alter memories, etc.

Um...isn't this The Dead Zone?

I think your problem would be solved if you create a different sort of accident so it's less "Dead Zone-ish"--perhaps something to do with a sporting accident? A fall while skate or skiboarding, ice skating or rock climbing. Or it could involve his work--if he's a cop or fireman and in some sort of bad building or dangerous staircase, or a contractor or just a construction worker checking out a condemned site, or just a guy chasing a cat up a tree. Something like that.

This way you can give an overview of the town as the protagonist engages in this dangerous activity (which looks over or requires a trip through the town to get there)--and then has his accident. Something like that.

 

[YendorHawk]

lol, I honestly wasn't thinking of Dead Zone, and that's more of a coma. His would've been a short, but ICU, stay. Good point. Hmm...I do have his hobbies sorta planned out, I could run with a mugging gone bad (the brainstorming sessions has him as a belt in a martial art). Whether he was the victim or tried to stop it would be the next question...

 

[craupadine_girl]

I might start that one on the day he starts to experience psychic behavior, and then you could work back to the accident to fill in the background. 1) Weird thing happens to him, 2) Wow! I'm psychic. 3) How did that happen? Oh, probably that brain tumor and accident.

 

[YendorHawk]

"...I might start that one on the day he starts to experience psychic behavior..."

I'll see if I can bandy it about into an opening story. I appreciate the help so far (*much* better than some of the boards I posted on asking for help).

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

The only unbreakable rule in commercial fiction is don't bore your reader. That said, the opening of a story has ONE job--hook the reader. That being the case, it's usually a good idea to avoid describing the setting or weather (It was a dark and stormy night) unless they're unique and play a key role in the story.

Direct quotations, unless very short, can also be a problem because the reader usually doesn't know who is speaking. "Call me Ishmael" is an exception since the quote identifies the speaker.

The advice 3113 gave is, in my humble opinion, the best to follow (nothing new there). Start with action when something has changed or is changing.

Whatever you decide, good luck and welcome to the AH.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[3113]

I might start that one on the day he starts to experience psychic behavior, and then you could work back to the accident to fill in the background. 1) Weird thing happens to him, 2) Wow! I'm psychic. 3) How did that happen? Oh, probably that brain tumor and accident.

I think the accident--a mugging gone wrong, is a great way to grab the reader. You don't want to flash back to action, you want to start with it.

What I would avoid would be knowing exactly what's happened. Don't have him have the accident, end up in the hospital, and be told that his tumor has gone weird and THEN have psychic incidents. That slows things down. You want to go from mugging to incidents ASAP. As his psyhic abilities are the story, yes?

So, Let him be knocked about or out during the mugging, end up in the hospital or just brusied and back home ("Hey, I'm all right, really," he says to the guy/girl he saved. "Here's your wallet back"). THEN he has a weird incident or two. THAT makes him go to a specialist who gives him an MRI and finds out what's happened with the tumor.

Thus, you get the action of the accident and the weird incidents to nab the reader before you need to slow down for an explaination download.

And I'd have him playing hero, trying to stop a mugging. That makes him someone we can care about--someone trying to help others.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I have the opposite problem, Yendor. Beginnings... Yesterday I started eight different stories in one day. I can usually hear the opening paragraph in my head within a couple of seconds. My problem is finishing. I don't know if it's because I over-edit, or I have some form of ADHD, but I can't seem to finish a single damn story these days. Maybe we should hook up?

 

[vampiredust]

I like to create a really great opening line and build everything from that

 

[YendorHawk]

I think the accident--a mugging gone wrong, is a great way to grab the reader. You don't want to flash back to action, you want to start with it.

What I would avoid would be knowing exactly what's happened. Don't have him have the accident, end up in the hospital, and be told that his tumor has gone weird and THEN have psychic incidents. That slows things down. You want to go from mugging to incidents ASAP. As his psyhic abilities are the story, yes?

So, Let him be knocked about or out during the mugging, end up in the hospital or just brusied and back home ("Hey, I'm all right, really," he says to the guy/girl he saved. "Here's your wallet back"). THEN he has a weird incident or two. THAT makes him go to a specialist who gives him an MRI and finds out what's happened with the tumor.

Thus, you get the action of the accident and the weird incidents to nab the reader before you need to slow down for an explaination download.

And I'd have him playing hero, trying to stop a mugging. That makes him someone we can care about--someone trying to help others.

Hmmm...sound advice. Now, to sit down and try it out (chuckles) That's another problem I'm having lately, sitting down and starting the story, even if I have advice to work with.

 

[3113]

Hmmm...sound advice. Now, to sit down and try it out (chuckles) That's another problem I'm having lately, sitting down and starting the story, even if I have advice to work with.

Well, let me ask you, is this a Short story or novel? A story for Lit or someplace else? If Lit...what category?

 

[YendorHawk]

Mind control story, not a novel, but a long story.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I always advise...

"Start right smack dab in the middle of the action."

If your guy is a psychic-from-trauma kind of guy... go ahead and start with a particularly wild mind-read or something--like "screaming in his head, someone's about to murder somebody" kind of wild. And then, treat the scene as though the audience already knows sorta what's going on. Use the rest of the story to explain.

 

[cantdog]

I might start that one on the day he starts to experience psychic behavior, and then you could work back to the accident to fill in the background. 1) Weird thing happens to him, 2) Wow! I'm psychic. 3) How did that happen? Oh, probably that brain tumor and accident.

That's what King did in Dead Zone. But he had a novel. If it's a short, I'd say start in the middle. Grab the reader by the throat and yank him into your world.

 

[3113]

Mind control story, not a novel, but a long story.

Okay, next question. Is he a hero...or anti-hero? That is, is he going to use mind control to save the girl and do in the bad guys, or is this going to be one of those stories about a mind-control geek using his abilities to get lots of sex and embarass the people who have done him wrong?

 

[Aurora Black]

Um...isn't this The Dead Zone?

Evian spew!

(Carry on, folks. )

 

[zeb1094]

Starting stories is easy, it's getting them complete I have trouble with. Even if I know how I want them the end, getting there is a struggle.

When an idea pops into my head it is usually accompanied by the beginning and the end but no middle. So I just write until the beginning is done and then write the end hoping by then that the middle will have sorted itself out.

 

[Affirmation]

You might try starting with the operation -- your Psi-Guy is in theatre, under anesthetic, having weird dreams... intercut with the physical procedure that he's undergoing.

You could have the "real" events of the operation written in short, punchy paragraphs, and in italics.

Perhaps he wakes up, mid-procedure, and has a psychic vision about one of the surgeons?

In recovery, he could remember the accident, and who he is (sketch in some detail about your Psi-Guy and his world).

--Affirmation

 

[Aurora Black]

It depends on what I feel the story calls for, and it depends on my mood.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Two things here-- (a) WHERE do you start the story, meaning, at what point in the action do you drop your reader, and (b) Just what do you say in an opening paragraph. (I disagree wiwth the dictum that says you have to grab the reader from the first sentence. I think most readers give you a couple paragrpahs before they decide where they want to read on or not.)

Without having thought too much about your story, my instincts says I'd begin it in the hospital, him lying in bed watching some god-awful game show or something on TV, and suddenly knowing very clearly that the man in the room behind him is dying--feeling his death. (Just how would you know pyschically that someone was dying? That's an interesting enough problem to grab a reader, I think. You wouldn't just see him with lillies in his hand and crosses on his eyes. You'd feel him slipping away, I suppose--his fear, his sense of peace, his last wishes, his dimming out...)

Personaly, in a story like this, I don't think just what happened to give him his psychic powers is of much importance at all. It has nothing to do with what happens in the story, does it? Just mention it and forget it. The story's about psychic powers, not about the accidents that cause them.

For just how I'd start it, I can tell you my probable first draft. "The contestant couldn't decided between door 1 or 3, and as the audience shreiked their advice and opinions, Joe decided he really didn't care..."

It starts with him in his hospital bed watching a game show on TV. Having been in the hospital lately, I was struck by the image of all these people lying in beds sick and dying, and what are they doing? Staring dully at "Let's Make A Deal" and "Shopping Networkl" and "Sports Central" and it just struck me as so sad and shocking that that's how we die these days, propped up in front of a fucking television in a hospital room with tubes stuck in us watching commercials for Ford Exlorers and Tidee Bowl.

The contrast between the contrived phoniness of a TV game show and Joe's sudden sensing of a human being's real death in a room down the hall would be very dramatic - the way the staff ignores him, his perception of the death, the horror and fear he experiences when he realizes he's become psychic. It's a great, chilling idea.

Anyhow, that's what came to my mind.