http:\/\/www.gailcarsonlevine.com\/news.html<\/a>. Just click on the first video with the nightscape and full moon.<\/p>\nOn April 11, 2016, Nicole wrote:<\/p>\n
Q#1-How do I write the beginning and get the ball rolling? I always have exact plans for how I want the plot, middle, and ending to go, but when I plan on paper, my beginning always reads something like, \u201cMC Jane sat on her bed eating a donut.\u201d No specifics. I\u2019m blank on how to start the story to get the reader interested. I\u2019ve re-read my old works and they\u2019re always boring and dry in the first few paragraphs.<\/em><\/p>\nNicole had two more questions about beginnings, which I\u2019m saving for my next post.<\/p>\n
Christie V Powell responded:<\/p>\n
1. Beginnings are the hardest part for me. The rest of the writing goes okay, but getting started feels like pulling teeth, one word at a time. Sometimes telling myself to just write something, no matter the quality, and I\u2019ll fix it later, helps a little. Another thing that sometimes helps, if you know the ending, is to figure out what opening might start your story heading toward that eventual ending\u2013my WIP starts with the main character sneaking into an enemy camp, which she will have to do again, more dangerously, in the climax.<\/em><\/p>\nAnd Christie V Powell had more to say, which I\u2019m also holding back till next time.<\/p>\n
I agree with Christie V Powell\u00a0that not worrying about the beginning is important. My beginnings usually change and often disappear. As a pantser, I don\u2019t even always know what story I\u2019m really telling when I start.<\/p>\n
Below, just for fun, are the first three paragraphs from the earliest version of The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em> that I can find, which I think I also put in Writing Magic<\/em>::<\/p>\nFable has multiplied us. Perhaps the hall of mirrors where we danced is to blame. Instead of twenty-four, we were only six. Three princesses. Three princes.<\/em><\/p>\nThere was always one soldier. Fable did not multiply him. Fable couldn\u2019t, not such a one as he. But the old woman, the one who gave him the cloak of invisibility, she is entirely fable. There was no such person.<\/em><\/p>\nAnd Father did not have any princes killed. He has many faults, but murder is not one of them. The fable is more exciting, I suppose, if the princes have to pay for failure with their lives. But it strains credulity, and it simply wasn\u2019t true.<\/em><\/p>\nIt\u2019s a nice beginning. Maybe someday I can go back to it, but not a sentence of it appears in the published book. I was trying to novelize \u201cThe Twelve Dancing Princesses,\u201d which I found impossible, although others have succeeded. My story changed, and I discarded the beginning, although, obviously, following my own advice, I saved it.<\/p>\n
However, even in this aborted attempt, I was following one of Christie V Powell\u2019s suggestions, in that I was setting up my story. I knew I couldn\u2019t deal with twenty-four main characters, so I shrank the number right off. And, since I had never been able to figure out the motivation of the old lady with the cloak of invisibility, I ditched her. Finally, I eliminated all the decapitated un-enchanted princes, because I couldn’t tolerate all those innocent deaths.<\/p>\n
Christie V Powell\u2019s idea is even better, though: to hint at the conflict that will motivate the whole story. Let\u2019s see if we can do so using Nicole\u2019s example: Jane sat on her bed eating a donut with Christie\u2019s advice<\/em>.<\/p>\nRemember lists, a writer\u2019s most useful tool, from a recent post? Let\u2019s list how we might use the sentence to foreshadow what will go on in our story. Below is a list of eight possibilities As an early prompt, come up with four more. Notice that mine got wilder as I kept going. No idea is too foolish to go on a list:<\/p>\n
\u2219 The donut is poisoned.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Jane is stress-eating.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Jane\u2019s dad is strict! If he catches her eating in her room, the consequences will be dire.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Jane\u2019s school has started a program to reduce obesity among the student body. When she gets to school she will have to get on a scale. She\u2019s overweight, and a lot of shaming is going on.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Same as the last one, except Jane was only a pound over her ideal weight the last week, but she’s a perfectionist.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Someone is hiding under Jane’s bed.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Jane is secretly a super hero whose power comes from donuts.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Jane\u2019s house is about to explode, and she will be the sole survivor.<\/p>\n
Nicole asked how to get into specifics, and Christie V Powell suggested that the direction of the story can help. So let\u2019s look at a few of my possibilities. If the donut is poisoned, we will probably dwell on its appearance, flavor, smell, taste, and we may reveal\u2013or hold off on revealing\u2013where the donut came from. If Jane\u2019s house is about to explode and the explosion isn\u2019t connected to the donut and she\u2019s going to lose some of the people she loves the most, we may want to go into detail about how the donut came to her. Did somebody buy her favorite flavor for her? Or did her brother buy the kind she hates most because they\u2019re arguing? Or anything else that may heighten what comes next.<\/p>\n
So this strategy is to think about whatever we started with and how it fits into the main idea of our story. If we don\u2019t see an obvious connection, we make a list.<\/p>\n
Another strategy is to write the stuff that seems boring to you, just to do it, just to get it out of the way and move onto the part you\u2019re happy about. When you get a few pages into that and your story is rolling along, go back and escort the beginning you don\u2019t like into a separate document, so you\u2019re saving it but you\u2019re not keeping it in the story.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like dry and boring beginnings\u2013who does? And we want to avoid having them, but we also don\u2019t need the terrible pressure of feeling our beginning has to be perfect or that we have to snag people in the first sentence. Most readers will hang in for a few paragraphs or a few pages. Some forgiving readers will hang in a lot longer. They will have liked the cover, the jacket copy, and they\u2019ll wait to be rewarded. One of my favorite books (It\u2019s for adults but as I remember it, it should be fine for middle school readers. Still check with an actual grownup to be sure.) is Time and Again<\/em> by Jack Finney, which doesn\u2019t really get good until around page fifty-one. It\u2019s a time travel historical novel about New York City at the time when money was being raised to erect the Statue of Liberty. It\u2019s got adventure and romance, and one learns a lot.<\/p>\nHere are four prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2219 Pick one of my or your donut possibilities and write the story.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Change the beginning of your donut story so there\u2019s no donut and it starts at a different point.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write the beginning of a long version of one of my favorite myths: \u201cCupid and Psyche.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write a shopping list and make it the beginning of your story, and through the items on the list start the main conflict.<\/p>\n
Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before I start the post, there\u2019s this: Reggie bit our garden hose in hopes of creating a fountain\u2013and succeeded. I discovered it because I heard clicking, which turned out to come from Reggie\u2019s teeth as he bit water repeatedly. David caught it all on video and put it on my website. If you have any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}