Where should I start my story? Am I the only person who struggles with such a question? Well, my trusty ol’ friend Dwight Swain would say: start with change.
There are three ways you can start with change:
1. Just before the change happens
2. Just as the change happens
3. Just after the change happens
Where you choose to start your story is a delicate balancing act, and here’s why:
1. If you start your story too far ahead of the change, you risk boring your readers.
2. If you start your story in the midst of the change, you risk distancing your readers. When a reader doesn’t understand the existing situation or the characters affected by the change, that reader might not give a hoot.
3. If you start your story after the change, you risk confusing your readers.
How’s that for helpful?
Some advice?
Play around with all three options. Write them. Read them. Have other people read them. And see which works best. What is writing, anyway, if not a huge experiment with words?
Now that we’ve established where to start (sort of), let’s look at how.
How do we start?
The answer is quite simple. Start by raising a question. And do it right away. In the first paragraph. Preferably, in the first line. If you establish a unique and intriguing question, right off the bat, your reader will want, no need, to read on in order to figure out the answer.
Here are some examples from my trusty book shelf:
Dragon Tears, by Dean Koontz: Tuesday was a fine California day, full of sunshine and promise, until Harry Lyon had to shoot someone at lunch.
Question: Why did Harry Lyon have to shoot someone?
Monster, by Walter Dean Myers: The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.
Questions: Why is this person crying? Where is he and why is he there? Whose getting beaten up?
The Cure, by Athol Dickson: Riley Keep returned to the scene of his disgrace in the back of a northbound pickup truck with New Brunswick plates.
Question: Why is Riley returning to the scene of his disgrace? Where/what is it?
The Moment Between, by Nicole Baart: She left the world the same way she entered it: swathed in robes of scarlet so red and angry and portentous as to be mistaken for black.
Question: Who is dead? And how did she die?
Questions to Ponder: Do you struggle with knowing where and how to start a story? What are some of your favorite first lines of all time? Why are these your favorite?
Hey Tabitha – that's a great idea, if I really knew what I was doing with a short story!! Honestly, my short stories come out of nowhere, basically from freewrites. I sit and writ a first line, which turns into a first paragraph, which somehow turns into a short story.
I actually haven't been published a few times…I wish, though!! Today was my very first publication. And I'll get my second short story published in November. Pretty exciting!!
I don't think you're crazy at all…give me 100,000 words anytime too!
Oh great post Katie. Thanks for the info. I always struggle to know where to start. In fact I have had such a trouble knowing where to start that I now just make a start and come back and rewrite the beginning later on.
Hey, just wondering if you would consider doing a post on the art of short story writing one time? I know you have been published a few times and I really suck at short stories and have to write one for a college assignment. I know it's crazy, but give me 100,000 words any day! So it's kind of a selfish request. But you know, if you ever run out of brilliant post ideas (not that you are likely to) I just thought I'd ask about the short story thing 🙂
Jill – I like that exercise!
Jessica – THANKS! You made my night. 🙂
Sherrinda…you always make me laugh. You did a number two?!?! HA!
Exellent! I did a #2…ahem…I mean, my WIP has the same problem as #2. Mine starts in the middle of a change and I have confused my readers. arrggghhh! 🙂
Eeek!!! I just read your short story. Jeannie put the link up. 🙂 It was SO good! I loved that her name was Jacey. Wonderful. 🙂
Congrats again!
I love this! A fun exercise is to come up with five terrific opening lines and five awful opening lines–all for different stories. Trust me, some of the awful ones end up being better than the good ones!
Thanks for all the comments, everybody. I have to agree with Jody, when she says beginnings are one of the most important things. Something we HAVE to get right. Hopefully this was a helpful post to help us toward that goal. 🙂
I never really thought of it this way, but, you know, you’re exactly right. One of the good things about blog hopping is you just never know when you’re gonna come across a gem. This was a gem. Thanks, Katie.
Best Regards, Galen
Imagineering Fiction Blog
I like to jump into some action. Perhaps my MC has just gotten herself in a bit of a tangle but just before the main events. My MC loves to get into tangles so this is not hard LOL! I rather that than a long descriptive passage but that's just my preference.
i like books that start in the middle of the change. i find it hard to get into historicals sometimes because there are usually several pages of backstory or a prologue that has to "set everything up." i've rewritten my latest beginning line about three times, i think. no…four. 🙂
Great post! I love that you used examples from pubbed books.
Where to start my novel was something I struggled with, but I think I have it now… I think.
Lynnette Labelle
http://lynnettelabelle.blogspot.com
Great advice, Katie! My first novel with Steeple Hill, Return To Love, started at the change, when the hero walks back into the heroine's life. The sequel, A Valentine's Wish, started right before the change, before the heroine's career shift. And my newly contracted western, Rodeo Sweetheart, starts literally moments before the change. Interesting thoughts!
I agree that beginnings are hard. Sometimes I know just where to start and sometimes I don't. I love your three ideas about change. I'm going to think on those. I typically start AFTER and like books that start after. I trust that a capable author can fill me in on what I missed. Does that make sense?
Yup, beginnings are hard. I write one, then usually, as the story unfolds, I have to go back to revise the opening.
I keep working on my beginnings…they're tough for me. (Endings are, too.) Great tips on how to start out.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
I definitely struggle with this and in fact, just had a conversation with my hubby about this yesterday. I'm right at the beginning of my new novel and there are two options for starting points but I also want there to be a hook. Challenging this one is!
Here's the first line from one of my favorite books, Nick Hornby's How To Be Good:
"I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I don't want to be married to him anymore."
Moment of change, and I love it!
I'm with Heather–the beginning of my stories rarely corresponds with the actual beginning of the story. Makes for a lot of fun/frantic hair pulling!!
The first "first line" that I thought of when you asked that question was from C.S. Lewis' "Voyage of the Dawn Treader": "There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it." The tongue-in-cheek attitude always makes me laugh.
Nicole's really jumped out at me too. Linked you on my blog today.
I also loved the first page of Blue Like Jazz and Peace Like a River had me at the first line, too.
~ Wendy
Loved this–I will remember it for my next one. I started with the question, "What if?" and went from there–it really got me going!
Like anything, revisions abound for me even with my opening line. Great pointers in this post, I'll be keeping them in mind as rework my beginnings once more.
I've got the beginning of my novel down pat….now just to get the rest of the story rolling. I love the beginning of books, and I'm starting to love writing them.
Watch me have like 10 beginnings and no endings! LOL
How I start my books is usually one of the first things I think of as I'm plotting. I devote a page in my planner to opening hook ideas. It's so critical, we just can't afford to get it wrong. The rest of the book may be supberb, but if we don't get that first line, paragraph and page starting at the right spot, then we risk losing the interest of an agent or editor. Therefore, I think we need to give it as much, if not more attention than almost any other aspect of our books!
Timely post, Katie. For me anyway. I've been thinking a lot about how my story should start. When I asked my husband, he said, "at the beginning." Helpful. But he was right. In order for me to actually start the book, I needed to start at the beginning, but during my rewrite, I will be chaning that to start at a more perfect spot.
I'm not sure I struggle with it because the story usually starts in my head with the opening scene. That said, lol, it doesn't mean what's in my head is the best place to start.
There have been lots of great first lines. I don't have favorites, but one recent one I'll remember is Missy Tippens' from Her Unlikely Family. Something like, "If there was one thing Josie Miller knew, it was the smell of a rich man."
LOL
Okay, that was from my memory so the name might be wrong. Heh.