posted
I have a question for everyone who has written fiction. How did you start writing? I have some excellent ideas for stories and I would love to see my characters come alive, but every time I sit down to write I feel so ridiculous. Did all of you feel this way when you first started writing fiction? What is the best way to get past this feeling? Is it to just sit my butt down in front of my computer and start writing for 10, 20, or 30 minutes every day? I am now 22 and a junior in college, I actually sat down and attempted to write something once during my junior year of high school but after just a couple paragraphs I stopped writing because I felt like what I was doing was foolish. I dont have this sense of foolishness while doing anything else, in every other aspect of my life I am confident in my ability to succeed but with this I always have a nagging sense of failure.
Like I said, maybe everyone feels this way when they first start?
posted
I did. I don't think I ever got anything more than starts until I was 23
I can't tell you what will fix things for you, since, for the most part, what works for me might not work for you. 1st - Get some books on writing. OSC's "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" and "Characters and Viewpoint" are excellent books to help you understand the writing process.
2nd - Don't imagine your first draft is going to be your pulitzer prize winning novel. Most writers don't even use the first draft for anything other than getting ideas on paper. Write a draft, and throw it away (Honestly, if a story is good enough, it will stick with you even if you don't have a copy of the first draft. But I do keep my drafts around just for posterity ).
3rd - Try getting the story down in first person perspective first. I do this all the time for my first drafts. It lets me get into the character's head and actually explore the story. It helps you get to know the character as well. Then re-write the story from third person or other view points to see what happens.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Don't start with the character waking up (especially not with a hangover).
Don't start "in the middle of the action" so we have no idea what's going on and couldn't care less.
Don't start without NAMING your point of view character (i.e., no beginnings like "The man stood alone at the top of the hill, surveying the ruins of his hopes and dreams."
DO start with the "life interrupted."
DO start with only one or two characters present, and no references to any other characters until we have a reasonable "root" in the point of view character.
DO start in the viewpoint of the character whose point of view you intend to use at least half the time in the novel. (Unless it's a mystery and the pov character becomes the victim by the end of the first chapter - and I hate THOSE beginnings myself! <grin>.)
Do start with the thing that character is most interested in or cares most about BEFORE his life gets interrupted by the events of the story. You don't have to spend long on it, but you do need to let us know that he HAD a life; and if the thing he desires is something we all identify with, so much the better.
Do get us quickly into a scene which shows the character as charming or good or in danger or oppressed or otherwise interesting and sympathetic to us.
BUT all these "rules" evaporate if you have a really compalling idea for a great opening scene and, when you try it, it works.
As for feeling ridiculous - why? Why are you thinking about YOURSELF at all? Think about the characters. You're just the writer - you and your feelings don't matter. What matters is the CHARACTER and his or her attitudes, feelings, needs, fears, etc. Keep your mind on the story and get it off yourself.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Yes, just write. Sit down for ten or thirty minutes a day and just do it.
Okay, overly simplistic answer, but it's also true. You can either dream about being a writer, or you can be a writer, and the only way to be a writer is to write.
Get started. Now. Write anything. Don't worry about whether it's good or lousy. Chances are, at this stage, it'll probably be lousy, but that doesn't matter because you're at the beginning, and pretty much everyone is lousy in the beginning. You only get better by doing. So write, write, write. See where it leads. Do your best.
When you feel ready to hone the craft more, read some books about it or read online articles about it. Presently, I'm playing around with plot and character development because that's where I feel weak. Maybe in six months, I'll want to learn more about POV (point of view). Or maybe it'll be opening hooks. Or. . . well, whatever. When I recognize what I need to learn about, that's when I study it.
But meantime, write. Write lots and lots and lots. Find out if it's what you want to do. Find out if you enjoy it.
Turn off that infernal internal editor. Don't worry about whether this is phrased correctly or if that's the best word. You can edit later. Get the story down first. Join a writing group or three, especially if you feel the need to interact with other writers or pick their brains. Writing groups can be exceedingly useful. They have been for me.
But don't worry about the quality now. That will come in time. For now, just write. Write write write write write. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Don't start with the character waking up (especially not with a hangover).
Interesting. I understood all the rest of your post, but why is waking up an inherently bad opening?
What if part of showing the character's normal life, and what he cares about, consists of demonstrating that every morning he wakes up fifteen minutes before the alarm goes off, lovingly watches his wife sleep for a minute, and then jumps out of bed to get breakfast started? Why is that, in and of itself, a bad opening scene?
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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SPOILERS for A Game of Thrones ahead! . . . . . . . . . . . .
quote:DO start in the viewpoint of the character whose point of view you intend to use at least half the time in the novel. (Unless it's a mystery and the pov character becomes the victim by the end of the first chapter - and I hate THOSE beginnings myself! <grin>.)
I generally agree with this. I'm curious, though, what you (OSC and anybody else with an opinion) about George R. R. Martin's opening of A Game of Thrones? He did such a marvelous job of creating a character that the reader could really connect with, only to kill him off before the first chapter. Of course, I suppose that sets the stage toward his merciless treatment of other characters the reader (and the author) have come to love.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Noemon & all: Life's not fair... Actually I find that the most present quality of life is irony. So kill the good guy, I say! Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I think the 'don't start with a character waking up' bit is probably because we all seem to be doing it. That is the way I have mine starting at the moment so my guess is that particular opening is used by all new writers. I think it works for me so for now I am sticking with it.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I used to start all my stories with a main character in a waiting room. When I figured out why they were there, I would let them out.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Oh, my very first post on this forum... I'm nervous.
For me, I just sit down and go. And rarely is it on a computer. I carry a separate notebook with me to all of my classes, and before each class starts, I write. Some classes I arrive at ten or even fifteen minutes early because I know I'll have uninterrupted time to write until class starts.
And the last thing I'm worried about when I'm writing is how I feel. I'm much more concerned with how my characters feel. I live in their world when I'm writing about them. It's a lot more fun than this world, let me tell you!
quote: What if part of showing the character's normal life, and what he cares about, consists of demonstrating that every morning he wakes up fifteen minutes before the alarm goes off, lovingly watches his wife sleep for a minute, and then jumps out of bed to get breakfast started? Why is that, in and of itself, a bad opening scene?
Because it isn't interesting enough to make me want to read more, so I'm going to put your story down and go read something that catches my interest faster. Unless you can somehow make it really interesting... which I certainly can't.
Posts: 25 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Starting with a character waking up is a hideous cliche. Almost no one does it well. It allows you to evade the responsibility of letting us know anything important about the character for a LONG TIME. And the stuff the character does is unlikely to distinguish him in any meaningful way.
But having made the rule, let me suggest some good waking-up openings.
Cedric woke up with his head on backward, which meant that either the household staff was playing pranks again, or someone had illegally burgled his deep code.
Agnes woke up with Ryan lying on top of her. At first she thought he was dead, which would have been all right, but instead he was alive, his breath was foul, and upon touching her own face and matted hair she realized that he had thrown up on her in the night. How she had failed to wake up till this moment was probably best explained by the fact that she would have to have been classically drunk in order to be in Ryan's bedroom in the first place.
Vaughan hated waking up in hotel rooms. It was like being trapped in a nightmare: It's always the same room, but when you open the window and look outside, not just the weather, but the entire city or countryside might be anything at all. In this case, however, the city was Paris, which was a good thing, because in Paris Vaughan almost never had to kill anybody.
I mean, it CAN be done. But you'll notice that all THESE openings immediately get to STORY STORY STORY, while the vast, vast VAST majority of waking-up stories get exactly nowhere after PAGES of toothbrushing and nursing hangovers and etc., with the "hero" groaning over how uncomfortable he is without ONE SINGLE !@#$%^ WORD about what actually happened the night before or why we should waste a single second reading about it.
You asked; I answered.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
And very well, I might add, since now I want to read all three of those stories.
And I can understand the need to get right into the story without wasting time. But what about:
quote:Do start with the thing that character is most interested in or cares most about BEFORE his life gets interrupted by the events of the story.
Doesn't my hypothetical example do just that? Suppose I had an opening like that (not that I do--like I said, it's hypothetical), and the character noticed something was amiss while he was making breakfast, and that something was part of the story? Would the "waking up" still be too cliche?
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I think that would depend on how quickly we got to the fact that something was amiss, and how amiss it was. And even then, why not just skip the waking up and go straight to breakfast, since that's when your story starts, anyway? Remember, this:
quote: DO start with the "life interrupted."
was on the list, too.
Posts: 25 | Registered: Apr 2005
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