Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Start From the Beginning?

This is topic Start From the Beginning? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

An off-hand comment in another thread somehow stimulated me to post this.

Where in your stories do you start writing? The beginning, the middle, the end? Do you come up with a beginning and let events roll on one after the other? Do you jump around a good deal? Do you write from the end, the conclusion, and work your way slowly back through what came before?

I usually start at the beginning, even with novels. Novels take a long time, years, with me right now, when and if I'm working on one. I've found a couple of times I've written out some scenes way ahead, but then I can't bring myself to link them all together.

I can see certain advantages in jumping ahead---I just can't do it. Oh, I'll have it outlined in my head or on paper, and I'm usually clear on what's happening somewhere up ahead. But I just can't write it.

Short stories and / or novelettes are another kettle of fish. The length works with my slow-right-now writing speed. A week, a month, and the draft is done. The oppressive weight of a written-out-but-abandoned scene doesn't bear down on me, 'cause I've either finished it or completely abandoned it.

(I think only once did I ever abandon working from the beginning. In that case, I had a vivid scene in the middle, and wrote backwards and forwards trying to justify it. I liked the result. I should try it again sometime.)

*****

Anybody want to comment? Add something? Share a memory? Say something about a published writer who writes one way or another? (I've got a few but I'll see if anybody else has anything.)

Posted by Novice (Member # 3379) on :

I almost always start with what you describe as a "vivid scene". I then put the story around that scene, and, because my mind only works in one direction, that usually means the story starts with my initial scene. (I say "story", but I'm not an accomplished short story writer, my "stories" will hopefully all be books one day. I just don't have whatever creative spark it takes to consistently build a good short story.)

On one occasion, I knew enough about how the story would end that I was able to skip and skip and skip, writing out the scenes that most inspired me as I went, and then go back to fill in all the connections. Sometimes, as I wrote one scene, another "vivid scene" would occur to me, which would turn out to be a connector. I think this book is my only truly complete creation, and I'm still fidgeting it. But I have great hopes.

Posted by pooka (Member # 1738) on :

My first draft started at what I thought was the beginning. I've since fiddled with some much earlier (MC is 4 years old) beginnings, but mostly ones that come later.

I actually feel I am starting the story at the beginning, but there are many events that precede the beginning that will have a lot of bearing on the story. Why do they not begin the story? Well, I'll have to write it and find out. It depends a lot on the nature of the story. I guess this would be a character story, where a milieau or idea story don't really make a lot of sense in medias res or whatever you want to call it.

Posted by Louiseoneal (Member # 3494) on :

Seems like I start at the beginning unless I have a writing exercise to start from, in which case what I write might prompt a whole story and become a beginning, middle, or end.

I do have a story I need to fix up that starts as a 'what if this technology existed' and it's almost as though I saw the story whole before I saw details. Or maybe I saw the end first. Those are short stories, though, with novels-or novels I've started and not finished-I've always started at the beginning. Or thought I did.

Posted by Tephirax (Member # 3534) on :

I always start at the beginning, both chronologically and textually (can't think of the correct word

), but I often spend months trying to work out which beginning to start from.

As long as I can have something happen in the first few lines, then I'm good. If not, then I've picked the wrong beginning.

Teph

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

One of those "pubhlised writer" moments I mentioned above...I read once that Margaret Mitchell wrote "Gone With the Wind" backwards. She first put down the scene right after Rhett dumps Scarlett, writing up how she lost both Rhett and Ashley. Everything else was worked out in reverse, the how and why of it all...ending with the opening "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful" scene that opens the book.

Posted by Louiseoneal (Member # 3494) on :

Except at first Scarlet's name was 'Pansy' if I remember right. Which is a bit of novel info that makes me less wincy over some of my character's names!

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Her full name (in the final version) was Catherine Scarlett O'Hara---Katie Scarlett to her father, and usually Scarlett to everybody else.

(Or "Katherine" with a "K"...I don't have a copy to hand to check for sure...)

Posted by pooka (Member # 1738) on :

I'm pretty sure it had a C but that didn't stop her dad from calling her Katie Scarlett. Maybe I'll check it later.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

I tend to jump all over the story depending on what scene is pressing on me to write it. It's why the first and second installment of the current story were finished at the same time.

I tend to have an ending written fairly early in the process, but have been known to change it based on the other sections I end up writing.

In King's Falcon, which I've posted for crits (thanks again to everyone) the beginning of the story as it is now was one of the last things I wrote. In editing the rough draft, I cut about 40 pages of backstory out. When I read it afterward, and more importantly asked other people to read it, I realized there was a section of backstory that I really needed to keep. So I took a scene that I had cut, changed the POV and went from telling about the bad things happening to the neighboring kingdom to showing it.

The way I write also makes for interesting editing because I am more than willing to rearrange scenes than I might be if I wrote in a more linear fashion.

Posted by Verdant (Member # 3498) on :

This is an interesting topic because there are so many opinions on why not to start a story in one way or another - you don't start a story at the end because then the entire book is a flashback, you don't start in the middle because you confuse the reader and end up mixing the flashbacks with what is going on now, you don't want to start a story at the beginning because there is not enough of a hook. Strangely enough, I have read books that I thoroughly enjoyed and they separately used each of the different methods.

I like to start about 1/4 through the story so that I can use flashback devices while still maintaining a present tense. This allows for effective imagery and foreshadowing. I honestly do not think there is a best way to start a story as long as it is written clearly and well. What works for one may not always work for another so use what works for you.

Good writing

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

I start my story with the kernel idea and work backwards and forwards until I have the story. Once I have the story, I write sequentially.

Posted by TruHero (Member # 1766) on :

I too begin with a scene or charccter action. I then draw out the story in front of, or in back of that scene or thought. I have often started with that scene, only to find that the story starts much sooner. That is the part I enjoy most, connecting all of the scenes so that they flow together. Not that I am all that accomplished with it yet...

I like to get that main character fleshed out, that is what usually opens the flood gates to other characters and plotlines etc... It is also a good way to build histories, customs, landscapes, well everything you would need for your story.

Posted by Mig (Member # 3318) on :

I think the most interesting story on where to start writing is JK Rowling's who has said how she started the Harry Potter books with the last chapter of the seventh book. She says that this chapter is essentially unchanged since she wrote it years ago and has been working everything that precedding it to get to that point.

I personally just write with whatever I have. I've been working one novel for years now, and I tend to jump around from scene to scene. I started with an idea for a scene and an idea for a futuristic society. That first-written scene is now part of the middle. I've written several other scenes out of order, and often those out-of-order scenes lead to other more chronilogical scenes. I write as the scene comes to me. I'm now working on some beginning scenes. I find that, as I write, the magic happens, as Stephen King calls it, and these seeming unrelated scenes sometimes just come together. I guess I'm what some might call a chaotic writer. That said, I have plenty of scenes that won't go anywhere.

However, with short stories, I can't imagin starting anywhere but at the beginning.

Posted by Garp (Member # 2919) on :

When I start writing, I start with the beginning. But I don't start writing until I have the story pretty much outlined, and I can't outline a story until I have an ending. Does that help?

Posted by discipuli (Member # 3395) on :

i usually start with an idea, work it into a rough outline... then go from the beginning and fill in any spaces that i left as i go along... sometimes i end up going in a completely different direction, but it works out...

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

I start with characters that were ususally secondary characters in other stories and I find the one situation that only they could resolve and I add a couple twists. Once I have a who and and a what, I start at page one and write a rough draft. This usually takes me 2 months to get 60,000 words. It takes this long because I don't write just that one thing.

In the process I will create new secondary characters that may eventually end up with their own stories.

Second draft will fill in all the plot holes and start some neat Idea plots earlier than I thought of them on the first draft.

Then I put it away and maybe come back to it in five years.

Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :

There is one important trick to good storytelling: you should start on the day (or minute or second) that everything changed.

Think about any good story/novel/movie that you like. I bet it starts on the day that everything changed.