Alyson pressed a small button on the front of her desktop computer. The CD tray glided out and she placed the disc labelled Everworld 1 of 3 into it. She pressed the button again and the tray returned back into its draw in the PC. The green LED on the CD drive flashed momentarily before some dramatic orchestral music started to play through the PC speakers and an introduction screen appeared on her monitor.

The music sounded important. String basses providing a stern rhythm whilst epic French horns droned out solemn chords. Timpani built up tension with dramatic cymbal crashes. Alyson knew a thing or two about music. She used this same PC to compose her own pieces. She made a mental note to try and get hold of some orchestral instrument sounds similar to those she was hearing now. It would be great to have a go at producing something like this.

Also, is this really where the story should begin?

Let me suggest you take a look at the lessons on this site (if you haven't already):

http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/index.shtml

I'm not trying to defend my story here, like I said, I'm open to criticism. I'll tell you why ive started like this & you might be able to tell me a better way to do it.

Not very interesting beginning is it? Nope. But I'm trying to set the scene a bit. I think I chose the right place to start, because this is where the change is about to begin. I've read one of Card's books about writing sci-fi and a few other do's and dont's style books and browsed the lessons on this site. If I've learned anything, its that the book should start where the change begins. In my story, it's going to be the game that the character plays that is the reason for the rest of what's going to happen in the book. There's going to be some real-life stuff going on, but also a lot of switching into what is going on in the game. Its going to be an on-line game you see & there'll be a lot of stuff going on in the game and the actions will affect people in their real lifes.
I was going to do a bit of character background whilst Alyson is waiting for the game to load. Maybe this could be done better later on. But even though the beginning is a bit boring, well....i've got to let the user know that Alyson is about to play a game and its the playing of the game that is going to be the main focus of the book.

The chapter after this was going to be written from the perspective of the character Alyson plays in the game. As though it were another story running parallel with Alyson's real life. I could start with Alyson's alter ego in a fantasy setting (i.e. in the game) which would be ok. Then the chapter that follows that would be Alyson logging out or something and then being brought back to the real world and being reminded of her everyday tedium etc etc.

I thought i'd start with the game being loaded though, because then the reader might get a sense of - if only she'd not loaded the darned game.

What is she thinking, feeling, expecting? Is she impatient? The music seems to distract her rather than draw her into the game.

I think its a good idea to start with "reality" if you are going to switch between the real world and the game world. It could feel like a con if the reader started in on a high fantasy type story and then found out it was a game. A bit like the ol' "it was all a dream" chestnut.

I like the section about the music. Could you use this as your starting point? Particularly if this is where Alison's interests lie. Then describe the graphics and introduce the reader to the game and the player. Character drives story (in the main) and its the character the reader has got to be interested in. (or something!)

Trying to say when to begin a book is hard. Card does his best to make it black and white but it isn't always. So let's not talk about stories in general or even openings in general. Let's talk about YOUR opening.

I am standing in a book store. I am looking for a book to read and am willing to give a new an unfamiliar author a chance. I pick it up and start readingg the first paragraph. I put it down before the first paragraph is over. (Editors and publishers know this, so it will unfortunately probably not be there at all, but I'm just trying to hit hom eto you precisely what reaction this opening causes.)

Now that I've hit you in the gut, let me pull back the punch and see if we can't figure out what's the thing about this opening. Especially the first paragraph. She pushes a button. She puts in a CD. She pushes a button again. The CD starts to load. OK, you wrote better sentence than this, but this is the *action* of the momeent. Not only that, but this excrutiating description of a CD being loaded comes without character information, setting, conflict, motive, or anything else. There isn't even philosophizing.

You suggested that you wanted people to look back and wish she hadn't put that CD in, but I'm already wishing that because I want her to do something interesting. And in fact, were I to give you a chance and keep reading I don't see anything ominous about that moment because there's nothing there.

These are rhetorical questions, you should not answer them, but these are the sorts of things you should think about when writing this opening:

Who is your main character?
What does she want?
What motivates her?

Some other things that help openings: conflict. Not ACTION, and I don't buy that theory of starting in the middle, but conflict. Conflict is a sense of things not right with the world, of things heating up or about to heat up. Conflict creates sympathy and gets us to read further.

Let me just throw this out. Maybe Alyson is having a hard life. Maybe she's about to lose her job or get kicked out of school and she uses the video game to escape. Maybe she doesn't like her boyfriend but rather than tell him so she spends hours on her computer. There are hundreds of scenarios you could come up with, alls temming from character development, that could let you start near this point but still have some connection with the reader, some reason for us to care about her and know she's a person.

And then, you should still cut the paragraph about loading the CD. The people who will read this book know how loadding a CD works and will feel, at best, annoyed by such a length description of the process. I'm not sure you're understanding precisely where those ominous feelings come from.

Thanks very much. Righto, I'm going to redo this introductioni this afternoon. Try and make it a bit more exciting. Maybe I can slow things down a bit after the 'whooomph' big intro.

I see what you mean about people opening the book & making a purchase / read decision based on the first few lines. Now I get it. I'm with you. Thanks for pointing out that I'm too detailed with the CD thing. This is the kind of advice i'm relishing just now. Even though i've read hundreds of books, when it comes to writing something, it's almost as though i've never read a page in my life. Maybe it's because i've been reading for enjoyment too much and not studying?

OK and Christine is spot on about the motivations about why Alyson was going to be playing the game. Yep, I realised I needed motivation and I was going to throw this information in whilst the installation was chugging along. The text after these 13 lines that you've read has an installation bar running across & Alyson is doing a bit of thinking about the crummy life she's got whilst the game was setting itself up.

But here's the new attempt:

Alyson felt guilty about the lie she had just told. She was going to have to address the issue sooner or later, but for now a little lie made life so much easier. She made a silent promise to tell him properly as soon as work had settled down. She had enough going on right now without adding breaking up with Dave to the equation. She could put that off until another day. Let him believe that she would be too tied up with work and stopping on late through the evenings for the next fortnight or so. At least for now, nobody was getting hurt. It wasn’t far from the truth anyway. By the time she had got home from the office tonight, she really didn’t feel much like company. Half a day training people who would forget everything she’d shown them as soon as she left the room. The other half fixing the problems caused when somebody had tried out a new option they had found on their screen. For the time being Alyson just wanted to be left alone. She especially wanted to be left alone by Dave. The last thing she needed was him coming around expecting to be fed and entertained. The thought of trying to coax an interesting conversation out of him lessened the guilt a little.

Ex.

Jenny glared at her boyfriend. "I can't believe you."

"Me?" Paul said, "I'm not the one who slept with Sarah Jones."

****

The first sentence shows conflict right away and also gives a name. Not knowing anything else about her, we know that her name is Jenny and she has a boyfriend that she's mad at. Then I go on from there with somewhat random dialgue. Now, if I had started this way:

"I can't believe you."

Here is my advice:
1. take a walk and don't think about it for a day or so.
2. Sit down and write a really bad first draft. Just get the story out. No one has to see it and you can fix all the problems later. Just get the story out so that you can look at it.
3. Repeat step 1.
4. Look at your draft and see what the story really is about. Identify a good beginning and write it again.
5. Repeat step 1.
6. Look at the draft again. See if you still think it's a good place to start the story. Repeat step 4 if necessary.

quote:

---

...she's fed up with real life & wants to immerse herself in some computer game instead.

---

This is a great statement of what the story is about and an obvious starting point.

If this is what is important to you, don't make it a distraction, make it the opening scene. If Dave is unimportant except to make this point, use him for all he's worth. Maybe breaking up with Dave could be part of the process of buying the game. She could sell some of his stuff for the money OR ask him to buy the game for her before giving him the bad news.

If you don't end Dave and Alyson's relationship with finality, the reader will probably expect to see him again later. Even if you do make it final, some will suspect the against-all-odds love-conquers-all theme to arrive. If you don't want to encourage that train of thought, make the break up very cold or ugly.

Whatever tactic you use, you'll be much better off starting with your clear goal of "she's fed up with real life & wants to immerse herself in some computer game instead" than "here's the procedure for installing and running Everworld from CD."

IMHO, most books on writing spend WAYYY too much time drilling it into your head that you have to have the perfect beginning, the perfect first line, and so on. This is not only stupid, it's counterproductive. You can always make your first draft better later. It does save work to make your first draft as good as you can, but not to the point where you're constantly rewriting one scene. Let's cover a couple of things:

1) There is no such thing as perfect. Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: "There is no such thing as perfect." Better?
2) It puts too much emphasis on beginning the story, which, for many, makes it hard or impossible to begin at all.

It's more important to write the whole story first, then go back and see what kind of beginning you've got, and then worry about making it as good as you can. Trust me--after you've finished a first draft of a novel, you'll have the writing skills to do it.

As far as writing speed, heck, I don't write the same amount or in the same amount of time every day. Every time I sit down to write I try to write for at least an hour; I used to set a word count, but then it tended to dribble out and read badly. 500 words tends to be my low point, 1000 is average, on a good day I can do about 2-3000 words, and I have done 8,000 words in one day (it took eight hours and I was incredibly sore, but it was 8,000 words--or just over 30 pages). I've known some people who could barely do 200 words in a day, but they were still good writers. It's more important to get something done than to set an arbitrary limit (other than maybe a time limit, like an hour or two). If you write 200 words a day you'll still have a novel in six months. OK?

I often find the rewriting more fun than the initial writing. Think of it like scuplture. First draft is the hacking out of the basic shape. Rewriting is shaping, polishing and detailed work. That, it me, is where the real skill comes out.

I think that until you know the whole story, you are unlikely to know the best way to begin it. Sounds like a chicken and an egg thing.

Anyway, crazy writers, snowbound hotels, redrum, here's Johnny - we don't want to go there!

I'd appreciate a bit of feedback on what i've done so far if poss.

I can send you the story so far in e-mail if you'd care to help me out.

One thing i'm starting to wonder is whether i'm being a bit too detailed in the describing of events. I think this was picked up at first when I bored everyone with my talk about how a computer game was loading. But I wonder if i'm still doing it in other areas & whether its appropriate or not.

Just keep going.

Oh, and critiquing other people's stuff is an incredible way to improve as well.

but there's good stuff that comes out of the first drafts, too. and if you get hung up on getting crits of the first pages, you will never ever finish the first draft. the object of the first draft is to finish it. that's it. then worry about cleaning up the parts that are trash.

it sounds as if you are concerned about putting in the months/years of work a novel would take, only to find out at the end that it's all trash - a reasonable concern. novels are a lot of work, and require a giant leap of faith.

you might want to write a few short stories , just for practice - it is very nice to be able to sit down and bang out a draft in an hour or so, and then refine it, and refine it, and then see what people think about it.

And I'll say this, I liked the beginning with the CD. It's cozy. I like books and movies that begin that way. With the CHARACTERS thinking everything is ordinary and safe. When, in reality, it's not safe. I savor their blissful ignorance.

So, I say keep the CD scene. But put something just before it that lets us as READERS know things are not safe and ordinary. Let us know beforehand (not afterwards) that she shouldn't put the CD in. THEN, we enjoy the scene where she puts it in (because readers are devious).

You know, like when you're watching a horror movie and you're yelling at the tv screen, "don't go down there, you idiot! it's the swamp creature!" It's fun to know what the characters don't.

One movie that comes to mind -- because it starts with people playing a game (and getting pizza)-- is E.T. But before the scene where the kids are sitting around playing D&D, you see E.T.'s space ship leave without him. So you know he's probably going to show up at the kids' house when you get to that scene.

Or think about Jurassic Park. It starts out with people basically at a tropical theme park. Nice shiny tour vehicles, etc. That's a nice, cozy beginning. But the movie actually starts with a guy getting eaten by one of the dinasaurs (very quick scene at the start). It's a short scene and the cozy part definitely last longer, but the cozy part is effective because we (the AUDIENCE) know what kind of place they've come to. A bad place.

I'll send it out to those that have asked for a read thru on monday when i'm back in work. Will just finish off the section i'm off first too so that you can see how one thing leads into the next.

I really like the idea of putting something more 'dont put the cd in whatever you do' at the beginning. I get the idea. But not sure how i would work it in. If I post you more info on how the story is going to pan out, maybe you could offer me a suggestion.

Constantly seeking approval (i.e. every couple of pages) on a work in progress can be a very bad habit to get into.

Write because you have a story to tell. Worry about making it accessible later. (At least, that's what I do...just ask the Hatrackers that critique my work!!!!)

Cheers for yhour opinion goatboy & others who have had similar posts, but i'd just like to confirm that i'm not after a sentence by sentence critique of every individual phrase & word. I could just need some idea of whether they like the idea of the story - i'll have to give out a bit of a summary of what is going to happen, and whether my writing is miles of track - or kind of ok with a bit more work.

I put a few questions in the e-mail & notes about how the book is going to flow, 'cos it's a bit of a complicated idea that I have.