posted
The opening style I like for most books is one that plunges the reader right into the plot, right at the beginning, no pretense and no lead-up. Writers who do it well can grab a reader by the ribcage and plunge them into the story with no hope (or desire) of escaping. It's also something that I like to think I do well.
However, I have found that my story needs a leadup. Some establishment of what the main character is like before she is drastically and fundamentally altered. Time for her to meet the people who will become focal points of her change and the plot at large.
The problem is, having no experience with leadups such as is needed for my book, I am at a loss. How do I keep myself engaged in the writing, let alone other readers? How do I keep this crucial establishment of major factors from being boring?
posted
Shasta, how about if you try making a list of ways you could do your lead up, including having her wake up on the morning of the day everything changes.
Get some friends together (or ask people here) to help you brainstorm as many ways as you can think of to do that lead-up scene.
Then, when you've got an overwhelming list, go through it and pick some possibilities that you think might actually work.
From those picks, choose the one that you like the best and give it a try. (Consider it a writing exercise, if you like.)
Then try some of the others--don't settle on just one until you've tried a few different things.
Once you've got your attempts at the lead-up scene, get some people to take a look at them (they'll be longer than 13 lines, so don't post them here), maybe some volunteers from here.
Have them tell you what works about each of them and what doesn't work. You may decide that one is just right and you can go with it. Or, you may decide that you want to take something that works from one and combine it with something that works from another, or a couple of the others--and write an entirely new lead-up scene.
Just don't expect to get it right the first time. And save the list that you and others brainstormed, because you just might find you need it for some other story.
Is there some sort of minor conflict that could be worked through those lead-in scenes? That might give you a means of keeping interest high while still providing some background and basis for your character’s behavior later. Maybe it could even be something that seems inconsequential now that becomes important later? You wouldn’t want it to just seem tacked on.
quote: Time for her to meet the people who will become focal points of her change and the plot at large.
If she has to meet a lot of people, she could meet one in the lead in and get the action starting from that encounter rolling. Then while all that interesting stuff is going, have her met some of the other people and so on. Sort of a building effect. Posts: 652 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Dragyn, are you able to provide more info as to why your character needs a lead-in scene (or two or three) before the action begins? I'd like to help you out, but don't feel like I have enough to go on. Does she need to be established as a "nice" person before she goes bad, for example? Or do you need to introduce family and friends? Any extra info would be helpful.
In general, I prefer diving right into the action myself. I tacked on a prologue to my book and it felt really forced...in fact, I'm going to punt it back out again. I prefer to let readers in on things like character history, world history, and the "rules" of my society in bits and pieces throughout. Depending on what you are trying to do, maybe this approach would work for you, too.
posted
The proverbial point where everything changes is when my main character, Selene, is bitten to become a full-fledged werewolf. Before this happens, several things need to be put in place:
1) Her personality has to be established as being different from human, as she has been a werewolf without the ability to shift or knowledge of what she is since birth. Being bitten gives her the ability to shift.
2) She has to have at least one, if not several, rather telling dreams that function as a psychic tether drawing both of her enstranged parents to her.
3) The character of her biological father has to be established. He has been searching for her for around fifteen years, and it should be established that he is drawing close before Selene is bitten-- in fact, I was thinking about having him meet her before hand, and pass up the opportunity to bite her himself for reasons too complex to explain here.
4) Selene has to meet the werewolf pack whose leader bites her.
5) Selene's frustration and upsetness with her current life needs to be established before everything is turned upside down.
6) Selene must meet the hunter character, who is also pivotal at the scene where she is bitten and becomes a major protagonist as well as love interest throughout the story.
7) Selene's adoptive mother and father need to be introduced, and their personalities at least hinted at.
That's all I can think of right now. It's a pretty big list, and I think that's why I'm feeling rather overwhelmed.
posted
That's a tall order. Would three or four flashbacks work? Then you could start with some great action and fill in backstory later, after you have the readers interest.
Chuck
[This message has been edited by huntr (edited September 09, 2002).]
posted
Frankly, I think your rigidity to begin smack in the middle of things is the source of your problem. I don't think you have a big list of introductory matters. Rather, it seems that you haven't considered the possibility that this story has a little different structure.
It seems to me that you should figure out where Selene begins to change. How old is she? Could her werewolf nature be latent until puberty? Stephen King did something like this in Carrie: Carrie's preternatural abilities became fully operative when she had her first period. Maybe you could have her werewolf nature begin to awaken with, say, the thirteenth full moon after her thirteenth birthday (thus making Selene a little over 14). In other words, instead of having her being bitten at the moment of change, set up another event when she begins to change.
So what could happen if she begins to awaken on the thirteenth full moon after her thirteenth birthday? Your story would open the next morning. The night before Selene had her first "telling dream" and she recalls bits and pieces of it throughout the day, and that night she has another dream. Cut now to her biological father's point-of-view; he know his daughter is awakening to her true self, and so he goes to her. Cut now to Selene; it's the next morning and more uncanny thoughts and feelings await her. Give yourself a time-period: it will take two or three or four days for her father to get to her. That should be sufficient time to introduce Selene (and make us care about her) and some school friends (possibly even a boyfriend) who notice her changing (she suddenly likes really rare hamburgers - okay, that's corny as hell, but something like it). You can also introduce her stepparents.
During this period you can also introduce the hunter (how old is he, and does age matter for werewolves?) and any other character you need for the second half of your story. If you conceive of your novel in several parts, Part One can end with her being bitten by the hunter character, and Part Two takes up what happens once she becomes a full-fledged werewolf.
You can take all of this or part of it or leave all of it. You know the story better than I do. But I would encourage you to begin thinking of an alternate starting point and stop thinking about all of this as the "lead-up." And perhaps you should read some of King's early novels, such as Salem's Lot and The Dead Zone. He does a lot of character development at the beginning before he thrusts the characters and the reader into a lot of conflict. That's what makes King such a good storyteller--he makes us like the characters before hell rises up against them.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited September 10, 2002).]
posted
Balthasar is right (that's why they call 'em "Wise Men"), you are being a bit absurd.
This entire period in her life where her latent werewolf powers are just below the surface is full of dramatic conflict. All the points that you dismiss so lightly as "background" or "introduction" are compelling character conflicts in their own right. Her struggle to fit into (or break free of) society, the dreams and visions, her search for her real father, meeting strangers that challange her world view, and the nature of her relationship with her adoptive parents are all just as fraught with emotional tension as any action that might come later.
None of these need to be in the story if you decide to jump right into the action, but none of them lack drama. You don't need to think of them as lacking intensity, or even danger and suspense. You could even write the story all about that period of her life, and end with her being bitten (as long as you set up the issues that would be thus resolved one way or another as the major dramatic tensions). You certainly don't need to feel that the story isn't "going anywhere" just because she hasn't torn out anyone's throat yet.
posted
Now that you've provided detail, I have to chime in and agree with Survivor and Balthasar. There is a rich vein of your story that you are about to leave virtually untapped. If it doesn't interest you as much as the period after her change, then try writing the "fun" stuff first, then go back and create the first chapters. This is a trick I learned from other writers, who get bored waiting to delve into the part of the story that drove them to write it in the first place. Many times, after they go back, the first chapter(s) then flow much more easily, as you already know what's coming. You can foreshadow, add foreboding, drop hints...it makes it all more interesting because you have a clear view of what follows.
By the way, this sounds like a really intriguing story. I'd be interested in reading it when you are ready.
posted
DragynGide, it sounds like you have plenty of places where Selene's world changes.
You could begin the story on the day she meets the werewolf pack.
You could begin when she wakes up from the first "rather telling dream," which will surely disturb her and change her life.
You could begin when she meets the hunter character. Many stories start when the protagonist meets the antagonist, or when the romantic leads meet, and apparently here you can do both in one meeting.
I think the actual bit is a major plot twist, but not necessarily the beginning of your story.
posted
I appear to agree with Survivor on this one. Remarkable, really, because the world hasn't ended *grin* Perhaps, though, you don't need to go so far as to end the story with the Big Bite. It'd be a little hard to explain Selene's odd behaviour unless it's clear that she's a latent werewolf. But it's too good an oppurtunity to miss, showing her pre-wolf. That sort of thing requires a little time, IMO; you can't cram it into the backstory. Also, when readers find out that she's a werewolf, that behaviour will come rushing back as unmistakably lupine, and you'll get that wonderful 'how could I have missed that sign!' moment. I live for those. Of course, this approach won't drop you into a big action scene straight off, certainly not of the lycanthrope variety. Perhaps you could start off with something more mundane? An abortive mugging, or a successful one, where perhaps Selene could exhibit some of the aforementioned wolfsih behaviour? I'd suggest an internal conflict, but I get the impression you're not big on them. Anyway, that's my rather disjointed opinion. Hope it helps. JK
Posts: 503 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
You can jump into a story and have all the explainations by creating a sub-plot to write prior to the big plot taking off.
Basically you come up with a small conflict for the character to solve in the course of one or two characters that shows off everything you want to establish about them. You want to show that she's not human and that she's frustrated with her life and yet a good and upstanding person...sooooo
You create something your character wants to reach for. She doesn't have to succeed, she can fail at this. Trying to get a part-time job. Find a lost object, like a kid she's suppose to baby sit. Pay court to the cute guy down the road. Save a man from a flooding river. It can be as big or little as you want, the key is that your character wants something and is fighting to get it.
While she struggles to succeed in all this, you can bring up and briefly mention any number of things. The dreams. The sense that someone is looking for her. A random encounter with the hunter etc.
You don't need to paint an entire picture. Readers will fill in. Something as simple as 'While they always dealt with her with obvious affection, she never felt comfortable in their mousey ways.' It paints a quick picture of quiet, little people and her as too bold to be contained in their home. Or something like that.
Someone asked a similiar once about wiping out the hero's hometown in the first chapter. I suggested backing up and having the hero trying to find a runaway cow, or a missing brother, or something on that part. The hero is focused on the conflict, the reader gets a tour of the town and the people in it, and everyone feels more when the town is torched in what is now chapter two.
posted
Thank you all for your suggestions. Make no mistake, I have a very solid idea of where the story is going, and Selene's change is only the beginning of her problems (at least, much bigger ones than she's ever dealt with before). I know that I have to work up to it, and I never intended to cut out all of the important stuff I mentioned. That would be literary suicide, at least as far as this book is concerned. By the same token, I know that flashbacks won't work either.
Big thanks to Kathleen for suggesting that I write several possible ways to do the leadup, which I later interpreted in my faulty memory as sitting down and writing out what elements I do need to inclde before the "big bite". This will help me order my thoughts-- which is essential with my chaotic brain in order to get a cohesive story on paper. Also to Hildy, for being interested in reading my story-- you don't know how big a confidence booster that was; and to JK, for suggesting an abortive mugging-- that was the seed for the great idea that is getting me out of my "lack of action" slump. 'Twill be fun... *evil grin*
Thanks again, Shasta
[This message has been edited by DragynGide (edited September 13, 2002).]
posted
Shasta, I would also like to recommend that you find a copy of Wen Spencer's books. Her ALIEN TASTE is a great example of the kind of lead-up I think you are talking about. Besides that, it's a book I really enjoyed reading. I think you'll have fun while you see how someone else did it.
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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posted
I agree with Hildy, write the fun parts first.If you get the things that are clamoring to be written Right Now on paper, it'll be easier to see where you need to go with the beginning.
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