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mbarker.livejournal.com2015-04-07 10:31 am
Writing Excuses 10.14: How Much of the Beginning Needs to Come First?
Writing Excuses 10.14: How Much of the Beginning Needs to Come First?
From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/04/05/writing-excuses-10-14-how-much-of-the-beginning-needs-to-come-first/
Key Points: What do you want to tell the reader, and what do you need to set that up? Of that list, what comes first? What do you need to put in the beginning so the reader is willing and excited to keep reading, and what can you exclude? Talking about the first one third of the book. What promises do you want to make, what will you pay off by the end of the story? Character motives, tone, plot? A book is a way to hack the brain, to produce a specific emotional state, and readers want to know what this book will do for them. That's a promise! What kind of arc will your character have? Introduce the character, show us what they want, and why we love them. Show us the hole in their life, what they are missing. The first third of the story is about asking questions. What is the large framing question, and what are the smaller ones inside that? Three key elements: starting state of the character, what they want; inciting incident, that kicks them out of their comfort zone and makes them act; and the big decision, to do something. The Hollywood Formula says the character is forced to act in the first third, and ends when they start acting instead of reacting. From romance, we have denial, reluctance, exploration, and acceptance. Start with the awesome moments that you want to write about, and look at how to tell the reader that they are coming without being too explicit. Blow something up! From the homework: try different beginnings, emphasizing different promises, and see what happens.
( One third? What if I don't know how long the book is going to be? )
[Brandon] If you've done the homework that we've assigned two weeks ago, then you will already have a list of all your favorite things that you want to put in this story in order. Then you'll be able to take them and say, "Okay. How do I make promises regarding these things? I know that I'm going to... I have this great awesome moment in my story that I want to work toward." You can ask yourself how to put in the beginning of your story something about each of these. Your homework this time is actually a little more active than that. We actually want you to start writing your story. Okay? Yes. Time to start writing.
[Howard] Tolkien had 20 years.
[Brandon] You got three months. We're going to make you write it three times, actually. We want you to start your story, and we only want you to write a couple pages each time. So 500 words each time. But we want you to each of these attempts to take a different one of the things from that list. If you didn't do your homework, go ahead and think about a story you want to write and three different promises you could make. Try in those each two pages to emphasize a different one. To emphasize a different tone and a different type of promise. In a full novel, you're going to do multiple promises and you're going to make some of them really important and some of them subplots and things like that. For this time, you're going to pick one and be like, "All right. This is the story where I'm promising a romance." Or this is the same story, the same setting, but I'm promising that something big is going to blow up. Whatever it is for you, pick three different promises and do your best at emphasizing them. All right, guys. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/04/05/writing-excuses-10-14-how-much-of-the-beginning-needs-to-come-first/
Key Points: What do you want to tell the reader, and what do you need to set that up? Of that list, what comes first? What do you need to put in the beginning so the reader is willing and excited to keep reading, and what can you exclude? Talking about the first one third of the book. What promises do you want to make, what will you pay off by the end of the story? Character motives, tone, plot? A book is a way to hack the brain, to produce a specific emotional state, and readers want to know what this book will do for them. That's a promise! What kind of arc will your character have? Introduce the character, show us what they want, and why we love them. Show us the hole in their life, what they are missing. The first third of the story is about asking questions. What is the large framing question, and what are the smaller ones inside that? Three key elements: starting state of the character, what they want; inciting incident, that kicks them out of their comfort zone and makes them act; and the big decision, to do something. The Hollywood Formula says the character is forced to act in the first third, and ends when they start acting instead of reacting. From romance, we have denial, reluctance, exploration, and acceptance. Start with the awesome moments that you want to write about, and look at how to tell the reader that they are coming without being too explicit. Blow something up! From the homework: try different beginnings, emphasizing different promises, and see what happens.
( One third? What if I don't know how long the book is going to be? )
[Brandon] If you've done the homework that we've assigned two weeks ago, then you will already have a list of all your favorite things that you want to put in this story in order. Then you'll be able to take them and say, "Okay. How do I make promises regarding these things? I know that I'm going to... I have this great awesome moment in my story that I want to work toward." You can ask yourself how to put in the beginning of your story something about each of these. Your homework this time is actually a little more active than that. We actually want you to start writing your story. Okay? Yes. Time to start writing.
[Howard] Tolkien had 20 years.
[Brandon] You got three months. We're going to make you write it three times, actually. We want you to start your story, and we only want you to write a couple pages each time. So 500 words each time. But we want you to each of these attempts to take a different one of the things from that list. If you didn't do your homework, go ahead and think about a story you want to write and three different promises you could make. Try in those each two pages to emphasize a different one. To emphasize a different tone and a different type of promise. In a full novel, you're going to do multiple promises and you're going to make some of them really important and some of them subplots and things like that. For this time, you're going to pick one and be like, "All right. This is the story where I'm promising a romance." Or this is the same story, the same setting, but I'm promising that something big is going to blow up. Whatever it is for you, pick three different promises and do your best at emphasizing them. All right, guys. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.