Wednesday's Writer's Tip -Beginning the Story - Meredith and Fitzgerald #MFRWauthor

Structuring Your novel : From Basic Idea to Finished Manuscript is one of the books I read and re-read when I'm stuck with putting my novel on paper.

One of the advices they mention is beginning your story with an incident that happens outside the story. Using one of the basic plot ideas this can be figured easily. Using one or two can help.  This trigger can start the story. In the book I'm currently organizing the heroine has been sold by her father to the wizards of Fyre. This incident in her past brings her to an environment she wants to escape. The hero was also bought by these wizards but he was a small child and the environment is one that he knows and feels is home. For him the trigger is how his desire to belong and excel in the environment he considers home.

Writing the story means one has to have events. An event occurs and then moves the heroine or hero forward in the story. The event causes them to react and act. Each incident leads to another. Because this happened the character reacts causing something else to happen. This leads to complications. There may be one or more major complications and a number of minor ones.

For the heroine the major complication is being in an environment she wants to escape. Escape becomes her tangible object. The question driving the story forward becomes will she or won't she? This quest will keep the reader turning those pages.