Tuesday's Writer's Tip More on Openings #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Opening scene #writing

 You've now considered more about the story you intend to write but facing the opening of a book or story can be difficult. There are three things the first few  pages of a novel should do.

The first is to get the story moving, This can be hard. Some writers have a clever first sentence but so often the rest of the opening doesn't follow this sentence. There must be more and that is to show what kind of story this will be. Is it a romance, a mystery, a coming of age, a historical, a suspense or an action adventure. Is it fantasy or science fiction. The first few paragraphs should give the reader a hint to the kind of story.

The second is to introduce and show a picture of the main character. Since some has appeared to change this person's life the character must be shown. Not always through the character him or herself but at times from an observer. Creating a character the readers will root for is important.

The third thing the opening should do is to interest the reader and to make them want to read on. These three are important.

The opening can do more than these three things but those are the important reasons for getting the story off to a good start. This is for the very beginning the first few paragraphs or pages. I've been judging for a contest and am sometimes stopped since the writer may have done one of the above but not all three. More on how this can be done will follow in the next few weeks.

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My writing life -- Critique group and me

At our last critique, I read the start of a new book. I felt there was a problem with the start but wasn't sure what it was. After hearing the comments, I thought about what they had said. They were right and wrong. What I'd done was load the beginning with too many people and too many problems they faces. They made some good suggestions for cuts in the opening. What they really did was make me think about the following questions. Did I begin in the right place? Was there too much back story in the first seven pages? What about characters? Had I allowed the reader to get a feeling for the character through whose eyes the scene will unfold?

The answer to some of these questions was a definite yes. Since this is an ensemble story with eight characters sharing the viewpoint, I had to find a way to let the reader be with each character during their part of the narrative. It's not that I began in the wrong place or with the wrong character. Jamming was what I'd done and I'd made the problems so dire that the characters would have to run off in five or more directions and nothing would be accomplished except a mess. Part of this is that I have lived with these characters and the developing situations through three prior books. This is the last one and will complete the cycle.

I've taken the opening apart and pulled what I think should be known in the beginning and reorganized the story. I'll post the new first few paragraphs tomorrow and hopefully those who heard the first will comment on what I've done. If not at next critique group, I'll read it again.