Whenever I have a good idea for a story, I get over-excited and plan out the WHOLE plot before I actually start making it, so I get bored quickly when I begin writing. I want to get to the clever and exciting things first right away! I hate writing exposition! Any suggestions to break the habit/make writing the beginning less tedious?
Write the exciting bits first then fill in the rest. Plan an Exciting Bit in each chapter, even if it's a small bit. Pay for a ghost writer to write out your plots. I've found if a part is boring to write, it's probably because it isn't advancing the plot and therefore isn't necessary. But that's just me - I don't find set-up or character development tedious to write.
Welcome to the site! Do you see the Resources section? I left a very high review for a writing program called Scrivener that I think might be helpful.
Exposition allows the reader to help understand the plot, setting, characters, and physics of your story. You may know how everything works out, but your reader doesn't. Exposition also allows your to build up tension so when the exciting things/plot points do occur they go off with a bang. No exposition leads to no build up and essentially no excitement. A bomb can explode, but without any context the reader won't know what to make of that. Of course there is a fine line between what's good exposition and what's bad exposition since unless you have a good eye for stuff like that you'll most likely end up writing a ton of exposition that you don't even need. The idea with writing stories is you want to keep it moving. Movies are able to get away with lacking with exposition because they can use eye candy to distract the audience to some extent. A story is just words on a page so you really need to try hard to make sure the story isn't rambling on one thing for too long. Otherwise you're just wasting your time as well as your audience's.
Hard to know exactly what to say here, but I'm wondering a few things. Do you like to read? Have you read books voraciously for years? If so, you know that a story is a lot more than just its plot. As others have said here, you don't have pictures or actors to create mood or develop character for you. You have to do that yourself, and you only have words as tools. Just jumping from 'exciting' plot point to another similar point isn't storytelling at all. I think the key to solving your problem is to recognise that NO parts of your story are tedious. You should have a distinct goal for each part you write. If you're in the middle of a quiet (non-action) part of your plot, what are you wanting to accomplish in that part? Do you want us to realise that your main character doesn't have much confidence in himself? Or that he's meeting somebody who doesn't seem important, but is going to change his life? Do you want us to see what other people in his life are doing, and figure out ...uh oh ...they're going to screw him up big time? Do you want us to understand what his home life is like, so that when we see him in action we know what's at stake for him? Or what holds him back? Or what keeps him going? How do moviemakers do these things? They don't have 'exposition' to work with. So they show actors doing and saying things that reveal their motives, their hopes and fears. Just stick to doing this with your story—show people doing and saying things that reveal what's happening inside them or around them—and you won't go too far wrong. Make sure each scene you write has some purpose to it, that isn't just 'filling in facts.' Getting the reader interested in what is happening beneath the surface of your story is anything but tedious. Sometimes you have to slow things down and work in the important facts of the story in order to do that. But never lose sight of the purpose of these scenes, and try to make sure the reader is more hooked on your story at the end of each one than they were before. Keep moving the story forward at all times.
I agree. I, too, plan the shit out of things and there is always that danger of boring myself while writing. So, I keep reminding myself that the plot is the high-level stuff and what I'm writing is the detail of character feelings and reactions to the actions outlined by the plot. Thinking about what's going on inside the character's heart (as well as mind) is what keeps me engaged.
I used to have this problem but now I stick to writing a one line summary of each scene on an excel spreadsheet. That way I know what will happen but I don't know all the details so it's not boring to write.
