I've read Dan Brown's Origin and 50 shades of grey and other huge hits and there is one thing I noticed: They start with a bang. While most books have a slow build up, those huge sellers jump into action right away. The book Origin starts with a big tech-scientist celebrity gathering with religious leaders to tell them he is going to announce to the world that he discovered where human beings came from and where we are going. You see now that is promising. 50 Shades of Grey starts with Ana at home just finishing getting ready to go to the city for a interview that took six months of calls and persistence to schedule. Christian Grey the owner and CEO of a huge multinacional. By page five she is entering his office and is super tense. These authors hook you from the get-go. None of pacing the development of the setting or the character. No time for that. No sir, they go straight to the action. And that is what I want to do and you are going to help me. I'm about halfway through my book and now I realize I need a more exciting beginning. I'm probably not going to follow your suggestions rigorously, more like I'm going to adapt from them. So here is the deal: my book starts with a 16yo girl waking up from bed and getting ready to go to school. She pretty, a bookworm, and kind of an outcast, only has one friend at school. Father is a lab scientist, mother is a doctor. I need a big event at school, maybe something she is looking forward to it. Maybe someone big is going to give a seminar or she is about to meet someone special or I don't know. I need ideas. Let me hear them, please.
Book that starts with protagonist waking up starts with a cliche that has a label "not like this" on it. You are asking ideas. So: 1. Don't start with waking up. 2. If you want to write a good book, do the creative part of writing yourself and ask help with other things. 3. A big event at school? The Toilet Paper World War that goes bad, really bad because of Toilet Paper Mummies. https://www.giftofcuriosity.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Toilet-paper-mummies-Gift-of-Curiosity.jpg
I was bored just reading the description - what you've got there is "so what" - what you need for a story like that is an inciting event … and start with that as alan said you ned to do your own creative writing - we can't tell you what the inciting event should be
Two ideas for getting your story off on the right foot: As you mention, starting off with the characters involved in action or an intense situation can pique reader interest. However, make sure that you give the reader enough to understand what's going on. A vague, generic action scene that doesn't set up the story won't draw in readers. You don't necessarily need to start right at the moment when the inciting incident occurs. You can establish the character's life and world, how they are before the inciting incident. Of course, you need to make it interesting for the reader and give these scenes a point—establishing the protagonist's main conflict at the start of the story or introducing elements that become significant later on, for example.
Yes. You've actually got a lot of cliche's in there. The father being a scientist and mother being a doctor could only be more cliche if the mother was absent and the father was an unemployed alcoholic. Also, I wouldn't say Dan Brown's Origin is an huge hit. Harry Potter, probably one of the most popular books of recent memory starts off with Vernon Dudley not realizing that Voldemort was defeated and settles into slow burn development for probably half of the rest of the book. You also have to remember that just because a book is a 'hit' doesn't mean it's good.
Is this your first draft? If so, don't worry about the beginning. Finish the story, then go back and find where you can begin.
1. Too cliche. 2. Starting with sleeping is not a huge start. 3. You don't need waking up. Your audience knows how days use to start. 4. It does not work. 5. What is the point of waking up? 6. If you send your draft to an agent, she burns it after the first sentence. They don't wast time.
I advise against going into writing with plans to write the next bestseller. It's much easier to write the book that you want to write, which is probably very different. Some books succeed, and some don't. There isn't an easy-bake bestseller formula. Most hugely popular authors build reputations that make their new releases instantly popular. Compare for example the popularity of Stephen King and his pseudonym Richard Bachman. Yes an author who knows how to sell knows how to sell, and Bachman was successful. But he wasn't Stephen King successful until people knew who the pseudonym really was. I recommend against trying to emulate these bestsellers. Instead think about more general storytelling tools and how you can use them. In medias res is one device similar to what you're talking about here. Instead of starting at the beginning of the plot, things start kind of in the middle, which is more exciting but comes with a cost. The reader has less time to establish empathy with the characters. Which means that the epic fight scenes will seem boring, because no one cares. Unless you do this very skillfully. Another good way to start is with a hook. A question. Dangle some bait in front of the reader, and get them wondering about something. Then establish character, then bring in the action. This formula will probably be easier to pull off well, since you will have more time to introduce your story. Take a look at the three act structure for an example of how many successful writers have positioned key crises in plot.
this may be of interest http://blog.janicehardy.com/2014/02/studying-waking-up-scene-is-it-really.html
I'd also advise against modelling your start on Dan Brown and E L James - the former is an acquired taste, the latter couldn't write for toffee (okay she made 58 million dollars but that mostly from the films) neither are exactly greats of either literature or even genre fiction
I heard, somewhere, a long time ago, a commentary on how to start a story that I try to follow. It's probably super common and thirty people will reply to me with where it came from before I can get my first punctuation edit done on this post, but it's cool to me, so there. The advice was: "Start just before the moment that everything changes."
IDK, 50 Shades was pretty dull and boring (made it 2.5 chapters in), and I wanted to throw the fucker across the room (kindle, so I restrained my anger.). Haven't read anything by Dan Brown though so I can't speak there. I think a slow simmer can work if done well, but that is the key thing. Starting off with a bang should be intense, exciting, and interesting to the reader. Action as your engine the characters use to put things in gear(motion) so the story goes where it needs too. So being a plank of wood (abysmally) swooning over the young hunky rich dude, who is so in love with himself, that you are only a means of feeding his ego, is not what I would call any of those things I mentioned. Mystery and Horror are great for simmering to a boil though, and that makes sense. Can't give everything away in the first few bits, and then blow your built up load prematurely. Take time to build up the tension, and the longer you can keep the torque up the better the payoff will be when the reader hits the ending and is relived when it is resolved.
Matt has excellent points. I personally like three formulas: 1. Monomyth (including all it's variants). (Cambell, Jung, Vogler, Truby, Peterson... and 4000 others.) But... well... 3 act, 4 act, 5 act, 22 step, Snyder's Beat Sheet... They are all in this category. And it is not a formula but a guideline. 2. ”Follow the fun." (Jordan Peele & al.) But... well... It is not a formula. It is a guideline. 3. "Write the same but different!" (Everybody says it.) And this formula... is not a formula but a guideline. Jobin... If you want to seek what is common to different bestsellers, you maybe could start with these three.
Sure there is. Sparkly teen vampires in a secret magic school college exploring kinky BDSM while the government forces kids to fight to the death in giant artificial arenas just to prove how evil they are, all against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse. It can't fail! "50 Shades of Hungry Twilight Games and the Sorcerer's World War Z". Beautiful!
That’s easier said than done though. If most people tried to write one of those, then something would be off and the story wouldn’t quite hit the note needed to be successful. There are thousands of writers trying to make that stuff and only a few actually make the big bucks. Anyone’s best chance to succeed is writing what they love. That is the only way to create something that’s actually authentic. Stephen King doesn’t write horror because he thinks it’s the most successful formula. He writes horror because he’s loved the genre since he was a kid. And he does it well enough that readers love what he writes.
Nope, never seen either one. Or read the books they are based on. Just that concoction you cooked up was mentally sickening.
I had shit the bed again. Now with the archaeology presentation I faced the possibility of shitting in the lecture theatre in front of the entire cosmology. I jumped for my shower, dragging the sheets with me, and hopped and stamped on the shitty sheets.
Waking and getting ready for the day is a stereotypical slow, sloooow start. If you want a seminar, start with a seminar: Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. The front row was already full. The most important moment of Jane's life, and the front row was already full. None of her plans for meeting Professor Jenkins would work from the fourth row. "Jane? Are you about to kill somebody?" Meg peered into her face. Jane looked at Meg, mind running furiously. "You owe me a favor. Remember when I lied to your mother about your little overnight? You owe me." Meg's tone was wary. "Yeah..." "Go invite Mike Perkins to sit with you. He's in the front row. I want his seat." "Oh, dear God, no." "You said you'd do anything." If you want her to meet somebody, have her meet somebody, or at least see somebody. Jane stepped away from the cash register, then stopped stock-still at a sight across the cafeteria. Mike Perkins had changed. Wow, had he changed. How could one summer make such a difference? He was probably still the self-important weasel he'd always been, but now he was such a very, very pretty weasel. Meg thwacked her on the shoulder. "Jane. Stop staring." Jane stared. "You're being obvious." And so on. No need for waking, climbing out of bed, brushing teeth, giving Mom and Dad's resume...
But how else are you going to get to authentically work in a scene where the teenage female protagonist looks in the mirror and describes how ordinary she is with one particular feature (probably an unusual eye colour) that makes her utterly unique and somehow irresistible to the male leads (yes, plural, because LOOOVE TRIANGLE!1!!!) in the novel.
Pro Tip: Skip both movies. Read both books. World War Z was a totally different movie that basically just used the brand name, and while I Am Legend wasn't horribly far off Omega Man, the ending was radically different (uncouth opinion: dumbed down for cinema audiences). [Edit: The book might be called I Am Legend too. Omega Man was the first movie shot at the book, staring Charleton Heston IIRC, but I don't remember which one kept the original book title. Drat.]
