I can understand if the character's actions justify the means to tell a story. I have come across a wall where I cannot find the words to begin my story but I can write what goes on afterwards and the ending. I do not know if it is because I am trying to hard to find a solution or I am not trusting my gut instincts.
If you can write what is afterward, the correct beginning would be answers by "How did I get there?" The first line is the beginning of the scene. The very first sentence. The blood sprinkled down on the white marble floor. or "Is he dead?" Tanya asked as she wiped her club clean. or The house loomed over him. John hated climbing those steps. He hated ringing that little bell even more. From there, just keep going.
The simple answer is the one Curt Vonnegut espouses: Start as close to the end as possible. Look at the structure of any story. Someone who has a predictable future has a change come into their life. It could be good, like meeting a man/woman who they feel they absolutely have to get to know better. It could be learning that zombies have begun rising. But whatever it is, it will be the thing their life will revolve around until the story is resolved. That goal may change. The protagonist might think the problem is the zombies, and later learn that the real problem is the person or group causing them to rise. But whatever it is, the problem will steadily become, over the course of the story, more acute, the situation more desperate. It is the occurrence of this inciting incident that divides the beginning from the rest of the story. So that inciting incident is what we need to work toward as the story begins. We place the players on stage, or bring them on as necessary, then hit them over the head with "the problem." But there we have a problem. Events are boring unless we, as readers, are made to care and speculate on what's best to do about the problem(s). If we can make the reader do that we have a participant not an audience. In fact, readers come to us to be made to feel that the action is happening to them in real-time. Because of that, we need to make the reader know who the protagonist is as a person, and why we should care what happens to them. The reader needs to know where they are in time and space, and learn that, not be being given a lecture by the author, but through context. A man who stops for a traffic light is obviously driving. If he squints to see it in the sun's glare we know it's taking place during the day. And if he squints against the bright California sun we know his location. The reader wants to know what's going on, so when something happens they have context for it. And they want to know whose skin they're wearing, so they can identify with their new avatar. So there you are. Just pencil in the details.
Bold text is how I want to feel when I read novels. There is one I am reading now I decided to return because the writer did not accomplish that with me.
Many writers have trouble with the beginning. I'm one of them. It's perfectly okay to write BCDEF and get all that stuff sorted out, and more likely than not, doing so will tell you A very clearly. So if I don't know my beginning, I carry on with what I do know, confident that my beginning will reveal itself to me as I approach the end. I know it feels weird - it feels like firewalking, wandering over dangerous ground without having properly prepared - but that's the thrill of writing. I think it was Ray Bradbury who said you should jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down. There's some truth in that. Write what you can write, and trust that what you don't see when you start will become visible as you go on.
I start my stories in such a way that hints to what's going on in the character's life, so you can pick up on certain clues that matter more than you might think. For example, my WIP novel begins with my MC waking up in the middle of the night to let her dog out, because her dog doesn't like bright lights, and won't go out in the morning. She puts her dog's schedule and likes over her own, which has a lot to do later on. I'm absolutely terrible at writing beginnings, though, so watch out! This might be completely useless advice.
What's going to make the reader curious? That's where I try to start. I don't outline or plan anything, so starting close to the end really doesn't do anything for me - I don't know what the end is, let alone where it is! lol So I go for natural curiosity - sometimes it's action packed, sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's dialogue, sometimes it's a prologue. Sometimes I'll rework that opening line dozens of times before I get it right - and I know it's right because then the story starts writing itself. But the key is figuring out what's going to make the reader want to continue, and that depends on the story and the tone you want to set for the reader.
Then I say, write the story, figure out the beginning later, when the rest of the story points to the beginning.
My general theory is to allow myself to start at a point that I know is too early, and then, when the story is done, figure out exactly how much of the beginning to chop off. However, I'm not published, so my general theory has limited value.
That's actually good advice. Just start writing if you're not sure where the sweet spot is. Eventually, as you along, it'll become clear. Your first draft isn't final and you might as well start going in the direction you want than worry about whether your start is right.
What makes you think your B is not really your A, if you can think of nothing else to start the story with? I think the trap is trying too hard, which seems to be what you're doing. Not every story lends itself to an exciting first sentence, nor an exciting opening event. Do not fall into the trap of opening with a Big Shiny Object. That is, something designed to grab and hook your reader but that is actually irrelevant to the story, or something that doesn't actually match the tone and pace of the rest of the novel. Because then the reader would feel let down, and you would've hooked the wrong type of reader. For example, if your book is a slow-paced melancholic story and you go and start with a grizzly murder for whatever reason, you'd end up with readers thirsting for suspense and tension and a thumping pace, which they're not gonna get, and the ones actually looking for a slow-paced sorrowful drama wouldn't get past your beginning. Disappointed readers all round. Be true to your story - don't make the beginning into something it's not. What do the readers have to know before B makes sense? That'll be the stuff you need to include in A (unless of course "A" could come later and the unknown stuff in "B" could be used to build suspense - I put them in inverted commas because chronologically it'll now go BA rather than AB, but that makes B the actual beginning) What's the most important thing your readers MUST must must know about? That should probably be the opening. The way I figured out my opening - I figured out what the readers must know before the story really starts and wrote that, because the next available opportunity to feed the readers this info would be in Chapter 4, which is far too late. I didn't open with a great big bang. I open with my MC pulling on his gloves to hide the scars that he's ashamed of. It's a slow start, but so far 95% of test readers have enjoyed it and said they read it very quickly. However, end your chapter 1 with a cliff-hanger. I don't think my readers would've read it half as quickly if I hadn't ended it with a cliff-hanger lol. But most of all, set your readers up for the kind of novel your book actually is. If it's satire, make sure the humour shines through in the opening. If it's mystery, make sure there's suspense and tension. If it's fantasy, make sure there's some fantastic/mysterious element in there. You get the gist. Don't be so hungry to grab readers that you deviate from the spirit of your book. It's like meeting a new friends (the reader is your new friend) - you wanna make a friend that lasts, you need to be yourself, not pretend to be somebody you're not. Same here for a book. In other words, don't worry about exciting events or anything spectacular - worry about what you actually want the readers to know. Your opening should make your readers ask questions - who, why, what, how etc. Don't think in terms of "Why should people care?" They shouldn't, there's no reason to care, it's the frigging first page. But you must make sure they're interested. Making something INTERESTING is a lot easier than trying to make people care, and it's slightly more concrete. People will only start caring after their interest is piqued, after all.
I find beginnings easy but endings really hard. It's difficult to pull everyhing together, offer a satisfactory ending. Nowadays when T and I start something new, we start with a conflict, as late as possible, when some kind of a change is imposed on the character(s), something that throws them astride on the back of the adventure, whatever it is, and so the ride begins. They might also be in some exciting, relevant situation, I approached the beginning of my second-ever proper short story differently, started it out with one paragraph of setting up the scene, but pretty soon after that it's straight to the conflict, to the heart of action. By the way, by action and conflict I don't just mean a shootout/murder/apocalypse. Mckk put it well, imo:
I always start my stories with a hook. Something that'll grab the reader enough, to make them keep reading. Also important is to not let the tension fizzle out. You need to keep the reader on the edge for at least first three chapters, it gives them a reason to keep turning the pages and more importantly, it gives them time to bond with the character. I tend to start with action and dialogue, but truth be told, a lot of work goes into that first page. Raw emotion is another good one, if done right, it instantly bonds the reader with the character. But different stories call for different beginnings, so sometimes it's appropriate to start with a short flashback, or to even address the reader, 'Catcher in The Rye'-style. As long as there's a hook and no letup, it's half the job done.
I don't let myself get too caught up in the "how to start" bit. I'm not a linear writer at all. The start will show itself to me somewhere in the middle-ish of writing the piece, especially for longer pieces. I allow myself to accept that the part chronologically written first will get folded into the meringue later on because some bit written later suddenly shines as yes, this is the first page.
with an opening sentence that always 'comes to me' along with the idea for the piece... i don't limit myself with preferences, simply let the piece start itself in whatever way it seems to want to...
My opening scenes always start by allowing the reader to glimpse the inner nature of the character. Since my stories are character-driven, it makes sense that the first sentence would focus on my characters. If my readers are interested in who my main character is, they'll keep reading. It's working so far.
The best advice I have ever received in regards to beginnings is this: start as late as possible. In other words, cut out the boring stuff and start when something interesting is happening. It doesn't matter if the audience doesn't know everything right off the bat. In fact, it's actually better if some things are unclear. Just make it clear what is happening at that moment. Get people hooked early and they will stick around to find out why it's happening, who these people are, how they are connected, and everything else.
This. I do not think about how I want to open the story. The idea just comes, and I write it. My latest example starts with a prologue. The one before that starts with an action scene. A novelette I am working on starts with narration. I never thought I would do a dream sequence at the start either, but that also happened.
My novel begins (and ends) at the very end of the story. The first and last chapters, set chronologically at the story's resolution, are a frame story for the rest of the novel. After the first chapter, the story winds backwards in time and gradually moves forward again, until we get to the last chapter and we've come full circle. The first chapter compels the reader to ask why and how the state of things came to be, and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. The rest of the book explains (most) of the how and the why, and the final chapter resolves the cliff hanger (in a surprising way). Both the second and third chapters also end on cliff hangers, to keep the reader's interest piqued (the second chapter introduces an entirely new set of characters, seemingly unrelated to the frame story)- to keep them turning those pages.
I start with the moment the character's life is about to be affected by a change that is usually already in progress. In the novel I'm working on now, I started it showing the mc and his brother before the brother got sick over the course of the chapter. Unhappy with it, I ditched it and rewrote the chapter starting with the brother already sick. The conflict already in motion. And it's good to also try out different beginnings. Writer's Digest has a good article on how to better start your novel. http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/write-first-chapter-get-started/10-ways-to-start-your-story-better
That's the current beginning for a novel I put on the back burner so that I could write something for the sci-fi contest. The last sentence is a little too generic, and eases the reader too much, but it's a darling that I just can't bring myself to kill. Sentence 1 introduces the protag and shows him in action. The action hints to a goal. Sentence 2 is kind of a leading sentence that asks a really small question, who wouldn't move their eyes a little just to see what happens when he tries to open the door? Sentence 3 shows the first conflict. It's a small conflict, but the hope is to convince someone into reading on just because they know that they will see some kind of resolution in the next paragraph. I see it as a romantic relationship: presenting the grand conflict in the first few paragraphs is like whipping out an engagement ring on the first date, you might scare them away . Sentence 4 Well... I've sharpened the axe, but I just. Can't. Do it!
How my stories start depends on what I think fits that particular story. I can start with an interesting statement or thought or sentence that hopefully encourage to read on, or something that is typical for my character, or dialogue or, or action, or ...
My writing reflects a similar experience. I didn't decide on the beginning until I was more than half way done even though I wrote it long before that. It's a flashback event that gives a glimpse of the main character, very short, then the story moves right to the major event of the story.
I have issues where my ideas are all over the place and I do not know where to start the story. A. I can start from the very beginning of it all and move on from there B. I can start from a significant event that justifies the story and then fill in the past later as I move along C. I can start from an event where I can tell the story backwards to why I got to that event in the first place. Also my story has evolved where I have a collection of brainstorming maps composed in over 20 composition note books. In those chapters of moments here and there in the story. I have the issue of starting somewhere. From there I can move on.
