HI! i'm new here. i am writing a book with a bunch of friends, and i need help with how to write the first two paragraphs. I am an ametuer, so this probably wont be high quality. the story is about a girl whose friends are each killed by two serial killers. each chapter is told by another character's perspective, except for the murders and the main character. the first chapter is told by the main character, anna leese, who is a 13 year old girl she has several friends, but i don't know exactly how many.the first person to die is in the 2nd chapter, and she is killed by being shot. okay, here are the first two paragraphs: People do bad things. It's a rule of life. It's also a fact that some times those bad things end other, innocent, lives. I just wish that that rule excluded me and my friends. But it doesn't. I haven't died yet, but my friends did. All of them. Each in their own, cruel, way. But that's not what the first part of the story is about. It's about me, and what my friends were like before they died. If you don't know, you won't feel bad when they die. But if you read this chapter, and skip ahead to the next one, where my first friend talks about dying how she was killed, you probably won't feel a thing. So why don't you just read this first paragraph? Then you will hear my friend and the criminals tell you what happened that fateful day.
Okay, first things first. Sounds like a good story. However, I do not recommend writing something as a group, but it's your choice. Be sure to reflect Anna's grief. Just think of how sad you would be if all of your friends were dead. I would be devastated. In more detail: Nice first two sentences. I really draws the reader in. Sometimes is one word. I don't think it needs the other in 'other, innocent lives'(by the way, no comma between innocent and lives). This group of sentences seems strange. The main thing is the changing of tense. What I would write: 'I wish that those bad things wouldn't effect my friends and me. But that's not the way things work. Luckily, I have been safe, so far. I watched my friends go, one by one. I know I am next.' I really don't think you need this paragraph at all, but of you want, this is essentially what it says: 'The story begins before my friends died. I hope you will find sympathy.' The rest of it is unnecessary. Please realize that this is only my opinion. In the end, it is your story. I think that this thread belongs in the place for story critiques, but I have answered anyway. If you would like me to read the rest of the story when it's done, email or PM me.
it's only one paragraph, not two... that said, addressing the reader is considered a cheesy, amateurish way to start out a novel... only a rare few of the finest writers have done it well enough to get away with it and this, sad to say, hasn't been... also, are you aware that a novel with more than one co-writer won't interest paying publishers, so it's most likely that the only way you'll ever see this in print is to self-publish it?
Yeah, addressing the reader is hard. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Unless you are an incredibly popular author or it is a picture book, you won't get published. However, I'm not sure, but you might be able to all write under the same pseudonym.
it's not so much the number of authors that dooms such works, but the fact that without one main writer, the writing will be a patchwork of different styles and 'voices' which doesn't work at all, no matter how good the story may be... and that's why publishers don't bother with multi-author novels...
