I've got some ideas and some flashes of scenes in my head. I've been thinking about writing novel for a week now, and I've written them out and they are pretty sound and will probably make it's way into the story. Yet I cannot bring myself to start the first chapter. It's very hard for me to start stories because I'm afraid of messing it up. And not just that, the ideas just don't flow as well as when I'm thinking in the middle of a dramatic/action scene. What does WF suggest to get my started?
The hardest thing of all is to sit down and start typing in a clean document. So just get that out of the way. force yourself to write a beginning, any beginning. But give yourself permission to delete it later and give it a better opening. In truth, chances are you will rework the opening repeatedly anyway, until it is just right. But for now, consider the beginning disposable. Just get something down and let yourself take off from there.
You just need to realize that people make mistakes all the time; however, I have good news for you: mistakes can be corrected. So what if you messed it up? Find a way to fix it, and if you can't then start over. I doubt there's anyone that can write any manuscript without some editing. THe more you work on an idea, the better you will be able to write it. So just st down and start writing something. You can always fix it later if you're not satisfied, and I can be certain that you'll get new and better ideas as you write it too.
stop thinking about it and jsut start writing, ti doesn't matter if it is right, or even if it makes no sense, what matters is that you start writing something, the rest will come as you go
I think it's interesting that you're thinking about writing a novel after a week of thought. It took me months of trial and effort, of deliberation, of contemplating what I really wanted in a story, to get going on the right path. Props to you, then. I agree with what everyone before me has said, esp. Cogito, who called the beginning 'disposable.' I promise, no matter how long you procrastinate and put off writing the opening lines, you'll never come up with a satisfactory beginning the first time around. And if you don't get started now you won't come up with one at all. So just put something relevant on paper, something you'd like to build off of, and go from there. Once you have laid down a sufficient amount of material, you'll go back and find the beginning is easy to manipulate into exactly what you want. But I feel your pain- first sentences are absolute nightmares. It might be that they are the last sentences to be written.
