Beginnings are difficult. You need to set-up a story, hook your reader, give a lot of information but not too much information, and make it entertaining, intriguing, or suspenseful all in one go. Beginnings are hard. But they’re also easy, because they are the beginning.
Tag: Writing
Point #3: The Care Package
Even if you haven’t thought of it yet, or even if it doesn’t matter to the overall plot, your character has a past. And in that past is something important to that character.
Not Every Character Needs To Be Relatable
There are plenty of vile characters people latch on to, people who are not vile themselves. And that is because people understand that character, even if in reality, if they were to meet, they’d never agree with them.
Point #2: The Dramatic Question
Knowing what our dramatic question is – what the main driver of our conflict is – can help us focus the narrative in the direction we need it to go.
Just Get The Damn Words Down
You have a story to tell. Go and tell it. Don’t use excuses. Don’t find reasons to not write. Don’t let writer’s block have a second of your time. Go and write. Write fast. Write badly. Make it incoherent. You can fix it all in revision.
Point #1: The Opening Image
The Opening Scene/Image is the first thing the reader “sees”. More specifically, it’s the first thing you want the reader to see. It is what you want them to take away from the rest of the story, even subconsciously.
The 30-Point Narrative Structure: An Introduction
As someone who is always trying to find a more productive way to plan the story, to make sense of the mess that is in my head, narrative structures are a happy place for me.
Are There Things You’re Not Allowed to Write About?
Are there things you cannot write about? No.
So, that’s the end of this, right? Well, not really.
Session 25: Writing Prompt – Conversations with Characters
I want you to create a scene (or a number of scenes) where your characters are all talking. It could be an argument, a formal debate, a Sunday lunch. Whatever you want. The point is to get them into a room and talking, about anything. The point is to see how they think and how they respond to what others think.
Session 24: Writing Prompt – Out of Their Comfort Zone
I want you to put your characters into a scene. I want you to put them into a ridiculous and/or dangerous situation, and write how they go about getting out of it. And to be clear, I mean all your important characters, villains included. Put them all into the scene.
Professional Amateur Writers 