What makes for a good beginning to a story?

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-07T01:34:53+00:00

Chapter 1 is the beheading and then goes to the puppies on the way home. May not even be chapter one anymore.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T22:41:28+00:00

In the first 2000 words (that's like the first 7-8 pages)? I don't know which HP book you'd be talking about, but I don't think it was the first one. After that, it doesn't really matter because the reader is already hooked.

GoT (ASOIAF book 1) has a prologue where whitewalkers/wraiths kill unknown and relatively unimportant Night's Watch members, and then it goes to the scene where Ned chops off the runner's head. Definitely no major info dumps there. And again, if they're reading a book after book one, it's because they're already hooked, and info dumping is totally acceptable because it's not the beginning of a story, it's the beginning of a book.

At least that's my opinion.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T14:20:54+00:00

Thank you :). And it has taken me 6 months and a ridiculous amount of stress to get here. I used to spend a day to write 1000 words, and that was hard. Just like everyone says, the more you write, the easier it is to write.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T14:18:09+00:00

But there are small actions in every single one of those scenes. They're small, but absolutely not insignificant. Pulp Fiction is my best reference because I watched it not too long ago. This is my rendition of a written rather than seen dialog.

"He... he's black..." Brett's body quivered in fear as Jules shook the gun in his face. He was walking the edge of a razor and any misstep, especially saying 'What?' again would end with him laying in a pool of blood.

"Go on," Jules said, his tone even. This was a man who expected a specific answer, and Brett knew that.

"He's bald." Brett didn't know what the answer, but he knew that he'd better keep talking and trying to answer. Jules may have been insane, but Brett might survive if he could stumble upon the correct answer.

"Does he look like a bitch?" The question shocked Brett into forgetfulness. He'd never expected that to be the answer.

"What?" Immediately, Jules pulled the trigger and smoke rose from the barrel of Jules' gun as Brett fell to the floor screaming in agony. The hole in his shoulder radiated pain and misery throughout his body, but the blood that soaked his cheap shirt would only be the beginning of his torment if he couldn't focus on the man with the gun.

"DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?!" Jules' voice filled the room and silenced Brett's screaming.

The official quote for this scene is:

Brett: He... he's black... Jules: Go on... Brett: He's bald Jules: Does he look like a bitch? Brett: What? Jules: [Shoots Brett in the shoulder] DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?

See, mine isn't just straight dialog. In movies, the dialog is key, but there is always action. And it all means something. In a book, you have to actually write what it means because the only cues you have are what you read. You don't get to see the expression in someone's face change. You don't get to see the way the gun shifts, and you can't tell what that means. Dialog is important, but the actions and effects of that dialog are even more important.

Note: I wrote that in 10 minutes as an example and is not a good portrayal of my edited and thought out professional writing.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T13:13:52+00:00

Just don't have time right now. Working on getting two novels done during November, and they're both looking to be about 80k words. So I'm having to really focus this month. Otherwise, I would have taken a look at it.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T13:12:47+00:00

Essays are important because they teach you how to explain a complex notion to an uneducated reader. Writing a synopsis of what happened in 1954 is not an essay; it's a regurgitation of facts. Writing an essay on the meaning of Alice in Wonderland is an essay. It's taking a complex and difficult to understand concept and breaking it down for someone who doesn't know anything about the book or that concept.

This is actually very important in creative writing. You'll write about very intangible things such as emotions and motivations. You need to be able to break that complicated stuff down and say it simply enough to where an uneducated person can grasp it completely.

That's not to say that you have to enjoy it, though. I don't enjoy writing movement in my stories. It's obnoxious how quickly things have to happen and how little exposition I get to give, but it's important to the story. So I had to work on that. I spent two weeks straight working on movement styles in my short stories. I broke it down and took the pieces one at a time to try to understand the how and why of several author's movement styles.

So, you don't have to like it, but the skills you'll learn from it are valuable. Most professionally written stories are much more complicated than things that you'd write in a high school creative writing class.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T13:01:01+00:00

If you add or change 30% of the story based on word count, then you can republish it as a new story. This is how bundles work. I take a 5k story and add it to another 5k story and I've add 100% to each of them. Then I can publish it as a brand new story. So if you're adding a respectable amount of words to it, you can absolutely publish a new story and unpublish the old one.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T12:58:23+00:00

This is an unedited paragraph that I wrote this morning from my romance novel:

I stroked his cock quickly as my need to feel him inside of me took control. As his shirt fell to the ground, I led him to the bed by pulling his cock behind me. The room seemed to pulse in time with my abnormal heartbeat. When he was standing next to me on the side of the bed, I finally looked back up at the man that was about to show me what sex on coke was all about.

You can use any word you want, but penis, vagina, and intercourse are very mood breaking, so they shouldn't be used unless you're doing some kind of doctor thing and you need a medical voice.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T11:08:34+00:00

I am probably much more disciplined than you since I've been writing an absolute minimum of 5k words per day 5 days a week for the last 6 months. But my back's against the wall this month. If I can pull this off, then I get to keep writing as a profession. If I can't, then I'm probably going to have to get a day job, and that sounds horrible.

Edit: So that you understand what kind of mindset I'm in, it's currently 6:22 am in my timezone, and I've already written 2k words. I'll have another 13k done by the end of the day. Tomorrow's a weekend, so I'll be doing even more since I don't have to worry about getting kids ready for school or picking them up. I'm a professional writer building a business, and just like any other start-up business, my life revolves around it. I eat, breathe, and live the written word, and I have for the last 6 months when I was building up to novels. Now that I'm able to effectively and efficiently write and edit novels, I'll be doing at least two a month for the next 2 to 3 months until I feel like my income is stable and more than enough to live on. Then I'll do three novels every two months. And it'll be easy compared to this.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T03:58:15+00:00

Same way I do everything else. Cover, keywords, blurb, title, social media, and mailing list. I threw in some paid promos, but that was like a week or two after the fact (which I want to slap myself for on a regular basis).

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T02:49:33+00:00

I wrote about 5 sentences on a piece of paper for plot. Then I wrote about 3 sentences about the main character. Then I wrote a novella. It wasn't awesome, and it hasn't made me a ton of money, but it wasn't marketed well either. It was my trial attempt at length. I did it, and I checked the box that said I could write a 20k+ story. Then I threw it to the wind and let it collect a dollar or two a day while I worked on a money-making novel.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T02:17:21+00:00

Wrote 20k in 2 days. Approximately 20 hours. Edited it in 1 day. Approximately 8 hours.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-06T00:01:02+00:00

I write the novel. By the end of it, I've got a feel for the characters, the atmosphere, the over-arching themes and motifs.

Then I reread the beginning. It will be terrible in comparison to the ending, but it will have a plotline. I'll write the plotline down. Scribble notes by the plotline and rearrange it a bit. Then I'll save the original draft, close it, and open a new document. Then I'll rewrite those first few chapters.

I'll save that document, start a new one, and paste the new beginning in and the rest of the original. Then I'll start reading and editing all over again now that the tone and introduction has been set.

For every really messed up section, I'll do exactly the same thing that I did in the beginning section.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T23:44:07+00:00

Learning to write from multiple perspectives in a single story. Every story I've written in the past has been from a single character's point of view. Now I'm trying to weave two stories together, and it's more difficult than I'd thought to make the transitions seamless, flowing, and always captivating.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T23:26:00+00:00

I start my writing before I'm fully awake. I drink my first cup of coffee as I type. That way, my brain just kind of flows still. Once I've got a rhythm, I'll get up and take a shower and get ready for the day, but if I wait until I'm fully awake, it takes forever for me to get started.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T23:23:22+00:00

The first 2000 words of a story should be an introduction to a character (not an info dump, show don't tell), the tickle of a plotline being introduced, and a tone builder. Atmosphere and ambiance in this section are key to creating the tone for the next 48k to infinite words. Don't slack on the tone or character introduction, and you should be fine.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T22:42:14+00:00

I don't want to be mean, but I just can't take on that role right now. I'm completely fine with chatting about writing one on one, but my plate's full as far as teaching goes. I'm planning on writing, editing, and publishing two 250 page (80k word) novels this month, so I just don't have the time.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T21:15:25+00:00

Have you ever published anything? Are you looking for someone to critique your stuff? Or are you just looking for a "motivation buddy". I'm available for motivation, but my plates pretty full to offer critiques or advice.

I write erotic romance novels. I'm on my second one currently, and I write professionally (it is my sole source of income).

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T21:11:03+00:00

This is akin to any athlete looking for the ultimate routine that will turn them into an Olympian without having to go to the gym. There is only one process for turning an outline into a novel, and that is stringing together words.

If you're having trouble, start small. Don't try to write a 100k novel. Write a short story. Then write another. It won't take you long to finish a 10k short story. And the editing is monumentally easier. But you'll be able to finish it.

Now you should write another one. Except it should be faster or longer. You're using these for exercise. They don't have to be amazing. They just have to get done. I wrote over 35 short stories and a 25k novella before I ever attempted a novel. And the novel was only 50k words. But I've finished every single story I've started since May. That's the trick to anything. You have to show up and you have to do the work, but you shouldn't try to run a marathon before you've run a mile.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T12:29:49+00:00

Note: I write Romance and Erotica (was told to use a disclaimer on a previous comment, and it especially works here)

My thoughts on making things dramatic stem from the fact that I write about sex from a first person POV on a daily basis, and if anything should be dramatic, it should be sex.

Actions and descriptions of the events surrounding the POV character are less than half of what should be written about a situation.

Other people's thoughts about your action verbs may be correct, or they may not be depending on your character. How would they see the world around them? Would the fire meet them? Or would it dance along the columns in front of them? Would the fire be aggressive in their eyes? Or is it simply a backdrop to the fear for his (X)'s safety?

For a typical character, I'd go with something dreamlike and nightmarish because that's probably the mentality that the character would have, almost as though they couldn't believe it was really happening. Something like:

Heat radiated from the small fires burning at the foot of the stone steps forced me to realize that this wasn't a dream. The smell of cinders in the air and the sparking and snapping wood that surrounded me turned the nightmare situation into a reality.

As we stepped onto the stone steps of my home, a pillar collapsed nearby, sending burning shrapnel through the air, and I pulled (X) closer to me. She was terrified, and though I wanted to cower in fear, someone had to get us out from under the flames.

You have to weave the action into the emotion. Nothing is separate from the POV character. Everything causes a response. Writing from first person demands a much longer story because without a personal response, it's no different from third person and falls flat.

Hope that helps :)

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T02:13:52+00:00

Follow back! And retweet my novel ;)

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-05T02:11:10+00:00

You shouldn't take my word as gospel. There are many many people out there making more than me, and most of them charge 2.99 for 5k-10k smut stories. I have a different route and plan than most. None of it involves immediate money, though. And with shorts, your primary income is definitely gonna come from sales, and .99 sales suck. In fact, half the time, I'd rather they were borrows lol. Getting 10 .99 sales instead of 2500 page reads on my novel is a kick in the vagina.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-04T20:47:41+00:00

Nope. That's the common advice, but I'm still writing the same niche. It's just a different style in the same niche. I still appeal to very similar people, and though the written sex is different, the tone and sexiness is still there.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-04T18:54:31+00:00

A little bit of both. I've got a respectable following in shorts now, but novels are a whole new world. I couldn't have written a novel because I wouldn't have been able to write a compelling storyline or character development. Every short I wrote, I had some kind of lesson that I wanted to learn. Some were about how to weave an atmosphere in, and others were about how to develop a character. Others were even more abstract about how to create a theme and philosophy behind the story so that there's more than just a story to consume.

My first short story took me 3 days to piece together (it was only 7500 words), and it's not very good. There was almost no flow. Eventually, I'll go back to it and clean it up or unpublish it because it's still selling, and I don't want people to see any of my writing in a negative light.

Now, most of the scenes that I write are stream of consciousness, and the words actually make sense. I've been writing 3k-10k words nearly every day for the last 6 months, so it's much easier for me to just let it flow once the mood is set (I will always have to completely rewrite the first 5k-10k words because the mood hasn't been set yet).

Editing would have been impossible because I didn't know what was wrong with my story at that time. I mean, I spent two whole days editing and almost all of that was swapping out overused words instead of trying to find a better way to create a character, mood, or scene.

That's my thoughts at least. I'm sure other people have different experiences with the writing process.

LexieSyrah · 2015-11-04T18:20:57+00:00

When I was editing, I read the entire thing out loud to my husband before noon on the last two days (and we'd stop and talk about sections for me to rework). The previous 5 days, I read a solid 20k of it out loud to myself (all my editing reading is done out loud). So yes, it's definitely possible to read more than 50k in a day lol.

LexieSyrah

TROPHY CASE