Starting a Novel
Today we are talking about starting a novel...it's hard. But the thing you must remember is: You don't have to nail it on the first try. You can—and should!—always go back, edit, revise. Beginnings are incredibly important. They're what agents and publishers consider; if you're self-publishing, they're what the readers are going to read before they decide whether they're going to spend the rest of their time with you and your story. But you have a lot of time to go back, layer, and nail it!
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transcript for starting a novel
Hello, my name is Mary Kole with Good Story Company. And today, we are talking about starting a novel.
It's hard. It's hard but the thing you must remember is you don't have to nail it on the first try. Nobody does. Nobody just spills out a novel opening from whole cloth and just downloads it, and then moves on, and never revisits it. So, what you can do is you can always come back. You're gonna learn a lot. So, Terry Pratchett, I say this quote all the time, it's something along the lines of the first draft of a novel is the writer telling the story to themself. You're gonna tell the story to yourself. You're gonna figure a lot of things out about the character, about the plot, about your themes, about any images or anything that you want to layer in there, and you're gonna write that into the rest of the story. And then, what are you gonna do? You are going to go back to the beginning, no matter what, and layer those things into the beginning. So, the number one thing to remember about beginnings is that you can always go back. You should. There is no pressure to nail it on the first try.
Beginnings are incredibly important. They are what agents and publishers consider. If you're self-publishing, they're what the readers are gonna read before they decide whether or not they're gonna invest the rest of their time with you and your story, but you have a lot of time to nail it. You have a lot of time to go back, layer, get it right.
The second most important thing to know about starting a novel is to start in action. To start, pick a present moment, put a character in scene, give us a little bit of description, a little bit of set dressing, and then you start in action. Other characters, dialogue, action, things happening, a little bit of conflict, maybe small to medium conflict, you don't want to jump right in with your big conflict. Don't start with a dream sequence. Don't start with your character waking up in the morning. Don't start with your character waking up after a dream sequence in the morning. Start in action. Don't have them sitting there thinking about their lives. Do not leave the present moment for a flashback within the first two or three pages. Pick a moment and action that you can sustain, lean into it. Start with scenes. Start with conflict. Plant a hook of tension, or conflict, or mystery in your action. Why is this happening? Give us a sense of what your character wants and really, sort of, just hit the ground running with your novel beginning. Flashback can come later. If you're departing your first two or three pages in your novel for another time, even if it's to say, you know, "When my mom died, you know, I was feeling blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Nope. Layer that in later. We may learn that the mom died but we don't go back in time. We don't go to establish anything. We don't go to flashback. Just give us a present moment that you can sustain.
This is, number one, the note I always give on novel beginnings is "Hey, where are you going? What is the present moment?" So sometimes, a lot of people will start with, like, philosophizing. And they'll be like, "Isn't change funny? One day, you think you're X and then the next day, your whole life changes and you're suddenly Y." And then, it's like we're in limbo right now. You have not established a present moment. You have not put a character on the page. You have not started any action going. You have not gotten any scene setting. We don't know what time of year it is. We're just philosophizing.
If you find yourself with a beginning like that, cut it out. I should be, what's his face, like Joey from "Full House," like "Cut it out." Cut it out and start in action. And don't start with your character kind of sitting and thinking about their lives, that's very passive. That's static. Start in action. Start in the present moment and give yourself a little permission to go back and edit it and revise the beginning later because nobody nails it on their first try.
That is my quick and dirty advice for novel openings. Also, I teach a Writing Irresistible First Pages webinar. It's completely free. You can submit your first two pages for workshop of your novel, and I select them randomly at the beginning of every class. I go through what makes strong first pages and then, I actually workshop live two or three samples that have been submitted ahead of time. You can find this on the Good Story Company website under webinars and events.
My name is Mary Kole with Good Story Company and here is to a good story opening.
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