Comments on: Craft: Openings (Part One, Begin as you mean to End)

By: Story Cookies, Part 2: Seeding the Beginning : Spontaneous Derivation

Story Cookies, Part 2: Seeding the Beginning : Spontaneous Derivation — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:32:34 +0000

[...] Craft: Openings (Begin as you mean to end) by Kate Elliott [...]

By: Carol Berg

Carol Berg — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 05:32:59 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly with balancing the tone of beginning and ending. I heard that piece of advice before I published and it made SO much sense to me.

I have also heard “Begin at the point where everything changes” - which has worked very well for me — as well as “Begin as close to the end of the story as you can” — which presumes you know where the story ends, which is a lot harder.

To me, the most important thing about getting the opening scene right is establishing the POV character’s voice. That’s what hooks me into a story.

Carol

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:57:25 +0000

Karey, I have teenagers, so my shock at being told I did something useful is overwhelming me!

But seriously, good luck. I think one key to writing is learning to trust yourself.

By: Karey Brown

Karey Brown — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 08:48:59 +0000

Kate,
You may not realize it, but your original post helped tremendously. This manuscript is to be part of a series. Who wants to go through the continued nightmare of slogging through an opening? Your suggestion hit it right on. You see, I’d rewritten numerous times, hit upon a beginning I could finally sit back and sigh with relief over, but it was a long painful journey. Taking your suggestion, I now see, that’s EXACTLY what I’d ended up with..a beginning that sets the tone for the story/end. You just had the knack of putting it into words the rest of us could clutch rabidly and apply to our own writing. So hats off!! Now I feel every manuscript I begin, I’m more focused with HOW to come up with the opening.
You rock (can you tell I have a pre-teen?)
K

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 03:57:57 +0000

Karey,
since your manuscript is finished, I see you don’t have the problem some writers seem to have of rewriting the first 50 pages incessently without going any farther into the story. You sound a bit like me; I rewrote the opening sequence to JARAN about ten times and I still am not satisfied with the opening as it stands in the published version. At some point, I found, I had to let go.

My original post, I see now, really has to do with revision and not with where to start as a writer.

By: Karey Brown

Karey Brown — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 03:53:52 +0000

Typed too quickly previous post..so sorry. Blame coffee and pre-dawn (even entered wrong website). End of post should have read not so nice ‘hero’, not ‘here’ (smack) and as for undertone needing to remain dark, that’s how I decided where to begin–lethal beginning, a bit of humor, acquainting the reader with tone of story.

By: Karey Brown

Karey Brown — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 03:46:56 +0000

There exists so many rules for openings, that my first three chapters have been rewritten (including long after the manuscript was finished) to the point I have many great starts that can lead into a multitude of other books–but not helping with this one. The first line to the first five pages (some agents actually only want the 1st five pgs) and all the inbetween; however, how to decide which one is the right one for this particular manuscript is enough to rip out hair, or light candles to every entity hoping one will listen. I do agree with the tone being set for the entire work, which is how I finally waded through the sludge of numerous openings. Though my heroine is a cynical modern creating quite a few laugh-out-loud scenes and in love with a not so nice here, the undertone needed to remain dark, or the reader would never ‘feel’ dread when lethal beings were ‘closing in’.

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 01:02:59 +0000

GeTs

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 01:02:43 +0000

Gest moved in which direction?

Yeah, there’s the whole aspect of finding a starting point - as others have said - that allows me/you the writer into the story, and gets things going, as opposed to the actual beginning of the book that you may settle on once you are revising.

By: Constance Ash

Constance Ash — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:55:33 +0000

Whatever I’ve started with gets moved further back, once the first 3 chapters are written. Same with shorter fiction and with non-fiction too.

The point of the starting point, at least for some writers, is — starting.

But the pov and the location and the tone are there and they do not change.

Love, C.