Where to Begin: A Tale of Process
I used to very sure-footedly start at the first word of my book and write to the end. When the ideas came to me, I knew where the story began, what the middle was, and where it ended.
Then it all started getting complicated.
I started dabbling in fantasy, and now post-modernism. I started telling stories that, on some level, never really end, and are as old as time. Or at least really, really old. I started seeing story as more fluid in some ways. That story could begin, on some cosmic timeline, at any one of a huge number of points.
Most of all, I started throwing out pages.
In what I am working on this week for my group, I told the Monkey Man that I was starting where I have to for readers to understand. But I didn't think it was the beginning of my story. For a monkey, he's pretty astute. Because he told me I was starting at the origins of my character but not necessarily the origins of my story. And for NOW, that's okay. Six months from now, I may cut every single word I am writing because I think the story perhaps starts elsewhere.
And that's okay. I, oddly enough, think the more I progress as a writer, the more I am willing to chuck huge sections as I find the story amidst all the words and back story.
I also realize now that for most writers, that's the problem with back story dumps. They are trying to shoehorn in the origins of the character, not the origins of the story.
Thoughts? How do you choose where to begin?
37 comments:
I think that I start my first draft feeling out my character, learning who she is and why she's in this situation, thus more backstory info than is needed. During the consecutive drafts, I try to corral the dumps and get on with the story. This is where a good CP helps or simply writing the second book in a series. :-)
Magolla:
I actually found Magickeepers II a LOT harder to write. Of course, I now knew all their back story, but I had to have mini-back story dumps for new readers to catch up without boring the readers of the first book. Not easy . . .
E
After the first draft of my novel I realized the first half was a backstory dump. And that was exactly it - I spend about 100 pages bringing the reader up to speed with the characters. That was the most painful chop - because I'd never finished a manuscript before and with the cutting, I no longer had a whole book. Then with the second draft I realized the first 50 pages were just a shorter backstory dump.
I think the way you explained it is the best way I've ever heard (read) it explained, because newbie writers, or novice aspiring authors struggle to understand why every little thing about their characters isn't important for the reader to know. I try to think of it like meeting a new friend and going from today forward - you can fill in the necessary bits along the way but at first, they're not what is important.
At this point, for me, as I'm finishing up (fingers crossed) the more I write the more I cut and my reaction is more of YES! than UGH.
The other day I wrote a backstory dump intentionally - just for me - because I needed to get deeper with one of my characters and since the book isn't from her POV I felt I may have misunderstood some of her motivations - and if I did - then how could I get them across to the reader? That was the first time I did that - a page or two from an alternate POV, for the greater, so to speak.
Stephen King once said that a lot of writers have difficulty ending their books because the story never ends (unless the main character dies. but then their friends and family... and their friends and family...)
But, he went on to say, for him the hardest part is the beginning because once you have the main character, it's good to know about his childhood... and his parents ... and his parents' childhoods... and...
For Derek Stillwater, it's fairly easy because the books typically start with something reasonably catastrophic. I say that, but in The Devil's Pitchfork it actually started years before with a scene in the first Iraq war.
In the novel I'm working on, Dressed To Kill, although where to start was fairly straightforward, I'm increasingly finding that the story is backwards, that because Parker is investigating a series of killings--and the first one, 6 years earlier--was his brother, that I have to slowly work my way backward. And when I'm writing from the POV of the killer, I have to move backward too, not only to at least the brother's murder, but also to events that created the killer.
And the trick is to do it while keeping the story moving forward, not backward. To not bog it down in flashbacks. It ain't easy.
Have not a clue where to begin my story. Nor how to end it. The nice thing about NaNoWriMo is that in all that shrek I'm writing there are pieces of the story that will be the beginning.
So far, I begin with the first chapter. Once it is written, I often let it sit while the rest of the story rumbles around in my mind.
Amy:
Since I tend to be a lean writer, those cuts anguished me, too! Now . . . not so much. And I take that as progress.
:-)
E
Mark:
I generally don't have problems ending. It is those pesky beginnings with all that history.
And I agree that . . . basically, when you start with catastrophic events, like BAM! That is somehow easier because it all moves from there.
E
Hey Richmond:
I've been sick as a dog, but I will get you your chapters this week. So far? I think it opens right where it needs to. :-)
E
Joe:
Rumble is such a great term for it.
E
OMG -- this has been my biggest struggle, and believe me, I've written thousands of pages worth of backstory dumps that I've had to scrap. Sometimes I just have to write it out of my system. Doing "Character Interviews" has helped me avoid beginning a story with an info dump, but I still struggle with deciding how far into the story to go to find that beginning.
Currently, my "formula" is to begin the story when the protagonist wants something so bad they'd do anything to get it. Everything before that moment is backstory. So far it's working.
I'm in no hurry for the chapters. But when you posted this morning it made me ask myself why I started there. I realized that unless you know the story, you don't know why Harvey is being told he can't fish in his own river.
It's really hard to know where to start a story because if you begin at the beginning, the reader falls asleep.
If you tell too much back story it feels like the writer can't stay focused.
The Science Museum has a coffee shop and entertainment for bright kids.
I have also been frustrated enough with finding the true beginning of a story that I've considered starting at the end and writing backwards for 80K words. LOL
Beth:
I don't tend to do well with character interviews. Not sure why. I just have to wallow around in voice for a while. LOL!
E
I began my first story about 40 pages to soon. I had my idea and started writing. Figuring out what of those first forty pages of backstory to actually include and what form to include it in was a challenge but I learned a lot from the process. I don't know if that story will ever see the light beyond my desk-lamp but it was a good teaching tool.
Boy, you are channeling me this morning ... I was thinking the very same thing about how my view of a "story" has become more fluid over time. I've come to view it like the stories I want to tell aren't actually complete stories, but chapters or blinks in time. Stuff came before, and stuff will come after. The trick, of course, is to capture the right blink. So I move my bead up and down the time string, hoping to find the right place to start, and so far, it's usually taken me more than one try to find the right place.
And your observation about backstory dumps is gold. Sooo true.
I begin at the beginning of the plot, the inciting incident, and I don't start writing until I'm sure of what that is.
I also will throw out writing without a qualm. (Well, I put it in an Outtakes file). I think it's because I've learned I can write new stuff that's just as good or better. Words are more precious when you're just starting out because you haven't proved to yourself over and over that you can come up with new ones.
Paul:
When I was first starting to write seriously, a published author friend of mine said, "I always throw out the first 50 pages"--and I thought she was nuts. Now I get it.
E
Lurker:
I didn't want to get all quantum physics and metaphyscial on this, but yeah . . . I mean I see it as WAY more fluid than I ever did before.
E
Starbucks:
I think my problem with this book is I think there are three inciting incidents.
E
While writing my first novel I was told I started too late. I was so worried about beginning with backstory that I didn't give enough in the opening.
My current wip starts with a physical attack, but I'm wondering if I should open a chapter sooner so the reader gets to know the characters first.
I am having the opposite problem right now--with both works I'm working on, the main characters live in our world, but another, fantastical world is revealed. I 'get' the fantastical world, and always love that piece of it. I make myself anchor the characters in their real world first, but I struggle with it. I can't cut the beginning, and want the characters to be anchored, but.... And I don't want to write high fantasy--I want the characters in the real world, but I find the real world more difficult.
Melanie:
I don't know . . . tough call. Because are the characters compelling enough in their pre-crisis life to want to read a chapter about them? Or should we learn about them in the face of tragedy?
E
Heather:
I had similar issues with Magickeepers. A lot of the magic is back story in a lot of ways. It needs some kind of explaination.
E
I worked on the current wip for about a year off and on, had more than 100 pages... and dumped the whole thing to start completely over.
I could tell you it didn't hurt, but I'd be lying. Some of it I looooved, but I loved the turn of phrases and the way certain things looked in my mind's eye - I was killing the story with the way I was writing it and virtually none of it is making it into the current draft.
And I started this one with an outline. Ha! My outline was off, wrong, daft, not the story I want to tell - I was missing the point and it took me reams of pages and endless work to find it. But I did find it.
So I don't know - it's not the most productive way to work, certainly. And if I intend to build any sort of fiction writing career, I'll have to get a handle on a way to maintain productivity without yearlong jaunts in unpublishable writing... or worse, trying to publish something just because I spend a year on it and not because it's any damn good... but, right now I'm taking advantage of the fact that I don't have a deadline. The only clock above my head is the one I set. And it's taking me more time than I would have liked but I also know more about character development, pacing, plot and story than I imagined was possible once upon a time.
Good luck with the process, Erica, I'm sure you'll nail it! And I hope you're feeling better today.
I'm experimenting more with "junk" writing that I'll later delete, especially in this one. Usually the beginning scene comes to me, vivid and clear, and that's when I can begin writing. With my NaNo novel, it hasn't come yet. Ordinarily I wouldn't begin it yet, but I'm absolutely determined to squeeze something out, so there's a lot of discovery writing going on.
I'm also trying to get the ending first. I don't know why. It's just how I want to try writing this one, LOL. I like to shake things up, and I've never written that way before. I hate writing the ending (love beginnings and middles), so I may as well try to get it out of the way first, LOL. We'll see.
Erica, right now I prefer to introduce the characters by way of how they act in the face of danger. I'm getting there...
Merry:
Funny, but the process feels so much more joyful when I just "go" with it--so I really don't mind that it might not be efficient. Or perhaps it actually IS and that is simply the way the mind story tells.
E
I over write the story. I begin before there is a story and I write past the point where the story ends, purposely.
For me, it is much easier to cut stuff out than to find some way of adding to the tale. The story usually begins and ends at surprising points. It is kind of nice to have a surprise waiting or you at the final draft.
Allen:
I didn't use to overwrite. But now I find some stories just demand it because they are too big.
E
Uh oh, Erica. Is this the one where there's a couple of POVs, too? I've battled that in SCAR now that I'm adding in more POVs. Hmmm. I guess maybe start with whichever one happens first?
I too am tossing more out now than I would have before, but then, I'm also not as sure of this story as I have been with others. I think that's because I'm pushing my own boundaries and willing to go down some roads I haven't before.
With my current WIP, I realized I wasn't starting the story soon enough. I've done a lot of cutting and editing and am happy with it right now, but now the rest of the story needs to be expanded more.
Starbucks:
Two POVs, though it's a "big" story, so who knows.
E
Colleen:
Me, too!
E
Nadine:
Funny, in Freudian Slip, my editor made me start it sooner--and I do like how the book came out.
E
Post a Comment