Follow this one simple rule for a slim and healthy intro—critics hate this! · 3:35am Aug 19th, 2014
I am so, so sorry about the title…
So, earlier I watched the two panels Obs linked in his blog today, and I was interested to note that none of the questions directly related to actually starting a story, nor was there much talk about it specifically, in spite of some coming rather close to the subject (ie. writing OCs).
Beginnings are something I think about a lot, and I've made some pretty long comments about them here and there, though never a blog post, it seems. I have tried—I recall deleting at least one such post for fear of offending specific people or sounding like a pedant*. That's too bad, because there really is a lot to say about the first several thousand words in a story and how you can best use them.
As I was watching the aforementioned videos, though, it occurred to me that it really all boils down to one thing that I'm not sure many people with bad first chapters really think about.
Now, I think it's safe enough to say that if you're writing, you have some ability to keep track of the different characters of your story, what they know and how they feel. I think, if you can't do that, you have more to concern yourself with than how to start—just start and worry about the rest later.
What I prepose, then, is the simplest thing—add a character and keep track of this character's knowledge and attitudes. This character has no lines and no appearances, yet is present in every scene you write.
This character is the reader.
That's it, really. I could rant all day about reader engagement, questions and hooks, but it all comes down to looking at your story and realizing that one hundred words in, those one hundred words are all your reader knows. If Twilight called everyone to the library only to launch into a reading of “The stars, the universe and everything," without explanation, Dash would probably smack her upside the head and make her explain what the heck is going on first—and if Rainbow Dash would do it, so should your reader stand-in.
Think about it, and maybe next time you start 'in medias res', you won't skip all the actual relevant information before diving into a scene of a mysteeeeeerious figure doing mysteeeeeerious things that noone has any reason to care about.
* I have three real pet peeves when it comes to fanfiction—misused in-medias-res, not using past perfect tense when appropriate and Pinkie Pie.
Aww, come on now. Pinkie pie is not THAT bad
Thank you for being sorry.
Hmm. I need to remember to actually make my characters react.
Any advice on characters who avoid contact with everyone else?
Cuz, uh, I kinda ended up with a character who's mildly pyschopathic (and getting worse) and does a lot of behind the curtain things that the less people know about, the better.
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I knew that someone would call me on this, but I didn't want to clutter the post with an explanation
It isn't actually Pinkie Pie that's the problem, just that very few actually write her well. Pinkie Pie's antics in the show are dependant on the fact that they are not addressed or explained. You cannot do that in writing. Everything you write a word about in text is momentarily spotlighted, which is akin to explaining the joke. Only the most oblique references can work.
It's even worse when people actually try to convert her visual humor into writing meta-humor. I'm sorry, if you've ever had Pinkie Pie directly address the reader or the narrator, I probably hated it
There are some exceptions, however.
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Getting introverted characters to interact is pretty simple... just make them
Seriously, though. Thrust them into situations where they have no choice. Give your psychopath a witness who has no choice but to become an accomplice, someone they can't just get rid of. These kinds of relationships provide the kinds of conflict that stories are made of.
You might feel like such a set up would damage the credibility of your perfect psychopath, but that could be a sign that you really do need a foil for them to clash with. You don't have to use the exact setup I mentioned, but your characters will come to life so much more when they have to actually defend and explain their actions to a stranger.
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And this is probably why people don't make characters who are somewhat of an eldritch abomination and fight off other eldritch abominations on a daily basis.
In the fic I'm currently editing, I do have a foil, because it was the only reasonable way I could make anything make sense (besides the gratuitous usage of footnotes everywhere, explaining everything). I found out early on that him mindwiping anyone he doesn't give a crap about isn't good for storytelling purposes, even if it is something that he does.
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Power can indeed be a slippery slope that can run you into trouble when it comes to giving characters meaningful challenges and conversation partners. You lose the ability to use those things to effect your character. I can only suggest you ask yourself what DOES challenge him, what DOES he care about? Because those are the only things that will be able to make him act outside of his comfort zone.
It doesn't matter if he CAN mind-wipe anyone if he has a reason to not want to.
I mean, when in doubt, you could always use Pinkie Pie
(unless she's already in play
)
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The problem is each time I redo the backstory, I end up making my guy's life worse. In the current setting, he has been slowly driven insane by 3.4 billion years of constant fighting and little to no rest, and nobody to confide in. Plus the knowledge that his higher ups are constantly screwing with his memory in order for him to cut loose, to try to make him not care about anything other than keeping himself alive. There are tiny bits of life left in him, and I'll try to take your advice and stick that in somewhere.
I really should've chosen something different to base a universe/multiverse on.
I was hoping that some of the questions asked at the Adventure panel would involve a few more general 'How should I start a story?' types of questions. I feel that a few questions that were more along the lines of what struggling, new authors really would benefit from listening to being discussed. We got a few rather long-winded questions which focused on some problems which I think were more tailored to an individual's story rather than to the general new, prospective author. While I don't bemoan the questions asked, they just weren't exactly what I was expecting to answer. An interesting experience indeed.
But being a part of that panel did make me realize that one on one talks with individuals are probably the much better way to teach and learn about writing (although nothing trumps, you know, actually writing). Where as panels are a good way to better understand each author's outlooks, and seeing those differences will allow the viewer to understand just how vast the landscape of writing really is.
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The very story-specific questions were a surprise to me. There's just not much you can really say in response to “I'm doing X, is X bad?" without reading the story in question. Still, they did, at least, in their unanwerableness, bring up the very important point that anything can be done well, which is another thing that I try to emphasize whenever I can, so all around I consider it a success. I wish I could have been there*.
* You will probably never see me at a pony event as long as I live
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Pinkie Pie is totally fine, in small doses. The problem is, she doesn't really do things in small doses.