How To Start Writing Fiction – How do you begin a chapter in a new story to engage the reader and create a narrative? These 10 examples show ways to start considering your major;
They rain from the sky in the evening. They fly over the valleys, carts roll across the roofs, and rivers fly between the roofs. All roads lead with them, shining against the flint stones. Residents of this town say the message is urgent. Leave immediately for the open country. Anthony Doerr, We Can’t See All the Light (2014), p. 3.
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How To Start Writing Fiction
It hints at a mysterious approach and adventure (at this point we don’t yet know why the townspeople had to leave).
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But often, giving a fulcrum here, rather than where we are in the story, helps give a broader perspective.
The reader has the basic information he needs to get a clearer picture. Consider Doerr’s opening statement in the second chapter, ‘Bombers’:
They cross the canal at midnight. There are twelve songs and their names are: Stardust and Storm Storm and In the Mood and Pistol-Packin’ Mama. The sea slides far below and is covered with countless white sheets. Soon sailors could make out islands in the lunar mass scattered on the horizon. France Doerr, p. 4.
Here are all the setting elements needed to create the scene: Location (canal between England and France). Time: midnight. Movement and direction along the ground: Cross (channel). Verse: Gallic Islands.
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The artist, who inspired HBO’s series of the same name, is a master of creating tension through different media.
‘I am strong,’ said the woman. ‘I don’t have any problems.’ Yao didn’t ask in the end. It was my first day as a student paramedic. Call the third. Lianne Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers (2018), p. 2.
To reveal, Yao is a paramedic and the woman (we understand from the context, because the woman says ‘goodbye’) is the one called to answer.
It’s a great tool for building narrative tension. Tensions are rising here for many reasons. First, because it implies something is wrong with the woman (enough to call a paramedic). Secondly, because of the conflict between Yao’s presence and the woman wanting him to get along.
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In The Novel Moriarty, nine strangers (as the title suggests) come together in a mental health shelter, where the program becomes a little suspicious.
On a warm, sunny January day, former bestselling romance novelist Frances Welty drove alone through the bush six hours northwest of her Sydney home. Moriarty, Nine Perfect Strangers, p. 6.
Because Moriarty provides us with the basic information about what happened 10 years after the events of the first episode.
Connection of achievements of the first and second parts. Although the extent of their connection is not yet clear (Chapter 1 for retired women’s shelter in France).
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This is one of the great pleasures of storytelling: You can skip days, months, years and go back to earlier times.
There’s no linear path your story will follow over time, and you can use it to dig into the gaps between unwritten events or fill in your cards in a slower way than linear time.
Same thing, sometimes it’s interesting to jump through time like Moriarty does, sometimes it’s interesting to jump through time.
This is especially true of historical fiction, such as George R. R. Martin’s history of Westeros.
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The lords of the Keep, who keep the records of Westeros, have spent the last three years searching for Aegon’s stone. Births, deaths, wars, and other events are given as either AC (After Conquest) or BC (Before Conquest). George R. R. Martin, Fire and Blood (2018), p. 2.
Martin creates an idea of the history of the book by starting with the logic used by world historians.
The beginning gives us a wide range of time; descriptions of individual facts and actions are then presented more clearly. In other words, it is a good structure from the beginning to the narrowing and details.
How do you start a new chapter so that your reader has a vague idea of what’s going to happen and yet is intrigued by the events that bring them into sharper focus?
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The reign of King Aegon I Targaryen (1 AC-37 AC) was long and most of his later years were very peaceful. But before the Dragon Peace came the Dragon Wars, as they were later called by the Lords of the Hold, during the last twenty years of his reign; The last of these was a conflict as brutal and bloody as any yet fought in Westeros. Martin, Fire and Blood, p. 26
Martin’s description of the Dragon Wars as a brutal and bloody conflict tells the reader that the narrative of each of said conflicts will exhibit drama.
When I was born, my name was like that, but I wasn’t. If I had thousands of mothers, aunts and cousins, they would call me fairy. The powers of the secondary goddesses are so timid that they can barely provide for our eternities. We were told we were fish and a few flowers, forced to fall from the clouds, salty from the waves. This word, fairy, equated the length and breadth of the future. Our language means not only goddess but also bride. Madeline Miller, Circe (2018), p. 2.
This paragraph gives us an interesting fact about Circe; that she is a fairy and what defines this group as a ‘little goddess’ with ‘little powers’.
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Thus, interesting facts about Circe’s cultural context are revealed and it is suggested that her world subsequently changed in many ways.
News came that one of my uncles would be punished. I had never seen him, but I had heard his name and even in funeral whispers. Prometheus Miller, Circe, p. 14
We’ll wait for Miller to see what the sentence is. We soon learn about the legendary figure of Prometheus, who received the punishment of the gods.
And I couldn’t help but see her on the stone bridge, crowned with a blue-crowned dancer, because that’s how they received her when I was young, when the land of Our Lady was still red as brick and red with life. When there were other bridges over the river Anser, they took it and crossed it, for this was a bridge to the toll road, which twisted its way through the green hills and crossed the valley before turning into a valley. It is flat and faces south. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Water Dancer (2019), p. 3.
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The image of the mother appearing as a ‘dancer painted blue’ and being tied up and carried across the bridge is a powerful beginning to the story.
The reasons are strong. His stories set him in motion. Declaring the character’s desire from the beginning is a simple and effective way to show what drives your character, what drives the initiative towards certain choices.
I’ve wanted to go out my whole life. I wasn’t original in this; all the Officers felt the same. But apart from them, apart from all the Unlocked ones, I had a vehicle. Coates, Water Dancer, p. 15
We gain immediate insight into one of the narrator’s deepest desires. The reader understands what the narrator is doing at this moment.
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To get feedback on your previous three chapters and the types of stories you’ll create with the help of a writing coach.
Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager, and product developer. He received his BA in English Literature and BSc Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town. If you want to make big money, learn how to write a TV series. From where? Because once they’re hooked after reading book one and you know books two through four are on the way, you’ll be a captive, you’ll have a book invested. These 10 tips for writing a series will help you think of an engaging, multi-story, addictive story arc;
The central premise or conflict of your series is the main tension or unknown that needs to be resolved. Inside
, the central conflict is the hero’s dirty work with the villain, the first person introduced being ‘he who must not be named’.
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The big conflict series promises more intrigue. In Rowling’s series we find not only the main villains, but also minions and supporters working openly and secretly. These secondary conflicts lead each book into a major or central conflict. In one of Rowling’s books, a confrontation with the main villain looms on the horizon, while a cruel and vindictive teacher is less malevolent. A structured approach like this means that each book has its own unique tension and opportunity for character development, while larger unknowns remain unclear for later books.
Create a compelling central conflict for your series, an obstacle between the character and final romantic fulfillment (in a romance series)
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