helps you to overcome the weak
openings.
Opening
with your character’s thoughts
“Opening with your character’s thoughts can be very
effective, but you have to be carefull that you don’t begin with a character
ruminating about some past dreadful event—or even the inciting incident after
it’s occurred.”
“At a story’s beginning, we need a scene that we can
live through with the protagonist as his initial surface problem is created. We
can’t do that with the sequel to a scene, in which the protagonist is merely
(and dully) reflecting on that event. Let us be as surprised as the protagonist
is, and we’ll have nearly the same emotional reaction as she does!”
The
difference between and Inciting Incident and a situation
“The mistake many writers make is confusing a
situation—most times, a negative situation—with an inciting incident.
Think about Thelma & Louis. Prior to her small act
of defiance, Thelma is more or less aware that she’s involved in a bad
relationship, but, as we come to learn during the remainder of the movie, she’s
been in a state of denial for most of her marriage. This means that for most of
her marriage—for most of her story—she’s lived within the confines of her
circumstances, thus existing in a bad situation. Thelma’s small act of defiance—her
decision to finally take action and go on the trip with Louise without asking
her husband for permission—is what turns her situation into a story. It is the
event that creates the initial surface problem and sets up the introduction of
the story-worthy problem.”
Red
flag openers to avoid
“1.
Never, ever, ever begin a narrative with action and then reveal the character’s
merely dreaming it all.
2. Don’t
open with your protagonist waking to an alarm clock ringing, or to someone shaking
her awake, or to a cute little birdie chirping from her bedroom window, or to a
blazing sun shining through the window.
3.
Don’t write sentences like: ‘Was she going to come in or stay out on the porch,
he thought to himself.’
4. One
of the primary red flags is the absence of dialogue on the first few pages of a
manuscript.
5. The
problem with beginning a story with dialogue is that the reader knows absolutely
nothing about the first character to appear in a story.
*****
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I say Who What and Where
by Merce Cardus
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See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
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a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.
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