Another Beginning

Since I'm writing again, I need to track my progress.

I've seen this cartoon on a few writer sites, including Bettye Girffin's, and I find it amusing so periodically you'll see this pop up in a post:



I've been writing longhand so I don't have a word count as yet. That 2500 is an estimate. I'll put my usual tracker in the sidebar after I type up my pages this weekend.

Story Title? Unknown. It will come to me.

Talking about beginnings again.

Each year that I write, I hope to mature in the craft of writing, in part from experience and from listening and learning from other writers.

Once again, I find myself at the beginning of a new story. It's kind of like discovering that one is pregnant again. It is (or should be) a happy time. Not quite as fearful as the first go round but still so many unknowns, like the baby's sex, hair color, shape of eyes, who it will look like, what it grow up to be. Many, many possibilities.

What I've Learned about Beginnings in the last year:

1. Beginnings are important. They hook, or lose, the reader. And the reader could be an editor, an agent, or a consumer. All are readers.
   
   
2. The beginning needs to have a purpose. It's more than simply starting the story. In the opening passages, the writer sets the scene, introduces characters, sets up the conflict, and gives an indication of the story style.
   
   
3. Some writers say, "Jump into the action!" Others say, "Set the scene." Took me a while but I figured out that one does not negate the other. The scene, or ordinary world, may be established in an active way, using character actions and dialogue as opposed to descriptive narrative. Still, it's important to ground the reader (unless it's a murder mystery and someone is shot in the first sentence)!
   
   
4. Some other things the beginning can do are foreshadowing or mirroring the climax, in action, dialogue, or introspection, and telegraph a message as to what the theme of the story will be.

That's some heavy stuff, enough to stall any writer in chapter one.

But I also learned that first chapters are almost always rewritten, and often thrown out. It's more important to get the entire first draft done than to work on polishing and perfecting the dreaded beginning.

Hence, the beginning is a make or break for most books but a writer shouldn't angst over it, at least not before moving forward and completing the story.

Got it!

I wrote another couple of pages last night. Hoo-rah!

It's amazing to me how my writing has changed in the last year. I read more craft-oriented blogs now, fewer social ones. And I guess I'm soaking up some stuff--good stuff, I hope--because I find myself thinking, "That's too passive. Rewrite for more action." or "Too much backstory. Scratch that and drop it in later. Reader doesn't need to know right now." Things like that.

Most importantly, I'm writing!

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia
Stay focused. Work Hard. Believe.