It’s inevitable that as you start on your journey in creating a story, you don’t start at day one. So where do you start?
For me, when I first started writing, I started too early into the story. My friend Bethany helped the inexperienced me understand that the story starts often after the trauma, after the move, after the big change. That ridded me of my first two chapters of book one. Now, as I write, I try to start where the story actually begins, but I realize that often I still need someone to say, “Nope, here’s the start to your story.”
That leaves the backstory to be woven into the novel, not dumped in, but layered throughout.
Often, we tend to think that something can’t be cut because it’s important for the reader to know. So, my question is: How do you work it in without dumping it?
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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/
3 Comments so far
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You could work in the important back story as a dream or there could be something that triggers the memory for the character. This is the clever part in writing, how to put in the past in the now in ways that the reader won’t doubt.
Hope this helps.
Ariel Ceylan
.-= Ariel Ceylan´s last blog ..22 January 2010 =-.
[Reply]
By Ariel Ceylan on 01.23.10 10:41 am | Permalink
Thanks for sharing your views on the topic. It makes one think and look the other side of the story.
[Reply]
By Essays on 01.26.10 3:35 pm | Permalink
One interesting piece of advice I got once from a successful novelist: don’t start a novel with one character alone. This is, of course, not a hard-and-fast rule, but it’s something to think about – so often, first sections that need to be cut are lacking in conflict and interaction, or are just rampant backstory without giving the reader a glimpse of plot, tension, or a reason to care.
I thought it was interesting that you mentioned the trauma, the move, the big change. Definitely a good point. There are a couple of perspectives on it, though. I’ve looked at the timing of “the big change” a lot in the context of some of my favorite books that have a couple of chapters before it happens. In Howl’s Moving Castle, it’s not for several chapters that Sophie is cursed and winds up going to the castle; in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, it’s awhile before Harry realizes he’s a wizard and a LONG time before he completes his literal “move,” going to Hogwarts. And in most paranormal novels, it’s not for a few chapters that you get the big reveal of supernatural stuff definitely going on.
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By Anica Lewis on 01.28.10 10:13 am | Permalink
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