Tag: Beginnings
Top 10 Ways Not to Start a Story, Part 2
Last month, I wrote about story beginnings (“Top 10 Ways Not to Start a Story”). A reader asked if I could expand on why those story beginnings may be weak choices, beyond just overuse. (Thanks for the suggestion, author Gloria Lesher!) A story’s first pages make promises to the reader. As an author, you must…
Top 10 Ways Not to Start a Story
Story beginnings are challenging. On the one hand, you’ve got all the excitement of getting to know your characters and their dilemmas for the first time, and you haven’t yet hit the point where flaws begin to raise their thorny heads. Ah, young love! On the other hand, those first-draft opening pages are seldom the…
What “Starts with Action” Really Means
Writers are often advised to start their stories in medias res, or in the middle of action. This is pretty good advice—if you know what it means and how to make it work in your story! First, though, let’s look at what it doesn’t mean. Some writers hear this advice and take action to mean…