The beginning of the end

My husband used to tell me my obituary would read "the author of the 20 most promising first chapters ever written."  You see, once upon a time, I labored under the illusion that manuscripts had to be perfect, and this resulted in a lot of beginnings that never saw an ending.  I'd get caught up in the first 50 pages and then I'd start reading over what I wrote and, inevitably, wound up back at the beginning doing revisions and rewrites.

Writer's Block (photo credit: Drew Coffman - flickr)

The beginning is the Groundhog's Day of writers.  If you just get it right, you can move on, right?

Nope.

Ok, maybe some writers torture themselves in rewrite hell and still manage to get out and write the middle and ending, but this can be a dangerous practice for the rest of us.  I understand the temptation to go back and fix and finesse.  My best advice is to stop the insanity and keep moving forward.  Keep writing until you get to the end.

My own novel had three different beginnings before my excellent critique partner pinpointed exactly where my book began.  It was easier to see what was missing and where the story started once I written the bones of the whole story.  But I'm pretty sure that I'd still be rewriting that beginning if I hadn't learned to let go and keep writing.  Take it from me, there's no surer way to lose momentum than to get caught in the endless loop of rewriting the beginning.  You learn so much about your characters and world along the way, and while this is sure to result in more revisions in future drafts, nothing feels better than writing the end.  Even if you are no where near it.

So I guess what I'm saying is so simple that it sounds a bit silly: start at the beginning and get to the end if you want to write a book.

Just keep moving forward.

Gennifer Albin is the author of Crewel, a sci-fi story set in a world where beautiful Spinsters weave the fabric of life.  You can check out her blog or follow her on twitter.


She gets to rewrite her obituary to say she wrote a novel, but she's waiting until she gets to the end to do it.

Chapter One

Way back before I signed with my agent, ALTERED had a beginning that I’ll call Beginning 2.0. It had already changed quite a bit from 1.0, and I hearted it something fierce. It took place five years before the actual story started and I thought it covered  all the great things about Anna’s story. There was tension and conflict and a little bit of love. I thought it rocked.

But then my beloved beta readers suggested I totally ax that beginning. Start it closer to present day, they said. You need to hook the reader a little deeper, they said.

Everything plus the kitchen sink

I scoffed. My beginning rocked. IT ROCKED. Right? It did…rock?

No. It didn't. But I couldn’t see how bad that beginning was until I wrote another one.

Beginnings---specifically first chapters---need to cover a lot of ground. They need to say something about the characters, the setting, the conflict, but they can’t say too much. 

They have to tell the reader Maggie loves Dan without telling them Maggie loves Dan. They need to tell the reader Maggie hates her mom and writes angsty poetry without listing these things like attributes in a character worksheet.

The progression of ALTERED’s beginning taught me something valuable. It taught me how to write beginnings with the intention of throwing 1.0 and 2.0 straight into the trash so I could eventually reach 3.0.

Now, I allow myself to pour everything into that first chapter. Learn who the characters are. What they’re doing. What they fear. Who they love. Hate. Admire.

Then I paint over it and let just a tiny bit shine through. I know what happens behind the scenes, now it’s my job to show the details as subtly as possible.  

Jennifer Rush is the author of ALTERED coming Fall 2012 from Little, Brown. Check out her blog for news and updates. 

Beginnings and Endings

Beginnings for me are probably the hardest thing I have to write.  I can generally pull through a sagging middle and I know exactly how the story is going to end, but those all-important beginnings love to torture me.

And, although, my betas and crit partners would probably argue that’s not true, it’s only because I’ve done all the hardwork before I’ve even put pen to paper—or in my case fingers to keyboard.

           

By the time I finally start writing, I’ve already run through a hundred or more different scenes in my head. 

But let me back track just a bit.  Whenever I write a story, I “listen” for the characters.  I genuinely feel it is they that is telling me the story, and not the other way around.

And so I keep listening for that all so special voice who’s begging for their story to be told.  When that happens, I usually “hear” just the first line and that line will haunt me until I write it down.

Sometimes, that’s all I’ll hear and then the character fades off into the background, only to re-emerge in certain places and leave me to fill in the blanks.  With RENEGADE, however, that wasn’t the case.  Evelyn was extremely pushy and LOUD. 

She wanted her story told and she wanted it told NOW. LOL.  In contrast though, she was also probably the hardest character I’ve ever written to date, but she’s also the most interesting.

And now onto endings.  My favorite topic (just about).  You can’t have a beginning without an end.  In my mind they’re actually more important than the beginning.  Especially if the book is part of a series. 

You want to wrap the story enough to offer the reader closure, but leave them wanting more.  And sometimes that’s a harder balance than coming up with something that intrigues the reader enough to want to read the book in the first place.

Personally I don’t like cliff-hangar endings.  I want to read more of a series because I’ve fallen in love with the characters and want to see what happens next, not because I need to make sure the characters made it out of whatever catastrophe their author left them in (I’m looking at you Lisa Desrochers, Andrea Cremer, and Rachel Hawkins—Ugh! You guys sure know how leave a reader hanging don’t you.  LOL. <3)

 That, being said, I’ve written a few myself and I can definitely see a value to them.  But, and this is a big, but for me. When I write a story, I like to see that the major conflict for the story has been resolved in the book. 

Take HUNGER GAMES for instance as that’s the perfect example of a series with cliff hangar endings, but each book has most of the dangling strings tied up.  If you haven’t read it, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but basically each book had one MAJOR conflict that ended (in the first book the actual Hunger Games), offering closure for the reader, while also moving the story along toward the series story (the overarching plot).

I also like this way of ending a story because if something happens and a story series gets cancelled for whatever reason (I know that’s rare, but it does happen), the book has given the reader enough closure that they aren’t completely pissed off it doesn’t continue.

J.A. Souders is the author of RENEGADE a YA dystopian that takes place in an underwater utopian society, coming Fall 2012 from Tor Teen.  For more information visit her blog or website.

And no she's not going to tell you if RENEGADE has a cliff hangar ending or not.  You're just going to have to figure that out for yourself.  ; )