Writers : What do you usually do when you don't know how to start a story ?

I'm one of those weird people who find it easy to write the start of a story. Cheerfully, I write numerous beginnings but then I always debate with myself which beginning I should go with. The easiest way to do it, would be to flip a coin, however the Fates aren't always on your side -_-

That's why I've always liked 'set-a-scene' beginnings or 'instant-action' ones - the ones that really pull you in : )

I've decided that whenever I'm stuck which beginning to go for, I compromise and use both ^_^

My present story has that example: on a technicality, my prologue is the beginning-beginning (instant action), and then my chapter one is my beginning.(set-the-scene). Too many beginnings, I hear you say? Ah, well, I'll think about that at the editing stage ;D

a) Do you work on multiple novels or just one?

To be honest, I did try that approach and it kind of failed for me because a) I lost interest in all of the novels; or b) I lost interest in all but one, which was the one I most wanted to pursue. Working on multiple novels just doesn't work for me, I've learnt, so I'm writing one at a time. However, I'm impatient and sometimes I have to force myself NOT to write a full second novel for my series and focus on book one. It's a little hard, haha..

b) How many ideas/titles have you came up with up until now?

About five, haha, all set in my fantasy-world. Two I'm pursuing, but the rest I kinda dropped or I'm waiting until I've finished my present project.

c) How is the story you are currently working on going at the moment?

Chapter four is the toughest chapter I've had to write so far -_- It didn't use to be, but my third re-write just wants things to be difficult.. I keep feeling there's no action or death climax and there's just my characters meeting an important leader in a major city: the city is the main setting for book two, so chapter four's just preparing and introducing the reader to the city and its leaders. The leader's basically the climax and I'm pretty annoyed at that fact but I know that if I add anything in, it wouldn't seem realistic so I'm forced to go in this direction.

Nonetheless, chapter four is almost done and chapter five, in my last two re-writes, has always been my favourite chapter to write. That and chapter seven, when you meet my favourite character B3

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Happy Holidays, mate! *waves*

If I'm writing a story it's usually because I have a specific scene in mind, so I write that scene and just see where I go from there. I find that I often find it easier to start at the end because that way all I have to do is decide what brought my characters to that point. I write my stories in scenes though so it might not be a good tactic for you.

I keep a notepad and pen handy, (I sleep with them next to me, dreams are no. 1 for inspiration) and jot down a word, phrase, paragraph or even a place name.

BQs:

a) I work on multiple stories. It keeps my mind fresh, because I don't write just one genre it's interesting to see what I write for what story. My plots often get scrambled but upon proof reading I often get some of my best ideas. It also nice to take a break from one plot to look at another.

b) That is an incredibly hard question. Probably hundreds of titles and thousands of plots. Im not trying to show off, I genuinely think those estimates are pretty close to the actual number. Plots can branch off and progress a hell of a lot, so much so that they can become something entirely different and unforseen.

c) My current stories are going amazingly well, I am soooo pleased. God I'm unbelievably happen with them! I've had no issue--touch wood--with my characters, which is a common problem for me. Fingers crossed karma continues to be kind.

Uh... Happy Boxing Day! xxx

EDIT

Haha I put happen instead of happy... *facepalm* lol...

I like to plan basic things about my novel before I start. Normally I'll have some sort of idea on how I want the opening scene to turn out. Normally I am never happy with my beginnings, but I never have a problem starting. I just open the word document and start typing. Whatever comes into my head is put down on words. I really don't worry about order or placement of anything, but odds are I'm going to have to go back and fill in some plot holes, or add some foreshadowing, or something of the sort. Either way, it will eventually be edited to how I want it. So during the first draft, I don't sweat it.

a) Do you work on multiple novels or just one?

Just one. I find when I have more than one, one gets neglected or forgotten about.

b) How many ideas/titles have you came up with up until now?

Titles for this story? Just one. In my entire life, seven that I actually ended up using.

As for ideas, I don't think of them as quantity, they're sort of something I can't measure.

c) How is the story you are currently working on going at the moment?

Not bad. A little slow. My November high turned into a December crash. I'm hoping to jump back on the bandwagon in January.

If I have an idea, I must have a story before I begin. When I have a story, I must have an atmosphere. Once I have the atmosphere, I must use imagination. (:

I normally base my scenes - this concerns all kinds of scenes, including the beginning - on the atmosphere that I pin on it. The idea for my novel project has an atmosphere which is prevalently dark and a bit glorified. Thus, most of my scenes will contain this atmosphere, too.

My beginnings, and most of my scenes, are founded through the imaginative capacity of my mind to compare everything to a film. I usually envision the scene as a cinematic piece before writing it. In my mind's eye, I adjust the lighting to suit the atmosphere, the music/score to suit the atmosphere, the colours in the area to suit the atmosphere, all sorts of little details. And then it helps me to write it more easily.

For beginnings, I usually like to think of what I would consider a great beginning for a movie. There are definitely movie beginnings that are boring and dull - where two people who you don't even know yet are talking in low tones in a dim room and you don't really even care what's going on because nothing makes sense, for example. I really favour those opening scenes in movies where it just kind of sets the mood right off the bat, and where things are happening, but not really *complex* things are happening. Material doesn't have to be heavy to be good. Contrary to the openings that give you a tangled web at the very start and it unfolds from there, I like the simple openings that make you just excited to see the rest of it because you're given that tiny instinct that it's going to just get thicker from there. Perhaps it's only because I'm writing a series, and those openings are better suited for series than novels.

BQs :

a) Do you work on multiple novels or just one ?

-- I'm a monogamous worker. I have but a single, steady novel project.

b) How many ideas/titles have you came up with up until now ?

-- Four ideas for four books in my intended series, with a total of about five undecided working titles. ;)

c) How is the story you are currently working on going at the moment ?

-- Stupidly slow. I have no discipline. I need to learn how to get off of this gosh-darned website.

Look forward to the new year, Nell! Have a good one (:

1) But which way do you think is actually better than the other and why ?

I'm not willing to say which of the two methods is better because we all work and think differently. I personally like to write my chapters in order from A to Z, and I do this because I like to add certain details and clues that tie up in certain other chapters(so I can plan ahead and not have to re-write everything). I start with chapter one and go from there; however, if I'm afraid I'll forget a scene idea that comes up later in the book, I will write it out.

2) What do you do when having a problem with starting a story ?

Simple. I step away and take a break. Nothing good comes from forcing yourself to write or start writing. Too, I keep my mind open for inspiration. Music helps the most. If taking a break doesn't really work, as I know I like to keep writing rather I'm having trouble with it or not, I normally review the rules of drawing in an audience. Hooks, action, and catches. I stroll through the internet and my shelves to find examples from other writers.

3) What do you do when you don't know where and how to start it ?

Honestly, I never really have this problem. I've only ever have trouble starting a story when I have multiple ideas of how to write the first chapter. Other than that, I know where to begin. IF I was having trouble, I would probably look for examples of first chapters by other writers.

4) Do you wait until an idea pops out of nowhere, or you just start your story from a random moment that has just crossed your mind ?

Actually, my method is a mixture of both. The random idea that crosses my mind is usually in the moment I want to start writing.

BQs:

a) Do you work on multiple novels or just one ?

I used to work on many novels at once, but I realized that it got me nowhere. I was too preoccupied on jumping from one to the other that nothing was getting done. I'm now buckling down on ONE project and if an idea comes for another story, I write it down in an idea journal. No more idea hopping for me.

b) How many ideas/titles have you came up with up until now ?

Too many to count. My writing cabinet is overflowing with new and old ideas for both titles and stories. My phone is also jam-packed with notes pertaining to novel ideas.

c) How is the story you are currently working on going at the moment ?

Pretty darn good, actually. I'm going by tradition and writing out everything in pen. THEN I'll hit the keyboard and type out the manuscript.

~~ ††AnkhesenKheper††

When I don't know how to start a story? I write one that I do know how to start. In other words, I generally don't start writing a story until I have some idea of how I want it to start, how I want it to end, and some idea of how I'm going to get from one to the other. But as you say, some writers start as soon as they've got something to hang the story on and make everything up as they go along, and then rearrange and rewrite scenes once they've finished to make a pleasing and coherent whole.

Neither approach is more right or more wrong than the other. You just have to figure out what works for you. Most writers are somewhere between the two extremes. I have a big wordprocessor file, into which I put everything that I think might come in useful for a story - settings, characters, plot twists, anything. It doesn't have to be a complete outline for a story, and usually isn't. I reread it every few months and add any comments that occur to me. Gradually, my subconscious grinds through these ideas, and eventually, out pops a fully-fledged story - or something that I can turn into a fully-fledged story, anyway.

BQs:

a. Generally I work on one novel at a time. If I work on two, I'll be writing one and editing the previous one.

b. Let's see... I've written six complete novels. I have two incomplete ones that I intend to finish, one incomplete one that I probably won't finish, and one incomplete one that I might finish. There are maybe six or eight more that I haven't started yet, but would feel confident about finishing if I did start. (Some of them are sequels to the finished or unfinished books.) The ideas file that I mentioned above is 66 A4 pages, or 36,000 words. I don't know how many books that represents, because the point of the file is that it contains things that aren't yet ready to go into a story.

c. I'm taking a break from writing novels to do a short story about dragons. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with it, but we'll see.

Basically, if I don't know how to start it, I don't write it. I always start at the beginning, even if I write out of order later. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to find a beginning that I really like, but I always start with it. I think I went through 3 different beginnings for my last story before I finally settled on one -- it ended up tying in with a key scene later in the story which made me very happy :)

My ideas for beginnings usually come after I examine the rest of my plot ideas and think about how it all gets set in motion. Since my stories are sort of a series, my beginnings also have to [at least partially] tie the stories together (even if it's not in the first scene). They're hardly ever just random ideas, and I wouldn't really say they're "random moments" either.

BQa: I try my very hardest to only work on one story at a time, but I've been known to at least start planning for my next story while I'm in the process of writing one.

BQb: Way too many. I've actually only ever finished two full-length stories, only one of which is truly novel-length. Some of my ideas have gone into a kinda continuous story some friends and I wrote (it basically never ends) and my other ideas that a) aren't long enough to be novels or b) don't fit into any long stories either get scrapped or turned into short stories/scenes.

BQc: It's going okay, I guess. I've been brainstorming more than actually writing lately, and any writing I've done has been all out of order. I think I'm trying to drag it out too much and I'm boring myself -- I need to just knuckle down and stick to the important elements.

I tend to wait until I have a rough skeleton/outline of my story to start. When I just have a bare idea and maybe a few plot elements, my story tends to go nowhere and I stop. I don't know how to start if I haven't done enough character developing; then it feels like I'm writing about people I hardly know. When I was twelve, I truly knew this feeling because one of my friends asked me to make a character of her in my story. I knew characteristics she had, but not her past, how she would react in different situations, etc. I got her character to walk into a room and as soon as she approached another character, I had no idea what she would say given the plot circumstances. And I dropped her part in the story. So, if I don't know how to start a story, I might continue with some character development.

I am one of those people who's done a billion versions/rewrites of the same first chapter before she proceeds to write the rest of the draft. I have gotten so much better at not doing that anymore (whoot!). I used to do that because I had no idea how to start my story... or so I thought. I *really* had no idea how to start my story perfectly. I've learned to accept that it will not be perfect the first time around.

Also, I've slowly let go of the idea that there must be some beginning that molds to all of my story's ideas/explains something relevant to the plot/reveal something/etc. I've let go of the idea that there's some uniform type of beginning that readers expect to read.

So, if I don't need character development, further plot development, or accepting that it will not turn out perfect, I need to figure out what in my plot outline happens first. I think about where the story actually starts rolling and begin with that.

Second to lastly [? xD], I've found this bit of insight really useful - that you might find that your second chapter becomes your first chapter. Just don't worry about it until you've finished your first draft. By the time you've finished, you might have come up with a clearer and better idea. I find that writing random parts of a story, and putting them together later helps me think of how to write other scenes.

Lastly, I really think this is different for all writers. What works for me, may not work for others. I don't think any way is better.

BQa: It depends. I usually spend long periods on one, and I might hop to another story for a while. Right now I'm writing one and planning another.

BQb: Don't make me count! D:

BQc: It's going alright, thanks :3 I have a slight lack of concentration to write at this moment because I'm sleep deprived xD

Happy holidays! :D

If I can't think of a good way to start, then I don't start. Products that come out of force never come out good. Forcing myself to start a story when I have no idea how to is a bad idea, because the product of that will be terrible, poor writing. So if I can't think of how to start, I take a break. I go relax, do something else besides writing, and then when I feel ready, I come back to my story and start brainstorming.

BQs:

a.) If two ideas come to mind, I write two stories at once. If I only have one idea, I write just the one.

b.) Hmm.... I can't remember how many. There's too much.

c.) It's going wonderful, thank you. I think why it's turning out so wonderful is because I spent almost a month *just* on the planning. I made sure that there are no plotholes whatsoever, all the important details are present, etc. It's really a detailed, intricate skeleton of the story. All I need to do now is put the skin over it and fill it with organs. Goodness that sounds foul.

Happy to answer your question, and a Very Merry Christmas to you, too :)

I find that the best way to start a first chapter (for me) is to jot down some rough crappy intro and then continue writing on from chapter two properly, when I think I have a really good grasp on my characters and the "feel" or "atmosphere" of the story I will go back and write the opening again properly.

a) Just one at a time for me thnx.

b) As a guess, about twenty story and plot ideas

c) I finished the planning of my current work about three months ago (which I was doing for about three years) and am now on chapter three. I guess 3 is a magic number lol. All in all making good progress.