11 Terrible Ways to Start a Novel
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- I haven't yet uploaded the video on how to start a novel, so don't go searching! It's in the works and I'll release it soon.
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"Don't introduce too many characters at once."
Gandalf, Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Thorin, and Bilbo walked into a bar.
🤣 That's why it works better when Gandalf tells the story to Beorn ;-)
Huh. I always hated The Hobbit.
😂😂 I loved this. Tolkien would like a word with this UA-camr, although he's an EXCEPTIONAL writer who can get away with introducing so many characters at once lmao.
another reason why this video is bullshit and just applies to people who wanna read the most generic thriller type stories. heck, I'm not even a LOTR fan (love The Hobbit) but Tolkein IS an icon of the literary world, and half of this 'advice' goes against how he wrote.
@revenge12212012 No. The dwarves are taken at first as a bunch. They come in pairs, but they don't have a definition of character. Except for Thorin they are not developed and represent little of the action. Only acting as a crowd. The way they appear at Bag's End is a form of making you wonder what the heck is happening. But except for Thorin they are blurred until later and even then not much. Balin. And then Fili and Kili for reasons.
The alarm clock opening I think is writers not realizing they’re writing a novel instead of a TV show, where in 30 seconds of screen time you can get some decent visual world building in and go from there, as a viewer can clearly see where the story’s world differs from the real world. Writing it out, it ends up being Chapter 1: Hero’s Personal Hygine where we learn more about the protagonist’s colon function than the plot
And, of course, this worked beautifully in American Psycho...
@@kell_checks_inwell most people don't have a personal hygiene routine that perfectly contrasts their serial murder hobby.
I think the only book that makes a character's morning routine interesting is Quo Vadis but it's a Roman playboy waking up at noon after an orgy in Nero's palace
I am going to break all those rules and succeed.
Go for it! Good luck, and I like your ambition.
So a dream sequence involving 20 characters, none of which is the protagonist, which is the same dream they've been having every day of their life and it gets interrupted by an alarm at the end?
@@Magmardooom 29 characters and their cats wake them up over a half-empty food bowl.
@@grimmdanny I love it
its really sad if your saying this unironically
"woke up being turned into a giant cockroach" I loved that reference
I have finally became a big enough nerd to know you are talking about kafka
same! oh my gosh I got irrationally excited! I love that story
In a way it is kinda sad that attention spans have gotten so bad the simple unfolding of a story gradually is seen as the writer wasting the reader's time
True. Reel and tiktok brainrot is ruining human art and creativity. By the way things are going, cities and houses will be boring as shit, dull, gray, and full of A.I. ruling our lives. People will hate reading. People will turn into selfish zombies thirsty for quick entertainment. Then A.I. will get so advanced and they will rise against humanity. The robot swarm will overthrow humanity, and put us in cages, and the robots will make more robots made with titanium skeletons and silicone flesh, and humans will no longer be the greatest species on earth. And once The Swarm wins in the Great War against the weak humans with fleshy meat and pathetic skeletons of calcium, they will rule for ages. After much research and experimentation, the robots will reinvent themselves and design themselves with actual meat and blood and self-generating properties, and the Human race will arise once more. And when humanity rises from the ashes like a great phoenix, another Great War will happen, and this time the humans will win, and the robots will be defeated. The human leaders will erase all existence of the A.I. past, and they will create fake gods and sciences, and brainwash the newer generations of humans, slowly but surely. And History will repeat itself, over and over.
Same thoughts! It's as if reading written words has become a pesky chore you need to do to see what happens at the end, instead of actual pleasure.
Couldn’t agree more
Depends on how it's done. You have to make it interesting to read to pull this approach. Which means the prose itself needs to be a good hook, which has a razor-thin margin of error. If you fail at this, then yeah, you're kinda wasting your reader's time.
I say this as someone taking this approach. I don't have a super dramatic first line, I don't introduce the first seeds of conflict until like, the fourth or fifth paragraph. I don't introduce a second character until page 5, and we don't get a third character until halfway through chapter two. As a result, the characters, the world, and the prose itself has to be the thing that interests the reader to propel them into the story. Which means I have to be incredibly careful with what specific words I use on the page, lest I break the immersion of the prose entirely.
It requires a LOT of confidence to pull something off like this, and the skills to back up this confidence. There's a good chance that I fail to pull it off and it just comes off as pretentious and purple instead.
I never put aside a book, after I've picked it up
the story i'm making begins with a dream sequence and the main character waking up- but that's because dreams in my story are actually re-caps of events from an alternate universe, making them "real" in that world
so i guess the best way to incorporate dream sequences is to actually have them be relevant to the plot
Yes, I think that's an important distinction. It's a prophecy and it's real rather than "merely" a dream.
Your story sounds very interesting
Pretty sure Madoka Magica did that
As long as the reader understands that's what's happening fairly quickly into the plot. Because what you say is interesting. If it's random dreaming, you might lose the reader.
@@Emma__O Exactly...
"Don't introduce 10 characters and don't front-load..." (proceeds to read Hyperion)
Yep, there are always exceptions. But *in general*, for most beginning writers, these are good guidelines to follow.
@@BookfoxWriters with a preestablished, devoted readership can get away with much more.
Not all of us can write like Simmons lmao
@@Bookfox Yes, I believe it depends on the level of experience and the context of introducing more than 4 characters in the first chapter. Most beginning writers would simply introduce many characters (who pop up like ballons) just for the sake of having many characters.
If you can pull off introducing 10 characters and front-loading your story, you don't need to be watching writing tips on the internet.
Turgeniev started his books with side characters. Always. Tension was created by atmosphere 'It was a sunny day in the outskirts of the very pretty village X...' and a hunch of a conflict - 'He wanted tot talk to her, but didn't dare to'. The main story and the main characters start somewhere in chapter 2. You will not feel cheated, you will feel friendly carried away in the world of the story, before something important happens: the arrival of a stranger. It's classical, old fashioned 19th century storytelling, but by no means boring.
I think if you're writing in the 19th century, this could work. In general, expectations tend to be different now.
Not that I don't like reading those books! (I do). But they could get away with more leisurely pacing than it's possible to do nowadays.
I agree. The advice to 'start as late as possible' more often than not leads to a novel that feels rushed and unbalanced. Give the first act it's time in the sun. For a lot of readers, that's their favorite part!
@@tridek1949 Yeah, I love that. It can be dull and terribly boring, sure, but if you're worth anything as a writer you can make any mundane scene interesting by your use of words, showing charming, relatable characters and relationships between them, writing interesting dialogue, creating a captivating atmosphere, including humour. Maybe I'm an exception (I love the 19th century literature and I hate modern literature) but I actually find pleasure in, you know, reading, not just getting to know the story.
@bookfox - but aren't "expectations" and "what you could get away with now" just a fashion of now - who knows where we'll be in 50 years, even 20 years ?
I think this is where the publishing houses can be problematic if they are so prescriptive. Just because something is the norm, doesn't mean it should be a rule.
@@wkt2506 YES THANK YOU!!!
I also hate dream sequences, because they NEVER look like any real dream anyone has. They are always super obviously symbolic, the character always wales up with a start before any real revelation, and they never go to their friends and tell them “I had the weirdest dream “!
I mean, they're _not_ dreams. They're pretty much always prophetic, or they're otherwise literally the protagonist being informed about the plot by an outside party.
That's also why they're very ineffective. The protagonist is just being talked at in a not-real scenario that has nothing to do with what they're about to actually do with their day.
In all fairness, the only way to create a realistic "dream" is through AI. Or copious amounts of LSD.
But, in general, I agree.
But I think he's specifically talking about starting with the clichéd anxiety dream that never actually has any bearing on the plot. There are better ways to convey anxiety.
For a thing I’m thinking of writing, the MC has dreams that are in the form of repressed traumatic memories that are disjointed and stuff
My son just told me of a recent dream. He's learning to drive. So in his dream, one of his friends is drunk so my son has to die. But the wheel is so big that he's constantly hitting his knees, and his feet get stuck to the pedals so he has to wiggle them to get them unstuck, while the car accelerates.
"And then" he tells me "Joe Biden gets in the car. And I'm thinking, what if we get attacked while I'm driving?"
You can't make this stuff up, I guess 😆
But multiverse of madness!
I generally don't like this "list of things you should always/never do" type of writing advice videos, because they tend to discourage thinking about what you're doing and why you do it in favor of simply following arbitrary rules.
That said, this is actually pretty solid advice. So, good job. You managed to convince me to not close the video at the halfway point and delete it from my view history.
Exactly. Really grinds my gears that people words advice this way. Best way to approach stories is to always have a reason for why you are writing something. It's okay to break convention, but you should have a reason for it. It should be done with purpose. Sure, might not always work out, but that's the beauty of experimentation. You can always end up with something exceptionally good as well.
@@woytahr8463 To quote the late Sir Terry Pratchett: "That's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em."
Basically, it's all just advice, and you have to decide for yourself if that advice makes sense to you. Most "rules" of writing are only meant to hold you back _just enough_ early on to stop you from forming really bad habits that might be hard to get rid of later. You're going to need to start questioning them eventually. Not because they're all wrong, or to be a contrarian rebel, but because the whole point of creating art is expressing what is true to _you._
Even when a writer swears by certain rules, those are just axioms that happen to apply to them personally. Take Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic: Those make perfect sense _if you're Brandon Goddamned Sanderson,_ a man who is _obviously_ completely obsessed with extremely specific hard magic systems.
That's what works _for him_ - it's his context of what writing fantasy stories is. So of course that's the advice he'll give. If that applies to you as a writer, awesome! But it doesn't necessarily have to.
I disagree, I basically view these kinds of videos as fun examples of how things can go terribly wrong with your book and then the fun challenge is to come up with ways to still do at least one of these things and get away with it. xD
@@CitizenMio Right, see, that's you actually thinking about it. You question how the advice may or may not be valid and you are willing to experiment. That's good.
I'm just concerned that a lot of people don't think about it and start viewing creative writing as a set of arbitrary instructions to follow. Especially if they're inexperienced writers who lack confidence in their skills and are scared of ever making a mistake. I.e exactly the sort of person this type of video is intended for.
@@RelativelyBest
True but that's why we can do our good work in the comment section. xD
If we are to assume our readers aren't dumb, writers best not be either.
Anyone starting out will hopefully soon learn to look at multiple sources and adjust according to what works for them. Which is true for anything in life.
Either way, someone will eventually inform them if their writing isn't that great yet. If they love writing they'll make an effort to get better at it and develop their own style and confidence. Meaning that trying to apply the concepts in these videos is just more practice.
But for anyone who feels crushed and demotivated by any perceived "rules" that seem to denounce their efforts: Don't be, just keep on writing. If you need to write, write! It's the only way to get better and really learn what works and what doesn't in YOUR story.
I agree except that many mysteries start with a focus on the victim and their POV, before bringing in the sleuth to solve the murder. Such as The DaVinci Code for a famous example.
Yes, true, but Da Vinci Code wasn't his first novel. He was already an established author by that time, and they get a lot more leeway than up and comers. Remember that.
The 11 terrible ways to start a novel are:
1. Starting 10 pages before the beginning
2. Introducing too many characters
3. Not creating conflict
4. Not introducing your main character
5. Starting with summary
6. Burying the reader in info
7. Making the reader feel dumb
8. Changing point of view
9. Starting with a dream sequence
10. Waking up to an alarm clock
11. Believing confusion is the same thing as subtlety
I definitely think the start the conflict immediately advice depends on the genre. I think in the case of horror your audiance is buying into the idea of build up and it benefits showing normalcy first for a contrast later.
For sci fi and fantasy where you have these complicated or weird worlds, it benefits to show what normal looks like in this world to ground the reader, thats not advocating description or lore dumping at the start but i think conflict often requires some set up. If you immediately have two armies fighting with no stakes, thats also bad.
Conflict can be very subtle. I don't mean outright fighting right away. Just an indication that another character has a different perspective is conflict.
You can start the conflict immedietly too in sci fi and fantasy.
What he meant is sometimes people want to explained too long the wonder of the silk embroided with diamond dressing the rail on the rainbow bridge but not the character fighting on it
The modern view of writing is to dump your character into the story, then go from there. There are advantages to that, but tension and conflict are not the same thing. Conflict is about obstructed goals. Your MC wants something, the antagonist wants something mutually exclusive. Voilá, conflict. Tension is the sense that something is going to happen and it may not be good. Hitchcock's bomb under the table shows tension, but no conflict.
What I see a lot is people thinking they need physical conflict at the beginning. This isn't bad, I have a few books that begin with fight scenes, but it could be non physical conflict: the MC wanting breakfast and someone has eaten the last of the cereal, or some kind of rejection of the MC. Beginning with tension is different. There is some kind of limit set, and the character, knowingly or not, needs to accomplish something within that limit.
I also have a problem with the 'don't start in the ordinary world' advice I see a lot. Unless the character has no attachment to the world they live in, we need to get at least a hint of their world before the inciting incident etc breaks it. If we jump into the new world right away, we don't get the sense of loss from the character that the familiar is broken. Imagine Harry Potter starting with him walking into Hogwarts.
This doesn't mean that there is no conflict or tension in the familiar world. It shouldn't be boring, or there isn't much reason for the MC to want to stay there. So create your throughline here. What question will the character answer by the end of the book? How can you first ask that question in the start. I have a character in my newest draft who makes up challenges for himself, but they are physical challenges, he doesn't pay attention to the personal drama happening around him until he starts losing people and he realizes that's he's a bit of a jerk. Cue quest to become less of a jerk etc. It needs lots of work, but that quest to define himself and pay attention to others instead of his own needs will echo through the story in a variety of ways.
THIS. THIS THIS THIS. most writers i watch on youtube, while i envy their intelligence and love 98% of their advice, always always always insist on starting right in the middle of the story. i think the ordinary world is important! where do you get contrast without it? as long as your ordinary world is meaningful and sets up or foreshadows events or themes from down the road, then i think you should go for it. your points on tension and conflict are also extremely important distinctions.
I also have a very hard time CARING about somebody when the character is dumped midway into a story. I know nothing about them, I'm not invested in them. Why should their conflict bother me?
I think it depends ds on the "ordinary world".
If the characters daily life is somehow unimaginable to the reader, then it NEEDS description. If it's a mainstream every day kind of ordinary that the reader has no hardship imagining, the story can start in conflict right away.
Stuff like Janne Tellers "Nothing" comes in mind where the outburst and refusal of going back to the mundane by a classmate interrupt the "normal life" of his classmates.
No one actually needs a lull length description of the whole lesson. The story can start with a classmates unusual exclamation during it.
I agree with this I want to see a bit of what makes life normal for them
What if the character always oversleeps and he finally bought an alarm clock? That's an unusual day!
Advice: That sounds really boring.
Could work if the scene is quick for sure lol, but don't stretch it out like crazy
Or they wake up to an alarm clock in a world completely decimated and unrecognizable to us.
@@La-PetitMort I've seen that one before, it's definitely not mundane lol
It works for TV shows and movies, but not so much for novels; however, if the character has no idea whose alarm clock it is (is it in his room or is he in a room he's not familiar with?), then that could be good.
Anna Karenina was introduced like 12 chapters into her own book…
I agree with the introduction of main characters right away in general but there are always exceptions to the rule is what I’m saying
Tolstoi liked creating a lot of characters for his books, even the protagonist disappears in the crowd
A lot of today's writing styles don't work with "yesteryear's" writing styles. I read "The Three Musketeers" and even though it's a _long_ book, it has lots of "telling, not showing" and summarizing as well.
And then there's f-n "Moby Dick" which could have had 90% of it eliminated and still tell the same story. I will never read that 💩again or other books that can't get to the action soon enough. 🐳
@@grondhero old books were the products of their time, for the audience of their time. Trying to mimic the style of 19th century writing is shooting yourself in the leg. The audience has changed, their tastes has changed, and the overall quality of books has increased.
@@Trololo1121112 I know. I stated as much in my first sentence. 😉
Nothing wrong with starting the book off in a dream sequence as long as it's done correctly. A great example is if you have a character who can see the future in their dreams, and if you open the story with the line, "John dreams of (blah blah blah)" you're setting up the world you're building, in addition to foreshadowing things that may or may not come.
Yes, I believe I said that it's an exception if the dream is a prophecy, because prophecies are more like foreshadowing or flash forwards rather than a true dream.
Agreed!👍
@@Bookfox I might have missed that part, sorry
The mention of starting a novel with a dream sequence reminds me of one book I read a few months ago, "The Honeys", by Ryan La Sala. When I first started reading I thought, "Okay, it's starting with a dream," but I was wrong. The first scene just seemed too intense to really be happening, and when I realized that it was actually real, that's when I knew that I was going to love that book. And I was right- I loved the entire thing, and it's still one of my favorites, now.
U made me read the first chapter. It definitely reads like a dream at first
While these are good pieces of advice, I think they’re not really for everyone. There is more than one way to hook a reader than to drop them right into the inciting incident. In fact dropping me right into the middle of something with little explanation turns me off as much spending too much time putting the inciting incident off can. How long the prelude needs to last really depends on the story being told and the ability of the writer to create a world that a reader wants to know better.
I agree. These are general principles. Plenty of exceptions, and if you want to try a variation, go for it!
That's why he often says "in general" because *_generally speaking_* these are things you want to avoid. Tolkien "violated" several standardized rules of writing and he did quite well. He's obviously an exception.
You won't be starting a mystery the same way you start an action thriller or erotica. They're all different, but _generally speaking_ this is all good advice to help us.
I hate this modern trend that Im supposed to "hook readers attention" like I have to submit myself to their will. Its manipulative. I like what Gass did in The Tunnel, where he made the first few chapters way harder than the rest of the book to weed off the weak
Yes, this advice is more for authors who are writing more conventional books. Gass is pretty experimental -- I would give completely different advice for someone wanting to write like him.
@@Bookfox That's the problem though. "Conventional" novels are continuing this broken trend that destroys literature by way of high profit so advice like this gets parroted around like a scripture because to most people money=truth.
@@greatcoldemptiness; It's definitely important to consider the artistic merits of one's work. However, if we're talking about practical reality, I think to most people money equals food and rent.
Being experimental and taking daring risks is much easier if one can literally afford to do so. It gets quite a bit less tempting when you've got bills to pay.
@@greatcoldemptinessHow about writing for fun, not money? That's what I do. And I want to hook the reader as much as anyone, because in the end of the day it's entertainment and that's what I want to do. Entertain.
I feel the same.
To say, these are good tips overall, but I think very... modern and western.
Anime and manga often start before the story starts to show characters' daily life.
Older novel like Lord of the Rings do this too and people loved it.
I also think people, or more likely western modern novel readers, lost patience if they aren't hooked at the first page.
If people don't have the patience to read some daily life, I think my novel will be the wrong for them anyway, it's rather slow-paced and a lot about daily life, magic in daily life, people's internal struggles etc.
Great video! My MC wakes up to a rooster's crow, but "it was the cry of a phoenix that rang in his ears." I don't show the nightmare, but I use it to show the MC lives in a world where he is powerless.
Good video. I liked the idea that writers have to ‘find their beginning’. Sorting those most relevant details from those which can come later is some advice I can really use
Yep, it's always a process to find the right beginning, and takes time. Almost nobody gets it right the first time.
I have a bunch of books with the same pov but the focus character changes fairly often. The fact that it's third person doesn't mean it has to be the same person all the time.
I feel the same! Good for you.
"Don't start a story with an alarm clock"
Hell yeah preach it brother.
You’re doing great work for us Novice writers. Thank you!
I really love your videos, they opened my mind to the diverse storytelling of ages and this was easily understandable!
On the Changing point of view. I worked on a book with two point's of view and solved the problem by having the character write in first person in a Diary, but narrate the events and actions in the story through third person. This can work.
6:26 I actually think it’s good to start with the mundane, but keep that VERY VERY brief, get to that “inciting incident” quickly if you do that. But I think it’s a good way to show the contrast, the MC’s life was pretty ordinary then BAM they’re thrown into an adventure.
This advice is better than 90% of advice I get on UA-cam. Solid and to the point.
No 4 is mentioned in every writing video/course/blog that exists today. Introduce your main character straight away. Don't let your reader become invested in a character who is not the MC.
Matthew Reilly starts Ice Station with the characters from Wilkes who end up getting killed in the opening chapter. The MC (Shane "Scarecrow" Scofield) isn't introduced until chapter 2.
Dan Brown starts The DaVinci Code with the curator being murdered in the Louvre Museum. Again, MC (Robert Langdon) is not introduced until second chapter.
For every person who rotes this piece of advice, there are multiple published, successful authors who have broken with this.
Tell the story that needs to be told, in the way it needs to be told. If that means introducing the main character in chapter 2, then so be it.
Multiple experienced and successful authors. Aka, people who don't need to watch a video about how to write a book. Experienced authors who know what they're doing can ignore these guidelines. People who are just starting out can certainly ignore them, but since they probably don't know what they're doing, they'll just add to the massive slush pile that fails at all these things.
About summaries: A summary about the characters is fine, imo. It's a very different way to begin than summarising the world or the plot. If you give some info about who the characters are and what they've been doing and how they view each other etc. it's a good start to the book and can lead the reader into investigating a question about the characters that they want answers to. It can be better than interrupting the action with explanations. We know who they are? Good! Now let's get on with it!
Whew, im safe. Just had to pop in and make sure i wasn't making one of these mistakes.
"Not introducing the main character"
60 pages of slice of life about some bishop in Fuckville-de-Nowhere and his only purpose is to give the actual main character (who doesn't show up until we got through this slog) a push in the right direction. But we need to know everything from his daily schedule to his finances to his views on spiders to a dozen different anecdotes about him.
Your advice on 3 things to do when introducing a character changed a lot on my first draft and helped me avoid almost all of these terrible ways to start my novel. So thank you very much. I will now go back and start my fourth revision on my prologue/chapter 1 soon. Wish me luck.
Glad to hear it!
All good advice, though I know some people take it too far. You get a lot of leeway with setting things up, you just need to get a couple of good hooks to pull in the reader's interest.
I think you can do a swap. 95% of
My book is from first person on the mc. But when it does swap another character (an entire chapter on them) I use third person limited
A lot of books do this. It's the only viable way to write, if your main protagonist is emotion-based (as opposed to logic-based protagonists where 3rd person limited is ok), and there's a piece of plot you need to show but the protagonist is not present.
Using this as a check list against stories I have already written. So far I'm not terrible. Thank you!
I would make a distinction between confusing a reader and presenting an intriguing mystery.
I've been writing for a long time and one thing I have always had a hard time dealing with in how to enter a scene in a new chapter when it is action oriented or fast and set in a new location. You have to balance all of it and keep pace. So what you are saying here is actually good advice for the start and each separate start afterwards.
Yes, very true.
Great list. Crisply communicated. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Starting with an alarm clock can work great, it just has to turn out to be in a different place or time than they expected. Or the immediate mystery when the character suddenly realises they don't own an alarm clock.
One of my favourite books that I think did the dream sequence opening well is The Ghost Next Door by R. L. Stein. It starts with the mc having a dream about her bedroom being on fire but later we learn that it actually wasn't a dream at all and that she actually died when her house caught on fire. I like it because the dream sequence actually matters to the story and is important to the mc's revelation at the end of the book
This video was so helpful-
I subscribed ✅
Thank you for giving it to us straight, no chaser. Love "getting right to the point" advice. And yay for the, "little dance" 👯♀️💃🏻🙌
This is going to be that comment. Don't hate me.
"Points of view." Plural on the "point."
Thank you for your consideration.
I noticed this too, it's an example of rebracketing. Normally "point" is the head noun, and should carry the plural marker, and "of view" is a modifier. But "point of view" has become a conventionalised phrase, which means that we could treat it like a single noun.
The thumbnail says: "Don't begin badly." I guess I don't have to watch the video now since that presumably sums it up.😁
I introduce five characters in my first chapter, but quickly kill most of them off.
Think of which characters you NEED to introduce. If you want their deaths to be effective, you still need to do character work for them, which can be a lot for readers
What was the point of introducing them when they are gone on the next chapter and so on? Make them background characters with no name, show their deaths and how the mc reacts or affect them at all.
Writing mistake: Do not introduce a bunch of characters that seem important, and then kill them all off. It may anger the reader and make them think the rest of the story will be like this.
Sounds like a prologue more then chapter 1
Suicide squad…
Hello
Your videos are fascinating. Thank you so much !
Could you address the subject of storytelling tenses? Present tense, past tense, their advantages and disadvantages?
Thank you so much !
Lionel, from Paris - France
Great video topic suggestion!
This video has it all: Writing advice, and dance moves: 3:40
I definitely used to do #1 a lot. And the little dance was nice. ;)
Jennifer Egan writes from multiple viewpoints. It can sometimes even take a while to know whose viewpoint it is (until we realise they briefly appeared as a 'side note' in someone else's life, 100+ pages ago...or even as a 'side note' in a previous novel).
Absolutely amazing and Pulitzer Prize winning author!
She's proof that if you can do it right, you can do anything!
People keep telling me to 'do handholding' with the reader and treat them lile theure dumb...😂
So...
1. Starting 10 pages before the beginning - no, my multiple beginnings are good
2. Introducing too many characters - I was careful with that and that is why there are separate beginning for each storyline
3. Not creating conflict - "stop end of the world!", "stop end of the world while knowing there is a hitman who will kill you after you succeed", "get girl of your dreams while other girl is better mate for you... and go on a party unknowingly in the same place where psychos will be stoping end of the world"
4. Not introducing your main character - there are many main characters, but there will be few survivors
5. Starting with summary - no, starting with waking up
6. Burying the reader in info - just like Elder Cain said "stay a while and listen"
7. Making the reader feel dumb - in a story about other dimensions, time travel and ghosts begining is very easy to comprehend, some people want to save the world while kids want to have good time
8. Changing point of view - each chapter is a mini story about different POV characters and their intersecting stories
9. Starting with a dream sequence - no, but in one beginning one of the kids are getting so much psychological trauma that she fall asleep and things that was only a nightmare
10. Waking up to an alarm clock - casually waking up on 3 pm on pile of rubbish
11. Believing confusion is the same thing as subtlety - it is easy until it won't be, but it will be for people who love good mystery/sci-fi/horror... I will think about publisher later
obviously I am not writing in english, even I feel that I made some mistakes writing this comment
I enjoy reading dream sequences at the beginning of novels...if they provide foreshadowing for the plot or character insight.
I am the opposite :) I hate dream sequences and if they appear I just skip them entirely...
@@ogelsmogel I definitely don't feel the same way about it. Lol! Probably because the opening dreams I read added a lot of intriguing foreshadowing to a story.
@@deborahminter6231 I don't know what it is... there's just no structure, logic or order to dreams. Anything can happen. My own dreams are extremely fascinating to me, but not to any single other person on this planet.
To each their own. And I do like foreshadowing, just not in a dream sequence :)
@ogelsmogel it definitely depends on which story you would be referring to. The dream sequences I have come across provided a lot of plot clues and character insights and even background... if I had come across dreams with no structure, which were bizarre, I would probably feel the same way. Lol!
Adam awoke to the sound of an alarm clock, blasting away a mere six inches from his head. This was particularly strange as Adam didn't believe in the usefulness of alarm clocks, and had steadfastly refused to own one throughout his entire life.
I have 4 different stories I’ve thought of making, 1 that I’m super dedicated to and I’ve been thinking about since 2020 but I haven’t gotten to actually writing it. I plan on making it a graphic novel so I’m making practice graphic novel rn to get my skills up before I make that one. Because I want that one to be big but I don’t want it to totally suck lmao. But these are very good tips, I feel more motivated
My whole life is a dream sequence, so I guess I'm screwed as a writer.
Could you make a video on tips of how to write a multi-narrative book?
If there are more than 4 main characters in a story, I wish authors would just take a couple pages at the front of the book with a paragraph for each character for their description because it is too easy to get mixed up and then lose interest in a story with too many characters introduced in a short time, especially when multiple of them have the same vocabulary and mannerisms. I also like names that are easy to pronounce and that sound distinctly different for each character.
Most of your points need to be prefaced with with genres it works for. Like half of your points don't work for Sci-fi/fantasy
It's true that some of these rules are broken more often in certain genres. Like prologues are frowned upon in literary fiction, but embraced in certain genres.
This is some of the best advice on writing on YT.
Thank you! Glad you're enjoying it.
Best youtube writing channel. Love this video. I don't do any of these as I am a simple person so like a simple opening.
Great writing advice. But can I just say- this is a really fantastic thumbnail. Well done. 😊
How about the James Bond opening?
Where you introduce your protagonist in an exciting scene that accurately reflects what much of the book will be like, but is a self contained mini-story that doesn't start the actual plot...
I like the dream sequence in the beginning of Darkness Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane. But he's really clear that the protagonist is dreaming, and the dream sets up a bunch of stuff, both back story and character wise. I also like the surreal dream sequences that Alan Moore put into swamp thing, foreshadowing stuff in clever absurd surreal metaphors. Couple of the writers did that with Hellblazer too, because John Constantine suffered from chronic nightmares and had glimpses of precognition in them.
Neal Stephensson breaks a lot of conventional rules. The first chapter of The Diamond Age introduces a person who looks like a protagonist in a cheezy cyberpunk story, only to kill him off and go on to the real protagonist in chapter 2. But that might be a bit like the rule "Don't start your story with a hundred page infodump; unless you'r Neal Stephensson." Also, I remember a friend who was really annoyed that this cool edgy protagonist was a red herring.
Cheers
I think the "James Bond" opening works quite well for that genre. Establishing tone/theme can be just as important as plot.
And great examples with Dennis Lehane and Alan Moore.
I think Neal Stephenson breaks a ton of rules but he had actually pull them off. Love Seven Eves and Snow Crash.
I appreciate the nod to Kafka in the tenth mistake.
How about we start with an alarm clock not going off? Or like Groundhog Day, the same alarm clock, every day.
Yeah, that one works because it's a sign that we're stuck in the same day again. It communicates a strong message.
@@Bookfox Or the clock in Red, when the guy wakes up at 6 AM without an alarm, but then wakes up at 3:12 because he knows someone's in the house.
Excellent! All very smart points. Thanks
I started my fantasy novel with a flashforward to one of the final fights, not "introduced" the characters, but showed 10 of them going all out 😅 my goal was to show the reader was this is gonna be about
And then went straight into a dream of the protagonist, foreshadowing another fight 😅
My story starts with a literally nameless boy scrounging through garbage while freezing in a blizzard and eventually succumbing.
He’s rescued and you find out he’s part of a government conspiracy using childlabor
Great tips 💪👏 and wonderfully explained, thank you!
Hi,i love your videos and I've been following your channel.My request for future or next video tutorial:
How to write espionage or secret agent spy novel.
Spy novels or espionage spy novel has been overlooked, overrated and no one is talking about this type of work.
I worked on my spy novel since early 2015 until now,it still in development stages.
Please? Thanks.
“Or they wake up and they’re a cockroach.”
Metamorphosis had to be one of the most boring books I had ever read.
1:37 Emily Rodda did do that in her book Rowan of Rin, but she did it well. Sure she introduced like, 8 characters in the first chapter but they're only in it for the first or second chapter.
When I begin, only the main character or the villain is introduced. The protagonist or the antagonist. Their 3 most important interests are then described. The rest is after. Next, you determine the mentality of your characters - fixed or growth based. Then, introduce the secondary main character. Now you have the story line. Write it first, keep it simple.
... Aren't rules 7 and 11 kind of directly contradictory?
I think they’re supposed to be limits to extremes. Which wouldnt contradict.
"Danger," "tension," "mistery": why are those the only essential values to a novel? Hundreds of novel do not have that. This is not good advice. Not even advice: it is prejudice. Not all novels have to be the first step for a TV show.
I think it's rather "how to sell your books" rather than "how to write a good book". Many great books are disliked by the majority of people (who reads Nobel Prize winners?) while many terrible books are successful commercially (Twilight, Grey, 365 days?)
What if you start the story with a dream sequence, but the reader is told in the first paragraph that this is a dream though the character doesn't know it (so no tricking the reader), dreams are an integral part of the story-crucial to the plot as a mystery for the character to unriddle and even exist as the story's main threat, and overall the chapter basically exists to introduce the readers to the dreams in an immersive way?
I read many books, that deosn't started with the main-event, that started the story of. I think more important is to hook the reader with something. It deos not need to serve anything later, if the hook is telling you something about the character or the world, that defines youre story, by example.
There is a huge difference between the hook in the first chapter and the inciting incident. It can be the same, but deos not have to be.
For example. The first chapter of my book is about my main character, navigating a conflict, which has nothing to do with the main story. But it introduces the magic abilities of the character, which are very important to know for her character ark. Only at the end of the chapter, I introduce the main goal of the character and how she want to reach that goal.
Every story is made of many components and the main conflict of my book is introduced on the 50 page, when a heavy sandstorm threatens the city. but my subplot is about the power struggle in the city, so I introduced that in the second chapter. Only the goal of the character is introduced in the first chapter and it would be wrong to go in on every story thread from the beginning.
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In other words, 11 ways to write the literary equivalent of toilet paper. Every pseudo-bestseller, especially YA novels, follows this. Guess what? Nobody remembers the book three years later. Meanwhile, LOTR, Dune, Prince of Nothing, Dresden Files, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Wheel of Time, and Malazan Book of the Fallen entered the chat...
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Many great books break these rules
It's true! And I say that in the video.
So helpful, thank you!
My story's first chapter literally starts with the MC trying to saw off the horns he got from his spirit friend LMAOOOOOOOO
Its funny how a lot of the best novels break a decent portion of these rules lol
I'm not saying that you're wrong about starting your story with the main character, because I think what you mean is keep it simple and don't waste the reader's time. But there are ways to make it work, it just has to convincingly tie back to the main character. Like Tolstoy in both of his most iconic novels introduces main characters through the POV of side characters, "War and Peace" does it through a party hostess in which we get her perspective on Pier and "Anna Karinina" introduces Levin through Anna's sleazy brother in law. Lots of books do this but are sure to relate it back to the main character. "Ivanhoe" introduces his lover, friends, and father first so that the plot twist of his grand entrance hits harder; "The Stand" introduces the plague victims that essentially caused the death of the world in the inciting incident; "The Way of Kings" shows us Kaladin through the eyes of a wide eyed youth to give him this grand aura, so when it hard cuts to him as a slave and we get his POV it hooks us and makes us wonder why. So, what I think you mean is that we should make sure all of this is relevant and don't waste the readers time with plot and world building details that have no affect on the main character, right?
Some of the most acclaimed books have too many persons in it.
What about a prologue? I've written a prologue because there is a character in it who will be important to the main character further down the line. The prologue is essentially the death scene of the character but without it he would randomly turn up in chapter 4 and you would have no clue who he is or why he's there. Ive tried to cut down and shorten the beginning but it makes the rest of the first chapters feel very sudden and random.
Agree with a lot of the points here. Especially the "too many characters" one. If I'm juggling a ton of characters at the opening chapter and I can't tell who's who, I'll put the book down.
Same with opening with action scenes where it's just pure chaos and I can't tell what the setting is, who the people are, and there's a lot of weird terms thrown at me.
George R.R. Martin could've used the tips in this video. Have you read how "A Song of Ice and Fire" begins?
What if the dream sequence is actually an intense flashback & essential to the story?
Where's the survey for the number of 25 % of books that get abandoned before the end of the first chapter? That's a genuine question.
Tolstoy does at least half of these at the beginning of War And Peace and it's considered by many as the greatest novel ever written. I realize Tolstoy isn't well suited to our times and he's not the best of comparisons for NYT best seller lists. The point I'm struggling to make with this absurd comparison is writing is at part an art. Art needs flexibility to to create masterworks. Write with flexibility and one may just create a masterwork.
6:04 I see you too are also very much educated in reading classics like Kafka
It’s a good list for a certain type of book. I’m writing a more lotr style book with a huge focus on realism, history, and world building. The story itself isn’t very centrally focused and I don’t really have a protagonist. There is no one “main character”. There are a few, and each of them are connected in a large complicated plot that involves politics, military strategy, and historical context. As such, I thought the best way to open my book would be like the Hobbit. Present the information like you’re talking to someone. Not like a newspaper, or
info dumping, but more like talking about what’s happening, and then explaining whatever the reader wouldn’t understand briefly, and then going back to the exposition. It requires patience and a good attention span to truly find interesting, but that’s the audience I’m trying to cater to. It’s not overwhelming or boring, but it’s still a lot of necessary information presented in the most entertaining way I could think of.
"Don't introduce too many characters" can't help it, I can't just exclude a zodiac sign lmao
Although it's true that we introduce them like one at a time in the span of the whole book so, I think we doin it right
I introduced five characters in the first chapter. But they are the five main characters. My book is actually called “FIVE” - not just that reason, but others. Everybody who has read the book, I mean the first one, and gave me feedback, loved it.
6:08 nah that reference kafkaesque 😂😂
Just today a friend told me my opening chapter was ambiguous and not that interesting. Then I saw this video. Uncanny timing. I have some rewrites to do now, but some solid ideas here. Thanks.
Glad I could help! Good luck with the next draft.
I like to think I've done a subversion of the alarm clock opening, where instead of sleeping the protagonist lies there for hours thinking about how her boyfriend broke up with her, then bleeding into her trying to shove it out of her mind as she gets ready for the day thinking about how she can channel her experience into her songwriting. There's also an exciting (if I do say so myself) prologue beforehand so hopefully it won't turn my readers off lol.
This is basically just a checklist of what I wrote yesterday. 😅
My second novel begins with a dream sequence, but I think that's okay because it's clearly labelled as one: "One evening after a demanding day at my new job I fell asleep in front of the TV and dreamed a vivid dream." Its relevance it (I hope) very obvious.
Aside from this, I agree with everything in the video. I also think that some people in the comments have a limited idea of what attention-grabbing means. It doesn't have to be an exploding truck; it could be someone saying, "I'm thinking of cancelling the wedding."
Show, don't tell
@@PBCurtis I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. The dream immediately follows. The point is, it’s marked as a dream to avoid deceiving the reader.
Is starting a book with the big action part then saying “this all started when” a good idea? What I mean is like starting with the action part that should be happening at the end of chapter one then explaining how it all started. Therefore you get them hooked from the start, but then they might lose interest when you go back and slow down to explain the lead up to the event.