Where do you start?

[13x13]

When writing a story or novel where do you start?  I've got scenes in my head that aren't necessarily part of the beginning of the novel. Do you write in a linear fashion or do you write by scene and jump about?

[Craz]

I tend to write in a linear structure usually, though I might pre-write scenes depending on inspiration and such. Though if I do write out of order, I usually have to spend some time making sure I kept everything linear.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

You start as late as you possibly can in the actual story, because that teaches you how to do solid backstory and incluing without long infodumps*, and how much of the story you think you have you actually need.

I write pretty much exclusively in order, because it's a rare couple of thousand words that I don't find out something new about the characters or plot or world while writing, and if I did that out of order it would drive me mad trying to go back and keep all the incluing straight.

That doesn't, mind, have to mean that the story as presented to the reader needs to be in chronological order.  There's no law says you have to write in the order you want read.

*Unless of course you are really good at making long infodumps cool and fun; but most of us aren't Neal Stephenson.

[Suilan]

I write my scenes and chapters in sequence too (just scribbling down notes when I have an idea for later chapters), although in the latest version of my trilogy (after workshopping the beginning at OWW), I added 3 chapters to the beginning.

What neurovore says is good advice and I thought that I had started at appropriate point -- as late as possible, at the moment where everything changes for the main character but the reader still catches a glimpse of the character's old life. I still start at that point, just three days earlier, on the journey to her new "home." The reason was to have more action at the beginning and to introduce my story's main theme earlier.

Only once did I write a later scene (a love scene) but when I came to that point in the story, the characters had developed quite differently and the tone of the scene did not fit one bit any more, so I had to toss it and write a completely new scenes.

[Richelle Mead]

I write in a linear way, but it takes me a while until I can get to that point.  I start by writing plot ideas randomly all over a white board.  Then, I group them and start placing them in order in a loose chart.  When I finally have a good idea where it's going, I write up a chapter by chapter summary in MSWord.  That's the part that takes the longest because that's when I actually have to flesh out the ideas.  But, if my outline is solid, I can then just write the manuscript front to end.

Sometimes, though, I'll find that the outline was flawed, and then I'll have to revise the manuscript.  That gets complicated because then I do have to jump into the middle to add and delete scenes.  Lots of slicing and dicing!  That's hard for someone like me--I much prefer going in order--but I know that's how some people naturally work.

[belgarion]

I write in a linear way, but it takes me a while until I can get to that point.  I start by writing plot ideas randomly all over a white board.  Then, I group them and start placing them in order in a loose chart.  When I finally have a good idea where it's going, I write up a chapter by chapter summary in MSWord.  That's the part that takes the longest because that's when I actually have to flesh out the ideas.  But, if my outline is solid, I can then just write the manuscript front to end.

Sometimes, though, I'll find that the outline was flawed, and then I'll have to revise the manuscript.  That gets complicated because then I do have to jump into the middle to add and delete scenes.  Lots of slicing and dicing!  That's hard for someone like me--I much prefer going in order--but I know that's how some people naturally work.

I was a technical writer for 8 years so I naturally start everything in a linear fashion, outlining, ch 1 to the conclusion.
I make it as detailed as I can which makes it easier for me to write. Of course I do go back and forth when I find I've written myself into a box, one that didn't appear in the outline.

[blgarver]

I always start writing from the first scene, and go linear from there.  However, there are usually flashbacks and memories and things of that nature to fill in backstory. 

I know, I know, it's not the best way to do backstory.  But I'll brush it up in the second draft.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I always start writing from the first scene, and go linear from there.  However, there are usually flashbacks and memories and things of that nature to fill in backstory. 

How do you pick where in the story is the first scene, then ?  How do you pick the dividing point between story and backstory ?

[Suilan]

Jack Bickham, in Scene and Structure: "Significant change that threatens your character's self-concept is where your story starts. It may be a birth, a death, a wedding, a divorce, a telephone call, a letter, a visit by an old friend, [etc].  If it's a change and threatens the character, then it's a good place to start chapter 1. (...)

When confronted with a concept threatening change, Mr. Reader begins to worry. So far so good. (...) But in today's hurried, impatient world, that Reader can't be expected to worry passively about the same vague and unchanging bad situation for several hundred pages. He needs something more concrete to worry about. You meet that need at the outset of your story when you show your character coming up with a vital intention or story goal, designed to "fix things" for him in terms of his sensation of being out of equilibrium with his environment. Every good fiction character is thus goal-motivated.

The moment your character thinks or says aloud what his goa is, you can count on your reader to latch onto that stated goal like a lifeline."

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

For some reason that's not quoting right; this post is in reply to Suilan's.

That's a way of looking at it, but it seems one that would tend to be weighted in favour of hook beginnings.  And, while I personally think that there are stories that want hooks and stories that want nets, and that they are different styles requiring different skills, there's a bigger problem with this for genre writing, which is that if you are starting in a world that is fundamentally different and unfamiliar to the reader, it's much harder to scale that appropriately.  Though maybe less so in urban fantasy - OK, this would probably be clearer with an example.

If your first paragraph introduces John B. O'Malley of the FBI discovering a crime scene that doesn't make sense in rational terms, which is providing clues to lead him that are going to lead him into knowledge of the secret world of urban vampires/werewolves/whatever, fine.  There are certain things that the reader seeing O'Malley being called in at a crime scene and interacting with local law and so forth gets to anchor them; that it's set in the US, that the law will work in certain ways, and so on.  They may not necessarily be familiar with the intimate details of how one examines and assesses a crime scene, but you can safely assume they know, for example, that murder is a crime.

If on the other hand, your first paragraph introduces Shadow Avatar of the Ninth House of the Dragon on the way to a meeting with the Stationmistress to discuss changes in interstellar trade rules, you not only have to communicate what's new and different and significant and makes this a point that engages Shadow Avatar's and hopefully the reader's interest and starts your actual story, you also have to get across enough of the normal day-to-day functioning of Shadow Avatar's world to indicate why these things are new and different and significant. Which is a whole different level of stuff that has to get in.  There are ways of doing this that allow you to explain more within the story without breaking it, which is why outsiders travelling to unfamiliar societies, young protagonists learning how the world works, and first-person memoirs that assume the "author" needs to stop and explain things are popular.  But what you don't have is any reason for Shadow Avatar to stop and simply think "Interstellar Trade has worked like this for four hundred years, since the Quiddity Wars ended.. " any more than John B. O'Malley is going to stop and think "He drove there in a self-propelled mechanical device called a car, which ran on fossil hydrocarbons extracted from underground deposits; in the United States of America this had been a popular means of transport for about a century."

In a situation like that, it's easy to mess up a simple hook beginning, and it may help to establish things a bit more solidly before getting to your moment of change.

[Suilan]

He drove there in a self-propelled mechanical device called a car, which ran on fossil hydrocarbons extracted from underground deposits; in the United States of America this had been a popular means of transport for about a century."

I don't see how this is a problem specifically of the beginning. In Fantasy and SciFi, exposition is always a tricky thing. I also don't see "start with hook" and "start (first chapter) at point of threatening change for main character" contradict each other. Hook only refers to the first few paragraphs anyway.

In your Shadow Avatar example, you might start with something that needs less exposition, but happens on the same day. That day might have been a bad day right from the beginning. Several bad things happen that the reader will recognize as bad things even without the background knowledge. OK, he is woken early by his Intercom beeping. He receives a bad message from the Instellar Trade Board concerning the meeting scheduled for this noon. He gets angry. Curses. Calls them backward-sighted conservatives who think that any idea that was younger than 400 years was dangerous and likely to lead to chaos and rebellion. The character has another message from his brother-in-law, saying that he hasn't seen his wife in a week.

The meeting with the Interstellar Trade Board won't come until the second chapter, but it is that day in the first chapter that marks the turning point for the character from "normal life" to "life-threatening adventure."

P.S. That gives you plenty of time in the first chapter to sneak in some of the necessary exposition.

[Suilan]

BTW, by "moment" I don't mean "the one second when everything changes." It can be a day or even a week. In my own trilogy, I start with the second-last day of the journey to the character's new home, NOT with the arrival. One reason was that the reader needs to see more of the country and fantasy world, because the following 20 or so chapters are set at one rather secluded place.

BUT all the anxiety and insecurity the character feels about leaving the old home and starting new some place where she doesn't know anyone is already present right from the beginning. When she arrives, she has already made a decision about what she needs to do first and most importantly at her new home.

[blgarver]

How do you pick where in the story is the first scene, then ?  How do you pick the dividing point between story and backstory ?

Honestly, I think the scene chooses me.  I don't outline or overplan...which has its definate cons, but it's just the way I work...and when I start typing, my words are driven by the story concept I have settled on.  Almost always the concept evolves by about page 30 and it's going in a completely different direction than what I had in mind at first.

I write pretty organically, so I can't really say with any certainty how I decide what comes first.  That's why I write linearly...I can't write later scenes until I know what has happened in the early scenes.  My stories are always evolving this way.  And then I write the backstory scenes to explain stuff in the story's present when I need it.

I realize it's a kind of sloppy approach, but it's just the way it happens when I start writing.  It feels natural to me, so I figure I shouldn't fight it.