How do I write a strong beginning?

[Rozume]

I think one of the biggest hurdles for me when it comes to writing VNs is the beginning. I always clam up and get blank page syndrome no matter how much planning I do. And when I don't, I find that my start isn't strong enough so I end up going over it, pulling my hair out in the process.

So Lemmasofters, do you have any advice on writing a strong beginning or even just getting started in general?

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I think one of the biggest hurdles for me when it comes to writing VNs is the beginning. I always clam up and get blank page syndrome no matter how much planning I do. And when I don't, I find that my start isn't strong enough so I end up going over it, pulling my hair out in the process.

So Lemmasofters, do you have any advice on writing a strong beginning or even just getting started in general?

Well, I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut that said, "Start as close to the ending as possible." All the best stories hit the ground running. You don't want any dead space killing the pacing. Remember, the beginning is where you hook your audience. Once they are on-board, you can slow down a little and fill in the gaps. But if you don't get them interested immediately they'll never give you the time.

A great source to look at for pacing or plotting visual novels (often told in first person narration) is actually film noirs. They are also typically narrated in first person and include love interests, and the pacing is snappy. To give an instance of two: Think about the film Double Indemnity (1944) - the movie starts off with the main character driving erratically, then it quickly becomes obvious he is wounded, perhaps badly, and then he actually lays out the plot of the movie - He's killed a man for money and for a woman. He tells us he didn't get either one. And then we flashback to his first meeting with the woman. A great example of in media res, and as Roger Ebert said in his review of the movie, it takes insane confidence to tell the audience your plot and its outcome before the movie starts, but it really works. The hook in that particular movie was not about finding out how things turned out for our main character, but why his seemingly perfect plan fell apart and watching it happen.

Another more modern example in the same genre is Brick (2005). The film starts with the main character staring at a girl's dead body, before cutting to two days previous and showing him finding a message directing him to a phone booth where we find out both the main character's name, and that the dead girl we just saw is an ex-girlfriend of his, who is now frantically asking for his help. Again, we start with the story already in-progress to quickly sink the hook into the audience's curiosity. Brick again, like Double Idemnity, shows that you do not need to be afraid of spoiling your plot or the outcome. Don't hide the most interesting thing about your story! In Brick, the audience knows in the first minute of the movie that the main character fails to save his ex-girlfriend. But the hook is strong enough they'll stick around to find out WHY he failed.

Too many visual novels drag out of the gate with "sky-staring monologues". You know what I'm talking about. The game starts and the first screen we see is just a sky, or any other static background with nothing of visual interest going on. Then our main character starts a monologue that seems to always mention the weather, and an info dump about themselves. Age, looks, major and minor hang-ups, etc. Here's the thing though - the audience DOES NOT CARE about any of those details - yet. We need to be interested in a character's situation before we'll remember or care for details about them personally.


So my advice for a strong beginning is to find the most interesting, riveting thing about your story, it's best "hook", and throw it in front of the audience immediately. "Start as close to the end as possible." Heck, like these two films, START at the end itself, then go back and fill in the blanks. (Hard to do with interactive media, but you could get close - show that desperate final choice the player will be asked to make, etc.)

P.S. You want to write sizzling dialogue, watch Double Indemnity. The screenwriter was Raymond Chandler, considered by many writers to be the BEST dialogue writer of all time.

[KiloTango]

Another thing is try not to worry about starting working on your project with a really strong opening. Start with something, get to the end, then come back and rework the opening. The chances are you won't know what will best introduce your story until you've written the rest, so don't let uncertainty over the opening scene stop you from progressing.

If you end up hacking off a few hundred words, that's okay. The main thing is just get that draft done so you can get a feel of the whole thing. Editing is where you'll make it really shine.

[InvertMouse]

One thing to remember is, you can improve a draft by editing, but it's impossible to edit a blank page. So, let your worries go and just write ! All of our first drafts need work so it's no worries at all.

As for actual ideas, starting with tension always works. But be sure to have clarity, too. Often, stories start with some battle, because that's drama, but we know none of the characters and so have no care for what happens.

Have fun !

[Clayton Barnett]

"...I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut that said, "Start as close to the ending as possible."

And like everything else, he ripped that off from the SF community he was parasitic upon. No wonder Niven and Pournelle put him in Hell in their take on "Inferno."

In many cases - not all! - the proper place to begin a story is the middle. The reader and writer are both lost. There is much opportunity for backstory and for moving things forwards. Try "The Mote in God's Eye" by those authors I just mentioned.

P.S. You want to write sizzling dialogue, watch Double Indemnity. The screenwriter was Raymond Chandler, considered by many writers to be the BEST dialogue writer of all time.

Ditto. Hemmingway could write 'novels', but we're visual novelists: we are driven by dialogue. Chandler's a genius.

[Mirrowdothack]

Finding a good start is one of the most challanging thing, not only when it come to write down something but also when you want to draw something or start a project.

KT mentioned a nice thing: just start somehow (maybe with a good old-way introduction of your characters etc: like: "that's Bryan. He is the star of his school's footballteam and he likes cutes dresses with strawberries." => this might cause your readers to wonder: "What????").
But: Don't pay to much attention to your start now. Just write your story and maybe you will find a nice scene near the climax or the end which you can use for the beginning to get your reader exited. You can litterally throw your reader in the story. In my VN Y;N the hero wakes up on a death chair without any explanation.

Another thing you could use is the way you have found your idea for the story. Maybe some night you woke up and had a certain scene in your head and started to create a story for this one. Then why not use it. There is probably a reason why you started to write something: A nice scene. A cool character. A beautiful surrounding. etc.
This already had caught your interesst, so why not try to use (or to build up on) this idea^^
Maybe you can cut the scene so that the player will ask himself/herself: "What the heck is going on?" (e.g. in a mystery, horror story) or "OMG, that character is so cute. And he/she is trying to tell that other peron, that he/she likes him... I wonder how it started?" or "That character is so cool. I wanna know more about him/her" or "I have no idea why he just beat up thoses guys, but I sure will find out in this story" etc. there are many possibilities^^

Remember: You can always change the beginning, if the start is not fitting your story anymore, so don't be afraid to just write don't something. Even if it is "Once upon a time..."
I'm sure while writting you will get a nice idea.

Hope I was helpfull^^

[Vin Howard]

Edgar Allen Poe commented that he wrote his stories backwards; that is, he decided what would be the mood of his story, how it would end, and THEN he wrote the intro to his stroy in the way that would be the best lead up to this mood and ending.

Personally, as I am what is call a "Seat of the pants" writer, I start at the beginning out of necessity. But I don't give the beginning much thought; I write it without looking back, without caring how bad it might be, or how inconsistent later developments make it. After finishing the story, I go back and THEN write a proper ending (throwing out the old one in the process).

Basically, what I'm saying is that the beginning can, ironically, be the last thing you write.

[anon2045]

Beginnings are probably the toughest scenes to get right and it's guaranteed that you'd end up revisiting your first scene in the future, polishing and editing it so that it hooks your reader. It's easier to start writing the scenes that you are excited about, even it means starting in the middle or the end.

But, for me personally, I like the idea of beginning in (what I think would be) the beginning. And if this is the way you want to go as well, you have to examine the reason why you always freeze up when making beginnings. If it's because of fear or anxiety (that inner critic), the only way to overcome it is by plunging in and writing anyway (and as some would advice, without stopping.) At other times, the reason might be because even though you did all this planning, you don't really know how this relates to this first scene. (For example, even though I may know what I hope to accomplish in the whole story and in the current chapter, I may not know how I will begin that first paragraph. If this is the case, making a phase outline [link here] is a good place to start. In short, the idea behind it is that you make a writing prompt for yourself that will bring the next action in to focus for about 100 words. The length of the prompt can be from a few phrases long i.e. "keywords" up to a couple sentences long. The content of the prompt can be dialogue, a summary, a description, or just anything. And keep doing this process until you finish the scene.

I tend to do something different. While I'm sitting in front of the screen, I close my eyes for a few minutes, and I focus only on trying to visualize, hear, etc the scene I want to create. The goal is to make a movie in my head. I play out interesting scenarios. And as soon as I find that hook, that moment when I think that "Hey, this is how I want the scene to go!" then I start writing. You don't have to see the full scene play out in your head. You just need to find the starting point that makes you excited, a scenario that you want to see play out to the full conclusion. And then you write it while the iron is hot and that image is still fresh in your memory. As I write, I focus on seeing the story, on being in that moment, right along with the character. I don't allow myself to dwell on anything except how to deliver the image I see on my head on paper.

Some notes: if you find the scene you are writing boring, it tends to come across in your writing or you'll end up losing steam at some point in the middle. Always try to find at least one exciting thing about the thing you are writing. If it isn't exciting to you, try to change it so that it is or evaluate if that scene should be there in the first place.

This method works well if you already outlined and planned out your story. If you haven't, then usually you don't finish because you got stuck in the middle or you end up going back to rewrite because there are some major plot holes. (This is what usually happens to me. I usually need help with middles x_x) For other people who need help with middles, this master list of different ways to plot will be helpful to you [link here]. And also this one of story structure [link here].

As a personal aside, I tend to do my storywriting in layers sometimes. This means I may just write dialogue and dialogue tags.

Example:

"You're obviously wrong." She sipped on her coffee while he glared. "Obviously," she says, just to rub it in a bit more.

Then later on I'll come back and focus only on putting in some descriptions of settings and characters. And then I'll go back and put in character thoughts. It's sort of like how an artist may make a character sprite. They'll make a character sketch first, quick and dirty in their sketch pad. Then they'll clean it up some and focus on the lineart. And maybe they'll upload it on the computer and focus on coloring, then shading. You could do this. It's a quick way of getting a first draft out quickly. I think some people do the first layer even plainer and just write dialogue with no tags. With like little marks to identify who's speaking, but if it's just two people even that may not be necessary. [Here's a link that describes this method]

Also, about Showing vs Telling [link here]
(Showing is a great way to make your story more dynamic. Telling is good when you want to skip repetitive boring information that needs to be told anyway for consistency. In other words, you should do more showing then telling, but telling has it place as well.)

Some other links people may find helpful, that has a lot of good writing advice:
Jim Butcher's Blog (start from the bottom of the page and work your way up)
Gail Carson Levine's Blog

EDIT: Sorry for the text wall. I thought it may be a bit long, but not this much. Ah, well, I hope you may still find it helpful anyway.

[SundownKid]

I like starting in medias res, or at least at an exciting moment to grab the reader's attention. It doesn't necessarily have to be a flash-forward or flashback as long as it's engaging. The worst thing to do is start with a boring text dump of the backstory, or with a low point in the action.

[champignonkinoko]

You probably already saw this, but anyway, here goes: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/20-grea ... our-story/

My favourite was #20: Unexpected. The example was:
“Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.”

[RotGtIE]

Seconding everything LateWhiteRabbit said. The most important takeaway is that the first thing your audience sees should be what hooks them, and not necessarily what comes first chronologically.

In fact I think it's harder to write something interesting which also starts at the chronological beginning of your story.

[171]

Take your time, let the ideas come to your mind.
When it happens, make sure to write everything down. Even if the ideas are bad, they may become your basis of your stories later.
When you have collected enough ideas, combine them and then make an outline.

About strong stories, I agree with some people here who say that you should make your stories interesting. You can do this by collecting original ideas.
Ideas can appear anywhere, so whenever you go outside, bringing a notebook and a pen can help. You can write down anything that catches your attention.

Lastly, you shouldn't put high expectations on yourself or else you won't enjoy writing your stories.

All the best

[ArachneJericho]

I'm a big fan of starting with the unexpected. Which is what in media res boils down to, honestly. Your very first sentence should be having the reader ask interesting questions they want to discover the answers for.

[czxcjx]

A quote from Chekhov

" My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying. "