long build up vs short grabbing

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leviathanimation
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long build up vs short grabbing

#1 Post by leviathanimation »

I'm hesitating on wether to write a long build up at the risk of losing some readers vs writing a beginning that will grab the attention since the start but that's not exactly what I want. I want to build up the story to a certain point, but I fear some people might not want to wait till that point or they aren't just interested anymore. Can anyone give me some good tips on how to not lose some readers and to keep them invested?
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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#2 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

Simply put, your writing should ALWAYS be interesting. Whether you are building to something that is a long way off, or start in media res, your writing should always be hooking your readers and leaving them wanting more.

These may mean restructering events, etc. The plot should always be progressing, and the audience should always be learning something new. You don't want your long build-up to be because you've thrown in a lot of filler.

There is a principal in writing called 'economy of detail'. It means that unless something is important to the plot, you probably shouldn't detail it. Unless the fact that your protagonist LOVES waffles with syrup is going to come up in the future as a critical plot point, you don't want your reader to have to sit through a breakfast scene about your protagonist eating waffles and liking it.

This is also related to 'Chekov's Gun', which is about the same thing - if you spend time describing an object, or call attention to something - it better come up again as a plot point. It is named 'Chekov's Gun' because the example given is that if you show a gun hanging above the fireplace, someone had better fire that gun before the end of the story.

So each scene you write should have a purpose - that purpose can be to establish mood, or define a character trait that will be important, but you should know exactly why that scene takes place in your larger plot.

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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#3 Post by leviathanimation »

LateWhiteRabbit wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 3:02 pm Simply put, your writing should ALWAYS be interesting. Whether you are building to something that is a long way off, or start in media res, your writing should always be hooking your readers and leaving them wanting more.

These may mean restructering events, etc. The plot should always be progressing, and the audience should always be learning something new. You don't want your long build-up to be because you've thrown in a lot of filler.

There is a principal in writing called 'economy of detail'. It means that unless something is important to the plot, you probably shouldn't detail it. Unless the fact that your protagonist LOVES waffles with syrup is going to come up in the future as a critical plot point, you don't want your reader to have to sit through a breakfast scene about your protagonist eating waffles and liking it.

This is also related to 'Chekov's Gun', which is about the same thing - if you spend time describing an object, or call attention to something - it better come up again as a plot point. It is named 'Chekov's Gun' because the example given is that if you show a gun hanging above the fireplace, someone had better fire that gun before the end of the story.

So each scene you write should have a purpose - that purpose can be to establish mood, or define a character trait that will be important, but you should know exactly why that scene takes place in your larger plot.
Pretty helpful thanks, in my case I was already only describing important things like you said, but I guess I should try to figure a way to make the readers wanting more cause I don't have much in mind on how to do it.
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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#4 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

leviathanimation wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 6:04 pm Pretty helpful thanks, in my case I was already only describing important things like you said, but I guess I should try to figure a way to make the readers wanting more cause I don't have much in mind on how to do it.
I guess I should ask why you want to do a long build-up? What about that is going to fundamentally make it a better experience for the reader/player? Or make for a better story?

Personally, I'm not a fan of the long build up, because IMHO I rarely see it executed well, even by professional authors. (And as a working adult with my own creative endeavors and limited free time I'm partial to stories not wasting my time.)

Stories need tension, and stakes create tension. So ideally, you need to make the reader care about your characters as quickly as possible, and show the reader what is at stake should the characters fail in their goal. Now you have tension (and have hooked the reader), you just need to maintain that tension until the climax of the story, then move as quickly as possible into the denoument and end things.

But there is only so long you can draw out the tension or raise the stakes until you exhaust the patience of the reader. A protagonist that never seems to accomplish anything will start to annoy the reader, and the protagonist can only defuse so many sources of tension before all future tension gets lost.

Kurt Vonnegut has two particularly great tips on writing that apply here:
Start as close to the end as possible.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#5 Post by Imperf3kt »

In my opinion., it all depends on your writing.
While every scene should have some kind of reason, Chekov's Gun is dumb in my opinion. Using that logic, if I have a stove in the kitchen, it absolutely must be used. If I have a window in the loungeroom, it absolutely must be opened.
If I have a bowl of Rice Bran on the table, it absolutely must be eaten. If I have a park nearby the protag's house, it absolutely must be featured.
No, no, no, no and NO. Checkov's gun does not apply to everything. Depending on how you wrote the item/thing/theme into your story, you should accordingly add filler content.
Its one thing to have Bob go to the shops and buy milk, its another to add the fact that he saw a cat on the way, found a penny in front of the store and drooled over the available confectionary behind the counter, despite not being able to afford it.

It gives your character personality.

This doesn't mean add content for contrent's sake. What it means, is don't be afraid to add insignificant events that serve little purpose, but do not overuse them either.

This doesn't mean I completely disagree with LateWhiteRabbit, infact to the contrary, I agree with most of his post.
As an example, in my own main project, I start off my story right at the climax, and then throw the reader into the past. The hook is right at the beginning of the game, which is also the middle of my game.
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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#6 Post by leviathanimation »

Imperf3kt wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 9:42 pm In my opinion., it all depends on your writing.
While every scene should have some kind of reason, Chekov's Gun is dumb in my opinion. Using that logic, if I have a stove in the kitchen, it absolutely must be used. If I have a window in the loungeroom, it absolutely must be opened.
If I have a bowl of Rice Bran on the table, it absolutely must be eaten. If I have a park nearby the protag's house, it absolutely must be featured.
No, no, no, no and NO. Checkov's gun does not apply to everything. Depending on how you wrote the item/thing/theme into your story, you should accordingly add filler content.
Its one thing to have Bob go to the shops and buy milk, its another to add the fact that he saw a cat on the way, found a penny in front of the store and drooled over the available confectionary behind the counter, despite not being able to afford it.

It gives your character personality.

This doesn't mean add content for contrent's sake. What it means, is don't be afraid to add insignificant events that serve little purpose, but do not overuse them either.

This doesn't mean I completely disagree with LateWhiteRabbit, infact to the contrary, I agree with most of his post.
As an example, in my own main project, I start off my story right at the climax, and then throw the reader into the past. The hook is right at the beginning of the game, which is also the middle of my game.
Wait, but unlike your project, mine doesn't set the story with the climax so readers will have to hang on till a bit later. Should I rewrite an immediate hook in the beginning like yours or just leave things as they are, assuming that my writing isn't terrible.

The reason why I do this is because it's a build up on the main character's ideology which will trigger a war so do you think there is a way to still start with a climax? It seems that a hook is easier to write in the beginning if it's about an event or a set of actions, but if it's about a character's psychology or ideology, it seems harder :/
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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#7 Post by Imperf3kt »

No no, I just gave that as an idea of how you could use a hook. It wasn't intended to mean "do it this way".

If you are building up to something, you just need to ensure your audience is one or more of the following:
Aware something is coming.
Interested in current scenes.
Not spoon-fed information for the sake of lengthening the plot.
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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#8 Post by Mammon »

I'd say it all comes down to the story. If we're talking about an action story like from Hollywood or shojo, then you don't want to keep the audience waiting for anything to finally happen. With a fantasy story f.e. you could make an event that brings the group together or a raiding party burning down the MC's village thus forcing them to start their journey. With a monster story, you should always start if possible in a dark setting with someone frightened out of their wits about to be expertly taken down by the monster to show off it's abilities. With a slice of life or romcom however...

I too sometimes have a story with a strong first scene or where I can make a good first impact, but I don't force myself to actually do that for the sake of doing it. With my projects P&Y and S&Y, neither start strong and quick. P&Y has it's first real packer on day 3 out of 7 and it takes a while for the reader to get there. And S&Y stays soft and talking only until we reach the ending. And my current project TTP is character-driven so there will barely be anything in terms of action for the audience. The 'plot conflict' will be delivered slowly in between the lines of dialogue instead of being given outright what the problem is.

For your project, considering it's military, I'd say add something of a actionpacked intro. Even if your MC isn't involved, might there be some way to make the first scene something filled with action or suggesting of it? Even if it barely hinges together with the plot, like a different character with the same powers as MC dying after a destructive overuse of it.
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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#9 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

leviathanimation wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:37 am Wait, but unlike your project, mine doesn't set the story with the climax so readers will have to hang on till a bit later. Should I rewrite an immediate hook in the beginning like yours or just leave things as they are, assuming that my writing isn't terrible.

The reason why I do this is because it's a build up on the main character's ideology which will trigger a war so do you think there is a way to still start with a climax? It seems that a hook is easier to write in the beginning if it's about an event or a set of actions, but if it's about a character's psychology or ideology, it seems harder :/
It sounds like you are writing a tragedy (in the traditional sense of the word). It sounds like your story is possibly about the downfall of a character, as their actions and ideology lead them to disaster. Or maybe your ultimate arc covers both their downfall and later redemption as they struggle to correct the mistakes they made?

Either way, you can start in media res like Imperf3kt if you want to create tension from the start. You can show the main character at the height of their power and influence, their ideology about to bring the world crashing down around them. You are showing the threat of their decisions immediately - the war looming, then you can go back and examine the person they were before.

This creates tension, and if the juxatoposition between the future character and past character is interesting enough, you've created another hook for readers. They will be curious to see if the main character will really make the evil/disastrous decision it appears they were about to in the future, and how they changed into that person from the one they see now.

Back to Kurt Vonnegut's advice - you never want to hide anything from the reader - not really. Hiding the fact that the main character is going to start a war, or potentially start a war, is not as effective a narrative device as revealing the possibility of that war to the reader as soon as possible. As Alfred Hitchcock said, that's the difference between surprise and suspense. Surprise isn't good, suspense is.
Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed.


You are free to write your story however you would like, but there are still ways to do a short attention grabber opening to nearly any narrative, even if you have a long build up after that.

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Re: long build up vs short grabbing

#10 Post by leviathanimation »

Mammon wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:33 am I'd say it all comes down to the story. If we're talking about an action story like from Hollywood or shojo, then you don't want to keep the audience waiting for anything to finally happen. With a fantasy story f.e. you could make an event that brings the group together or a raiding party burning down the MC's village thus forcing them to start their journey. With a monster story, you should always start if possible in a dark setting with someone frightened out of their wits about to be expertly taken down by the monster to show off it's abilities. With a slice of life or romcom however...

I too sometimes have a story with a strong first scene or where I can make a good first impact, but I don't force myself to actually do that for the sake of doing it. With my projects P&Y and S&Y, neither start strong and quick. P&Y has it's first real packer on day 3 out of 7 and it takes a while for the reader to get there. And S&Y stays soft and talking only until we reach the ending. And my current project TTP is character-driven so there will barely be anything in terms of action for the audience. The 'plot conflict' will be delivered slowly in between the lines of dialogue instead of being given outright what the problem is.

For your project, considering it's military, I'd say add something of a actionpacked intro. Even if your MC isn't involved, might there be some way to make the first scene something filled with action or suggesting of it? Even if it barely hinges together with the plot, like a different character with the same powers as MC dying after a destructive overuse of it.
Alright, I'd like to take your great suggestion thanks :) very helpful
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