the craft. where does your story really start?

Your story might start at about chapter three. Hear me out. I have the privilege of meeting with a group of amazing writers on the monthly basis to read each other’s work and give feedback. This started out as my First Ten Pages class that I taught last fall and most of the participants decided to “keep the party going” so to speak. We’ve been going strong since then.

I love our conversations because naturally, we address various topics of craft in talking about our process, our challenges with our respective stories and more in the nooks and crannies of reading each other’s work. In this past meeting, I was reminded of the beginning of stories and how so often, we don’t recognize where we should start.

Honestly, this happens a lot in many forms of writing, essays included. How many times have I written the first draft to an article only to delete or move the first two paragraphs when I realize that the piece actually should have started at about paragraph three? The answer, you guessed it, is more than I can count.

Whether writing an article or a book, start with the action. I know this can sound counterintuitive especially with novel writing because you’ve likely also heard that a book needs exposition. The writer certainly has to do the work of introducing us to this character’s everyday life. Who are they? Where are they? What is their normal day like before we dive into 200+ pages of what happened to interrupt their daily routine? However, it’s important to be able to distinguish between backstory and exposition.

Often, when we start writing, it’s giving backstory. I think it’s important to ask yourself, is this information for me and my understanding of this character or is it integral to the story I’m trying to tell? Think about Marvel characters, they have these origin stories, but sometimes we don’t learn about those things until a lot later. Like Peter Parker’s uncle being killed by someone he let run past him, or Batman (jumping over to DC here) being orphaned. We learn bits and pieces of these things over time, but starting there would be a little boring.

The truth of writing is that we don’t always have as much time as we think to captivate the attention of our reader. In today’s time, it’s even worse. I mean, even as a reader, if you don’t grab me in those first couple of paragraphs of an article, for instance, it’s likely I’ll have already clicked back to Twitter (I don’t want to call it X) in a heartbeat. Books, I tend to be a little more invested in. It’s difficult for me to decide to stop reading a book, but it will determine how fast I finish it, if it feels like the beginning is dragging.

It’s a hard thing to teach. Well, maybe actual professors of writing have some thoughts on that, but I do feel like it’s a feeling you get. As you develop as a writer, you should start to get a feel for pacing and when something is simply droning on and on. It’s also important that you build community like in my First Ten Pages group where you can receive feedback on things like this that may not always be so obvious to you. We need objective opinions when it’s hard to recognize certain blindspots in our own work.

For instance, I tend to start right in the action and then realize I need a bit more exposition when it comes to my novel writing. It’s like, wait a minute, who are these people and how did we get here? Typically in draft two is where this starts to take shape. When I share my writing, I’m able to get the sense of whether I’ve hit the mark or not on the balance of starting the story in an intriguing way that also lets the reader into who exactly the person is that they are about to follow through the events that follow.

A great beginning, in my very humble (I’ve only released my first debut novel) opinion, will make these three things abundantly clear:

Who is the protagonist?
What are the stakes?
Why should we care?

Extra credit would be starting with a really great opening line, which I discussed in my original First Ten Pages class.

Much else outside of that, may make it evident that your story is not starting at the right place. So think about it and don’t be afraid to move some things around to ensure that you’re grabbing your reader from the start. Whether you dive in the middle of the ocean like me or drone on a bit about information that’s not necessarily important to start, it’s about finding that sweet spot.

Writing/Job Opportunities

NYT Opinion is looking for personal essays about regret. If you have a *specific* regret that haunts you and continues to shape or inform your life, pitch me! We're looking for unexpected, compelling, instructive stories and great writing. cornelia.channing@nytimes.com

Charlie Lee has a new role/focus at Harpers —among other things, they’ll be looking for long-form reported pieces and essays. charlie@harpers.org.

Time Out is hiring a Staff Writer. (60k).

NYLON is hiring a Managing Editor.
Santa Monica Studio is hiring a Sr. Writer, Video Game ($98-148k)