The Newspaper Guy makes the free throw!
Write-a-thon running total: 1,671 words out of 12,000. A lot of deleting and new writing in the last two days. Still finding “the beginning,” which is more than just “the first scene.” I need to introduce the protagonist, give a sense of her immediate situation, start to build her world…. The initial scenes of a book are vital in this regard. What do I want the reader to know first? What are the important metaphors, and what moments will best establish them so that I can return to them throughout the story? Where’s the energy of the book coming from/going toward, and how do I plug the reader smoothly and deeply into that stream? Always an interesting part of the process.
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writer. screenwriter. learning person. loves being human.
Hmm. Well, better the rose bush than the picture window, I suppose. Pretty house : ).
Yay on the wordage!
Kelley–
Sweet agony! The beginning of the story/novel. The most exciting part, yet we always debate with what to tell and what to keep hidden for later. We don’t want to blurt it all out in the first pages, but we’ve got to get everybody interested. We don’t want to be obvious about what we’re doing. We want to be brilliant storytellers! and not staid. These last days, I’m starting something new and I’m v. familiar with the delete button, cursing all the while, ‘Oh no, not yet.’