A high school student asked me how to start writing a narrative–not how to continue on but how to start. What should the writer think about? Here are some good ideas:
A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the past, stories began with exposition, and some teachers still suggest that way of starting. But today many professional writers start as close to the inciting event as possible and weave background information into ongoing action. If you’re writing about a trip to New York, for example, forget the plane ride and hotel and start the story where the action starts–losing your balance while climbing the Statue of Liberty.
Determine the story’s arc, which is often the protagonist’s arc. What problem / situation does the protagonist want to solve / change? Readers search for change. That change is usually growth in the protagonist. If everything / everyone is the same at the end, start over.
Make sure the story’s problem is mentioned in every major scene. Keep the reader focused on it and on how the protagonist is dealing with it.
You want your readers to share the emotions of the protagonist. You want your readers to feel like they are the protagonist. You want your readers to care about him/her. Readers identify with emotions so make your character’s emotions known.
Whose story is this? Readers can focus/care about a single character better than a group. Decide whose story this is. He/she needs to be in every scene if you use first person POV, and in almost every scene if you use third person POV. Keep your protagonist front and center starting in the first paragraph.
Readers need to orient themselves as to the time and place of the story. In the opening paragraphs, identify the setting. You need not go into detail but make the reader comfortable.
Don’t belabor opening sentences. Just get going and you can go back later to refine the opening.
Expect your first draft to be imperfect. Expect that you will revise to polish everything from dialog to sentence structure to throwing out whole parts.
If you are handwriting, write on every other line of lined paper, leaving room to insert words in the spaces between the lines. Leave the backs of pages blank. Learn to live with cross-outs, insertions, and a mess. If you run out of room, use the back. Write notes to yourself in the margins. Rewrite a page only when you can no longer follow your arrows.
If you write on a computer, cut and save paragraphs, dialog, and anything else you might want when you revise. Save this material at the bottom of your narrative in case you change your mind. Make back up copies on the cloud. Send drafts to yourself as email attachments with the date so you have multiple backups.
Lastly, read your writing aloud, over and over. Revise over and over.
English Writing Teacher 