So last week we talked about openings. We talked about opening lines in January, and we continued this last week with talking about starting with a character that your reader can relate to. We talked about how you can get the reader to sympathize and empathize with them. It's also important to have motion at the very beginning of your book, so things start off interesting.
I can't put a lot on here for copywright reasons, but here is a bit of the exercise I wanted to have us try - if you are curious to see how your opening could be better, or just want to see how this goes, give it a try:
1st Sentence: open with a character in motion
Next 2 sentences: Explain more about the action
Next 5: tell about the setting , establish the mood with description
Next 3: go into the action with the established mood
Next sentence: how he/she feels with this action
Next 5: deepen the character by adding an element of the past to the current situation
Next 2: Trouble! The mood should lead up to this a bit
Next 3: Character's reaction
I've been reading James Scott Bell's book on Plot & Structure, and it has a lot of awesome things to know about plot. I'd definitely recommend it. Good luck writing this week!
Interesting.
ReplyDelete