Warming up is lethal to your fiction:
Warming up is a technique many inexperienced writers start their story with. They think that their story needs daily life, a routine, some background information that usually takes the form of backstory or a gory overture to get the reader’s attention.
BUT! A story will hook the reader ONLY if the writer starts with the character’s arc. Why? Because the reader needs to care about your MC from the start.
The character’s arc is what should figure in a log line or query when writers are presenting their stories.
It is also what should come first in your novel.
Start with angst, regrets, desires, hopes, fear, etc.
NOT with the character's daily life (taking a shower, going for a walk, meeting some friends, etc)
Readers need to care about your main character before any plot can start. You need to show what is going on deep down into the head of your main characters before you can start the main character’s story.
It’s simple. Why do you care about what happens to celebrities? Because you feel for them; you are trying to figure out what is going on in their heads and why they are acting the way they do.
Now the gossip is like the plot or the threat. You want to hear the gossip, but above all you want to know how your favorite actor feels and copes emotionally.
You want to know about the infidelities, the mistakes they make in their lives, but above all you want to know how the celebrity is going to react and save face. That’s the character’s arc. So start your story showing the main character’s internal conflict before you get to the external conflict. The reader cannot care about someone he or she does not know and does not like.
Do not describe anything in the first few pages; it stops the action.
Go forward, not backward in the action.
Start with the character’s response to a real actual threat (not one in his head or from a dream or from years ago).
Learns what slows down & speed up your story:
Warming up is a technique many inexperienced writers start their story with. They think that their story needs daily life, a routine, some background information that usually takes the form of backstory or a gory overture to get the reader’s attention.
BUT! A story will hook the reader ONLY if the writer starts with the character’s arc. Why? Because the reader needs to care about your MC from the start.
The character’s arc is what should figure in a log line or query when writers are presenting their stories.
It is also what should come first in your novel.
Start with angst, regrets, desires, hopes, fear, etc.
NOT with the character's daily life (taking a shower, going for a walk, meeting some friends, etc)
Readers need to care about your main character before any plot can start. You need to show what is going on deep down into the head of your main characters before you can start the main character’s story.
It’s simple. Why do you care about what happens to celebrities? Because you feel for them; you are trying to figure out what is going on in their heads and why they are acting the way they do.
Now the gossip is like the plot or the threat. You want to hear the gossip, but above all you want to know how your favorite actor feels and copes emotionally.
You want to know about the infidelities, the mistakes they make in their lives, but above all you want to know how the celebrity is going to react and save face. That’s the character’s arc. So start your story showing the main character’s internal conflict before you get to the external conflict. The reader cannot care about someone he or she does not know and does not like.
Do not describe anything in the first few pages; it stops the action.
Go forward, not backward in the action.
Start with the character’s response to a real actual threat (not one in his head or from a dream or from years ago).
Learns what slows down & speed up your story: