I'm writing a story. And I need a little help starting!!!?

Question

So I had this dream a little while back and I decided it would be a great story! This isn't the first story I've written a story.The only problem is I can never end a story or I start writing other stories. I told myself this time I'm going to write a story, start to finish. Just about every story I've ever written is in first person. I had my pen in had about to write when I realized I didn't know how to start. I am very good at writing stories in first person, but if I write it in third person I'll have to write an intro(if you get what I mean). I don't know which one to do! For some strange reason, I don't feel to write in first person, but I don't really want to write in third person. Please Help!!!

Answer 1

THe first novel I wrote was based on a dream. The dream was like a movie, but just one scene from the movie. I had to come with bulk of the novel based off that one dream sequence, and the only thing from taht dream was that I and another person were trapped in a warehouse cell and we escaped and before we ran into the woods we made a pact to only depend on each other. that was it. The people holding us hostage were dressed in orange construction uniforms and they NEVER spoke.



That's all I had and i had to develop everything from there. I decided that the people holding us hostage were aliens and they never spoke because they spoke to each other telepathically. And, I was in the midst of a plot where they were trying to take over the world. those are the types of details I had to develop from that small dream scene.



I decided that that dream scene would be near the end of the book. That was the first scene I wrote for my book, so it wasn't the beginning, it was a scene close to the end and I developed the rest of the book around it. It was the most fun I've had writing a novel. I wrote the ending to that novel before I wrote the beginning. and even after I wrote the beginning, it changed many times before I settled on an acceptable beginning.



The reason I'm telling you this is because you can't get caught up on one aspect of your novel. If you let this keep you from writing the rest then you'll never finish. If you don't know how to begin, SKIP to the next scene. With my first novel, I envisioned all the pivotal scenes in my head, so I wrote them as they came to me (and I couldn't write fast enough). I wrote a lot of it out of order, but I knew where each scene would appear in the story as I wrote it.



If you don't know how to begin then write the next scene you envision in your head. write the ending if you know how it'll end. Your beginning (and other scenes) might change many times before you're satisfied. That's normal, so don't get caught up on any particular aspect of your novel. This is the first draft and MANY things will change once you start drafting and rewriting and revising. the final version might end up being very different than the original draft. That's normal. that's what writers do. So don't be afraid to write something that might change later on.



It's best to start as close as possible to where your character's life is turned upside down. Don't start with teh boring (waking up in the morning, having breakfast, a dream, etc). Never follow your character when nothing is happening. Those boring moments will bore your reader.



good luck.

Answer 2

I personally can't write in first person because the view is so limited. I prefer writing in third person because you can write about what all the characters are feeling or I doing. I do something kind of weird where it's almost like it's from the view of one character like "she looked at his crooked nose and sun-tanned face and wondered, her eyes wide, what great adventure had given him the look of danger" but not really giving the "thoughts" of the other character; I have the ability as the writer to give a tidbit of the other character's thoughts if I want to though, but keeping the established viewpoint. Maybe that's second person. Who knows! Occassionally I will switch chapters and get different viewpoints. I just find it a lot harder to write in first person. You have to have an intro all the time really, if you do third person just go into an all out description mode of the scene. "The air was dense and foggy...the ragged breaths of her pursuer made her footsteps falter beneath her" it's super fun and easy when you get into that mode. I wish you luck! have fun!!

Answer 3

If you haven't already, write down everything you can remember about the dream. That'll give you a good overview of the material you already have and what you'll need to add for it to be a complete story.

As for how to start the story, the best advice is always "in late, out early" meaning start as close to the action as possible and finish as quickly after it's finished as possible. This gives the most impact and there'll be less chance for you to ramble on with unimportant stuff.

In your first draft, it's fine not to start in exactly the right place, as it'll be during editing and rewriting that you'll be able to figure out what can stay and what needs to go. As a rule, it's often the case that the first paragraph in a short story can be dropped after the first draft.

Free write it for a while and see where it takes you :)

Answer 4

Sorry if my answer isn't very helpful

But if you maybe considered typing your story instead of writing it by hand, you could write it in first person and later edit all the plurals to make it third tense? I too am struggling with writing a story atm but my problem is I can plan out the whole middlm of a story but never a beginning or end haha

Answer 5

Writing in third person is projection. You project your opinions, ideals and hopes onto the character, then you give different ones to another so they suit their role in the story. There's no need in fact to have a proper introduction. Stories that start with for example: Sue was a teenage girl of average height and brown hair, with green eyes. She has good grades but not many friends at school etc... are blatantly boring in general. If you know everything there is to know about the character, then there's nothing more to find out.



Some writers will write out of character information ALL the time. Their descriptions are focused entirely on how an audience views the characters (lots of description about the characters' appearance, the colour of their eyes, the perfection of their skin etc, when there's absolutely no need for it). If a character starts the story at a point where he/she is running for their lives, what the reader wants to feel is the excitement, the pounding of their heart, the pain as they try to draw in breath, their side aching from the sprint, and maybe the drag of wind and branches in their brown hair. You can fit descriptions (introduction) into a piece of writing without ramming it down a reader's throat.



People are much more interested in the story than the appearance, it adds to it certainly to have a solid image of their character, but that doesn't have to come right at the start. Readers can find out someone is at school by you talking about them going to school, or getting a call from school friends, or doing homework. They can find out she's a girl because you keep referring to her as 'her, she', and they can find out about her appearance in bits rather than a single large chunk (she might wash her hair and you can note her dissatisfaction with its brown colour, you could talk about her putting on make up and choosing a shade to suit her green eyes.



There are elegant ways to introduce characters, they don't all need to come into a single paragraph. Good authors make characters (especially the main one) last. It can take half a book for a reader to know most of a character's personality and habits, then it starts to change as the story progresses. Always leaving the audience curious and wanting that bit more information is actually a useful tactic in writing an engaging story.



It was too easy to figure out Twilight's events because you just had to think: Insert more pretty words, make sure all the pretty people are focal, and make sure all the focal people are pretty. Make up enemies that make the heros look as good as possible, then insert already perfectly described heros into said situations. Since we already know that the heros are: perfect, then it's really too easy to see that the good/perfect will triumph over the evil/ugly. Keep audiences guessing to write a good story, write wish fulfilment (everything you want/expect to happen happens) if you just want readers to flock back for the feel good value (everything they wanted/expected happened).

Answer 6

first person gives opinions

third person views of what is happening to different people in the story

what do you want to put in the story

Answer 7

once upon a time. that was always a popular one.