Anna's Writing Nook: Getting Your Story Started

Hello hello! Welcome back to the Writer’s Nook. Last week I rambled about characters: creating them, developing them, bringing them to life. Now that you’ve got your characters down, you might be wondering where and how to actually start your story. Well, look no farther!

Personally, I usually get ideas for characters first and plot second, but it’s different for pretty much every writer. I obviously can’t tell you exactly how to start your story, but I CAN be an obnoxious voice of encouragement and give you a few tips. At the end, I’ll also throw a few prompts out there in case you can’t think of anything or want to try something new!

All right, so here’s my biggest hint. My go-to word to the wise. Are you ready? You’ll never see this coming. Wait for it… wait for it… Drum roll, please! The number-one, foolproof way to start your story that I promise works every single time, is…

 to literally just START WRITING.

Shocking, right? Show-stopping. Absolute madness! How dare you tell me to actually write??!!

Okay but for real though, it’s so easy to get caught up with writing your character’s entire backstory as well as that of their friends and love interest and even their mom, and to get wrapped up in planning out every facet of your plot that you never get to the actual writing part. 

Look, trust me on this: just start. Your first sentence doesn’t have to be perfect or earth-shattering (yet). You’re writing for fun, for yourself (no one else!), and no matter how serious you are with your project, your first draft is always just a first draft. Which means it WILL be messy and probably not make sense but that’s okay, because right now all you gotta worry about is putting words on the page (or the screen) and getting your story down. 

Your first draft is your sandbox, for playing around and throwing sand and digging holes and burying things in them. Let yourself write all over the place without a thought to what comes next or how that surprise twist will affect everything else. Just make a mess. Don’t try to fix anything yet, you’ll just end up in an endless, torturous loop of rethinking and rewriting and never getting to the end (I am also guilty of this). So many of my first drafts are steaming piles of garbage, but that’s the entire point! Just focus on getting to the end, because that’s the only way you’ll have a complete story. And even if it is a scalding hot mess, it’s done and you wrote a thing and then you can focus on polishing it. 

Getting started is as easy and as impossible as laying down those first words. Again, try not to overthink yourself into a frenzy. I like to start with some ridiculous statement, like a funny quote or a meme or something nonsensical like “he boots too big for he got-dang feets,” because it takes some of the pressure away from the foreboding blank page. Just put something down as a placeholder, and then get to your actual words and sentences. Remember, you can always go back and change things later. 

After you get your brain motors revved up, just let the words flow. Again, it doesn’t have to make sense and it won’t be perfect the first time around. I don’t think I know of any writers/authors who have ever managed to write a perfect first draft. If they did, they’re probably a god. Or a wizard. Or they at least made a deal with one, probably in exchange for their firstborn or like, five years off their life or something. Anyway, just get into the writing groove, let your mind and imagination wander, and you’ll probably end up with something totally different than what you initially expected. That’s really where the magic comes in.

All right, with that redundant and yet important advice in mind, I shall leave you with some prompts to try. If you hate all of these, there’s a ton of websites out there where you can generate prompts. I don’t use those a whole lot, because they seem sort of… artificial to me? Like, I don’t feel like I can see an idea through to the end if it’s not completely mine. But that’s just me. The prompts are there to inspire you, not to tell a story for you. 

Here’s some ideas/story-starters for ya:

This town is not what it seems.

Something about a legendary place or object.

A long-kept secret.

Something strange happened last summer.

You were told to never go near the sea, and now you understand why.

I will also recommend this great book I have called The Writer’s Idea Thesaurus by Fred White. It’s packed with great prompts spanning a lot of different subjects/genres, and my copy is all beat-up and written in and highlighted to death. You can find it from Barnes and Noble, and I consider it a useful resource for any aspiring writer.

Now for a little update of what I’ve been up to lately! 

Firstly, as you can see in the post previous to this one, I did a little video class on how to craft a bound notebook! Check out the video if you’re interested; they’re easy and make great gifts. I’ll be doing another class with specifically leather-covered books on June 13 via Facebook live.

What I’m writing: Currently chugging along on the hot mess of a sequel to my YA fantasy, A DECEPTION OF DEMONS. The sequel does not have a title yet. It is simply “The Sequel™” or sometimes vaguely “Book 2.” The plot is a disaster and I have to stop every chapter and figure out what has to happen next, because unfortunately I only know the climax and absolutely nothing else. Writing is hard, y’all.

What I’m reading: I’m about halfway-ish through Christine Lynn Herman’s The Devouring Gray, which I’m enjoying a lot! If you’re into Stranger Things and/or enjoyed The Raven Cycle books by Maggie Stiefvater, you’d like The Devouring Gray. I also just started Laini Taylor’s Muse of Nightmares, the sequel to her other novel Strange the Dreamer, which I read last year and adored. I’ve been procrastinating starting the sequel because the first book was an emotional punch to the throat, but I found myself missing the world and characters and Laini Taylor’s beautiful prose. I highly recommend that duology, and she also has another trilogy (Daughter of Smoke and Bone) which I’ve heard is very good. 

Well, that’s all for today! I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy at home. See you next week for another blog, and as always if you have suggestions, drop a comment! 

See ya next time,

Anna 😎✌🏻