I know you_can_ start with any through line, but when you are story weaving, which through line do you prefer to start with? One of the characters? One of the broader relationships (that is, RS or OS)? You could answer “whichever one is most appropriate,” but which one do you notice most of your stories starting with?
Depends on the medium. I think I remember seeing you were writing a YA novel, which should mean you are starting with your main pov character, most likely MC/Protag. With a blended MC and OS story start.
Like
Percy Jackson: Lightning Thief
Hunger Games
Divergent
The Book Thief.
HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone is unusual because it starts totally in the OS (omniscient) for the first little bit before it brings in Harry as a character.
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What a fun question!
Here is the first scene synopsis for my current project:
I’d say it contains all four throughlines:
- MC: part of Devin’s personal issue is his lovelorn crushing on girls (MC Issue:
Hope). He’s been pining after Becca for a while but afraid to approach her. - RS: he asks her out, she turns him down (RS Concern
Obtaining) - IC: Becca’s Situation (mom dying of cancer in the hospital) is what brings Devin here, out of his comfort zone. It challenges Devin’s own situation because now he’s witnessed something he shouldn’t. (the scene ends with Becca erasing his memories in a rather awful, dangerous way)
- OS: the plot to steal starfighters is part of the OS. It’s the fact that Cole needs Becca’s help that causes all the trouble (OS Problem
Help).
I didn’t intentionally put all four throughlines in there or anything. I knew what the throughlines were about, mostly, and imagined how Devin and Becca might meet in a cool way, then wrote it.
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Well, I guess you mean the first paragraphs? Because a scene could be a mixture of all the throughlines, couldn’t it? Even a sentence fragment, sentence, or paragraph might perform double or triple duty. As I mentioned before, I’ve become obsessed with first paragraphs. Here’s my first draft first paragraph from my current project:
Bonaventure Faust was forty-something years of chancy living and fickle luck being worn by a double-breasted grey suit. A matching fedora was propped on his face. He was sleeping last night off in a torture device shaped like an office chair and his dogs were lounging on the back left corner of an oversized footrest called a desk. A metal flask rested on his paunch and under his hands like a beloved teddy bear.
This starts in omniscient POV. The last sentence slides into the MC’s POV. But, I’d say that the first paragraph is primarily within the MCT as the reverberations of the Inciting Event don’t affect my MC until 8 scenes later. I still think that certain concepts might be hinted at in regards to the OST.
This is the type of question that I enjoy. I guess part of it depends on how you define beginnings. First sentence? Paragraph? Scene?
My first scene is definitely dominated by the MCT, but couldn’t OST or RST or IC concepts be hinted at with foreshadowing or narrative tone, etc?
Hey JD,
So, first a question. Would you like feedback on this paragraph. You didn’t ask for any so I wanted to check in before I gave any. Please feel free to say no thanks.
Second, I feel the need to correct an impression you have about what you wrote. You say:[quote=“museful, post:4, topic:1595”]
The last sentence slides into the MC’s POV
[/quote]
This is absolutely incorrect. It’s still in omni. For a couple of reasons, mainly, you establish further up that he’s still sleeping off his bender. You can’t have something (that’s not a dream) in an unconscious character’s POV. You do see how that’s problematic, right? And two, just having an opinion (like it was a teddy bear) doesn’t necessitate that that’s his POV and since we’ve been in omni the POV doesn’t shift at this point. The reader is still looking at him from the outside from a camera’s perspective.
Jim maybe the resident structure expert, but words on the page, this my bailiwick,
Fair enough. Perhaps I should say that it starts the transition to the MC’s POV. Bear in mind, it is the first draft and sleeping it off may not have been accurate. I write my first drafts as pure MRUs with Omniscient bringing me into the scene and out of it. Second draft, third draft, etc. work on pacing internally as opposed to the pure action/reaction that exists in the first draft by inserting summary and other modes in addition to the pure action.
Here are the next two paragraphs in my first draft.
Faust opened the flask, sent a nibble of the panacea down his throat, sealed it tight, and returned it to its resting place as smooth as a fellow might unbutton his fly, make rain, and pack it all up again.
A thin nasal voice sibilated through the quietness of the office. “You look half dead. Drop your iron on the desk if your interested in staying that way.”
I think the last bit of active prose in the opening paragraph allows the transition to a pure motivational / reaction unit format. I don’t mind feedback. I see your point about sleeping… even if it is sleeping something off. In my mind, sleeping it off is air quoted. So I might have some tinkering to do in that area.
I love the craft of it. I love the words on the page part of it. The form side of it is about usefulness. The words on the page part of it is about ecstasy.
And yes, I realize that I’m going heavy on the figurative language 
. I’m reminded of an interview with Johnny Dep where he jokingly said that he intentionally used more gold teeth than he wanted for Pirates of the Carribean so that he would have exactly as many as he wanted after Disney made him get rid of some of them.
So, I’m just throwing them in anytime I find an opportunity.
Might as well put the next couple of paragraphs. Let’s say the last sentence of the first paragraph starts the transition. Perhaps, until we sink into his mind, we don’t quite arrive. But I finally get there.
Faust grunted. He tossed the worn flask onto the desktop and it groused with a hollow clank.
A wheel gun retorted with a click clunk. “Maybe you aren’t as bright as people say. I know you’re heeled and it concerns me."
He didn’t recognize the delicate voice. But the malice that oozed into the stale air of his office was familiar. In his trade, he inhaled it every day like a coal miner on the road to black lung. The elocution belonged to someone farther north than Chicago. He knew that much even without his peepers. “Got a name monogrammed on your underwear.”
After the first paragraph, I limit the visual description in the motivational units since his eyes are covered. Even though I don’t sink into his head until a few paragraphs later, the limited POV is expressed by omission I think.