What's a good way to start a story?
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TotallyHuman
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Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away...
soldieroffortune813
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In my experience as a reader, the death scene has been done a thousand times and everyone's already seen it before. Skip the death itself and just show what happens afterwards with the narrator or character referring to the event in past tense.
This is all assuming that the events surrounding the death aren't critical to the plot. But you said "cliché" so I'm guessing not.
Renaxan
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As one of people who has really hard time to describe thing, I feel you and can related so hard. Especially when english is nowhere close to my second language.
What I did at first time doing was ducking writing what I mean in my local language at google translate, and then take the translation to the document. It was much easier for me to do describe thing that on my local language, but even then I know that I am still suck on it. It was horrible though, ton of grammar mistake and awkward sentence lmao. I never do this again, but hey this stupid idea might help for you. Who know?
My second method or nowadays method? Read your own story until you feel you understand or at least made you believe that you have did writing something 'comprehensive'. Then, just wing it. Publish it.
You won't going anywhere if you feel scared to press that button. If you are lucky, people will pointed where you did wrong and you can learn from it. If you are unfortunate, people will just leave since they cant understand what you creating. Heck, if you having bad luck then people will criticized your story without nothing helpful on it. I did get this one a lot on webnovel lmao.
But I think thats normal, it is better than scared. Better die trying than die doing nothing.
What I did at first time doing was ducking writing what I mean in my local language at google translate, and then take the translation to the document. It was much easier for me to do describe thing that on my local language, but even then I know that I am still suck on it. It was horrible though, ton of grammar mistake and awkward sentence lmao. I never do this again, but hey this stupid idea might help for you. Who know?
My second method or nowadays method? Read your own story until you feel you understand or at least made you believe that you have did writing something 'comprehensive'. Then, just wing it. Publish it.
You won't going anywhere if you feel scared to press that button. If you are lucky, people will pointed where you did wrong and you can learn from it. If you are unfortunate, people will just leave since they cant understand what you creating. Heck, if you having bad luck then people will criticized your story without nothing helpful on it. I did get this one a lot on webnovel lmao.
But I think thats normal, it is better than scared. Better die trying than die doing nothing.
LostLibrarian
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Start with a chapter that contains both the atmosphere and the overall theme of your story.
- E.g., if you have an action story about battles in a fantasy world, start with a battle and bring up the reincarnation later. Or start with a battle in the real world and introduce the MC before he reincarnates.
- If you have a comedic story, start with some funny stuff. An example would be the usual "god reincarnated you by accident" trope or "MC doesn't take the god serious".
- If you have a more serious story about inner growth, start with something that sets the character.
Even more so than tags and your blurb, the first chapter is both the question you give the reader and a promise to the reader. You give them a question the story will answer later (normally known as the "hook") and you promise a certain kind of theme and atmosphere. Depending on your story and style, the MC doesn't even need to be in the first chapter to achieve that. One great example for that would be the first chapter of Harry Potter.
"After the first chapter" will always be one of the biggest drop-off points for your readers. So make sure to give them something that makes them want to turn the page.
So if you write a reincarnation scene, then you have to ask yourself "what type of a story" and go from there...
- E.g., if you have an action story about battles in a fantasy world, start with a battle and bring up the reincarnation later. Or start with a battle in the real world and introduce the MC before he reincarnates.
- If you have a comedic story, start with some funny stuff. An example would be the usual "god reincarnated you by accident" trope or "MC doesn't take the god serious".
- If you have a more serious story about inner growth, start with something that sets the character.
Even more so than tags and your blurb, the first chapter is both the question you give the reader and a promise to the reader. You give them a question the story will answer later (normally known as the "hook") and you promise a certain kind of theme and atmosphere. Depending on your story and style, the MC doesn't even need to be in the first chapter to achieve that. One great example for that would be the first chapter of Harry Potter.
"After the first chapter" will always be one of the biggest drop-off points for your readers. So make sure to give them something that makes them want to turn the page.
So if you write a reincarnation scene, then you have to ask yourself "what type of a story" and go from there...
SailusGebel
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Waking up.
Kilolo
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a prologue or a first chapter of a story is the spear tip of a novel. I've read lots of webnovels that just ignoring the importance of that and resulting them to not receiving many reader due to confusing first chapter.
i'll wrote this under the assumption that you want the reader to stay reading the story after they read the first chapter, if you don't care about those, then you can just skip this one.
it's not unheard of that an author revision their first chapter as much as eight time, just to make the whole story to be appetizing from the start. so you don't have to worry for not doing it right for the first time, you can revision it as much as you need.
lots of author I know believed, that a prologue has to be written in a chronological order like a diary, thus some of them start the story of them as a baby. but I don't think that to be the case.
first and foremost thing that had to put into consideration are the first chapter has to be very relatable for the reader, something that reader could understand right from the start. you can do many ways with this, but the most common usage are determining a purpose of the main character.
the very first chapter has to clearly show what is the end game of the main character, just what are they trying to achieve, and why would they even want those.
like you can show the main character has been living in modest their whole life and now they want to live a lavish life because they're finally reincarnated as a rich person.
or how that the main character got time leaped in life, and knowing something horrible is going to happen in the future and trying to do their best to prevent it.
or maybe you can use the very old trope from heisei era anime when a lame schoolboy who live as the lowest caste suddenly got a beautiful girl fall from the sky right at him, and he tried his best to live a fulfilling live from then on with the weird girl.
to point it in summary, there's 3 things that has to be made clear on the first chapter.
the universe setting, character personality, problematic obstacle, antagonist that gets in the way, everything else could wait on the next chapter. because the first chapter are meant to be introduction for the whole novel, not the MC. thus, it has to clearly tell what is the novel all about.
i'll wrote this under the assumption that you want the reader to stay reading the story after they read the first chapter, if you don't care about those, then you can just skip this one.
it's not unheard of that an author revision their first chapter as much as eight time, just to make the whole story to be appetizing from the start. so you don't have to worry for not doing it right for the first time, you can revision it as much as you need.
lots of author I know believed, that a prologue has to be written in a chronological order like a diary, thus some of them start the story of them as a baby. but I don't think that to be the case.
first and foremost thing that had to put into consideration are the first chapter has to be very relatable for the reader, something that reader could understand right from the start. you can do many ways with this, but the most common usage are determining a purpose of the main character.
the very first chapter has to clearly show what is the end game of the main character, just what are they trying to achieve, and why would they even want those.
like you can show the main character has been living in modest their whole life and now they want to live a lavish life because they're finally reincarnated as a rich person.
or how that the main character got time leaped in life, and knowing something horrible is going to happen in the future and trying to do their best to prevent it.
or maybe you can use the very old trope from heisei era anime when a lame schoolboy who live as the lowest caste suddenly got a beautiful girl fall from the sky right at him, and he tried his best to live a fulfilling live from then on with the weird girl.
to point it in summary, there's 3 things that has to be made clear on the first chapter.
- the way how the main character live their life all this time.
- catalyst (the thing that turn the MC's life upside down)
- purpose (what the MC's going to do, now that everything is changed in a blink of an eye)
the universe setting, character personality, problematic obstacle, antagonist that gets in the way, everything else could wait on the next chapter. because the first chapter are meant to be introduction for the whole novel, not the MC. thus, it has to clearly tell what is the novel all about.
Cipiteca396
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It seems like you're going to have to specify to get specific advice, since I assume you're asking for some kind of editing advice. What do you already have? What type of scene are you trying to write?
SakeVision
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sex
Ai-chan
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1. Happy giddy self-introduction
2. Scene of death
3. Edgy emotional scene of vengeance or regret
4. Self-loathing introduction
5. Descriptions of horror
6. Question everything seen and heard.
Then grab a 6-sided dice, and throw it. The answer is the intro you should write. That is what the goddess Ai-chan proclaim you should do.
2. Scene of death
3. Edgy emotional scene of vengeance or regret
4. Self-loathing introduction
5. Descriptions of horror
6. Question everything seen and heard.
Then grab a 6-sided dice, and throw it. The answer is the intro you should write. That is what the goddess Ai-chan proclaim you should do.
Beta_Krogoth
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I'd say something interesting in general. My younger sister started a story with a child shooting their mum in the face and I was upset I didn't think of it first, now thats a hook.
Doesn't need to be something crazy but you need something to lure people in, give them a compelling reason to get to page 2.
Doesn't need to be something crazy but you need something to lure people in, give them a compelling reason to get to page 2.
AryaX
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Umm... Big things are happening... and things are happening fast... Everything going to shit in some way... Or alternatively, things are going "unbelievably" well in some way instead... and the MC asks of them selves a some version of "how did it come to this"... And then... Go back to the true beginning, before anything really started... and show how... Too cliche?
MajorKerina
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With something that immediately makes your reader raise their eyebrows.
Waking up… But waking up dead
Attending a class… But it’s a class that teaches them assassination
Having lunch… But the lunch talks to them
Meeting an old friend… But that friend doesn’t exist
Etc
Waking up… But waking up dead
Attending a class… But it’s a class that teaches them assassination
Having lunch… But the lunch talks to them
Meeting an old friend… But that friend doesn’t exist
Etc