Hello, writers. We’ve talked before about the importance of first lines. Recently another writer told me that the first line should encapsulate the entire story. This is an interesting idea.
I had to think of my own first lines; most of them do, in a sense, encapsulate the entire story. However, I didn’t plan them that way. It just happened. I think if I’d actually been trying to do that I could have come up with some truly dreadful sentences.
We’ve also talked before about where a story ought to begin. I always have trouble with this; I think probably most writers do. In the past you could begin with the protagonist’s birth, or even before that. You could start with the parents’ births, or even with a whole string of begats.
Nowadays, with most fiction, it works best to start at the moment when the protagonist’s life changes.
Or as close to that as possible.
I’ve just pulled a few recent books off the shelves, and in most of them, that moment occurs within the first two pages.
Sometimes that moment can be hard to determine. There might be several points where your main character’s life changes. And, of course, with fantasy or historical fiction, you may feel the need to describe the world a little bit before that change moment comes.
In a best case scenario, you can do both at the same time.
But what’s the point at which his or her life changes irrevocably, the point at which there’s no turning back?
Tonight’s challenge:
Imagine the protagonist in your work-in-progress. Or, if you prefer, imagine one of the following characters:
- a callow youth who must save the realm by recovering the lost Jewel of Togwogmagog
- an apprentice grebe-wrangler
- a plucky but penniless streetsweeper
Show us, in four sentences or less, the moment at which his or her life changes.
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