How to start a Story

Hey all,

Here's a lesson that I typed up for the USU Creative Writing Club that I wanted to share with you guys, hopefully it's helpful.

How to start a Story

What does a beginning need? (Not necessarily in order.)
1.Set the scene: establish the setting. What’s familiar about it? What’s different? What are “the rules”?
2. Establish the conflict: in other words what drives the story/what is the story about?
3. Introduce the characters: show who our narrator(s) is/are. Who’s our main cast? Who are the secondary characters of note? What are they like? How does the conflict drive them or not? Most importantly: what makes them different?
Overall: you need to prove that your story is worth it. You need to make sure that your story stands apart from the others.

Please don’t start out with:
1. DON’T start with the character waking up: it’s overdone and unoriginal and it puts the reader to sleep. (Rimshot.)
2. A character history: work the back-story into the story through subtext like how it should be.
3. Related to 2: no prologues. Like adverbs and Mary Sue’s kill them with fire!
4. A long time ago, once upon a time, this is based on a true story, legend tells of a...etc: especially don’t try to emulate classic novel openers that Dickens wrote, it’s weak and it shows that you aren’t very creative.

An additional note: I think that “catchy” and “witty” first sentences are overrated and are more of a distraction and a time sink to the author than anything. If you are focusing on making an original, innovative, and creative story you don’t have to worry about the first sentence because every word will captivate and enthrall your reader. A good story is catchy enough.

Thanks for reading, this year I'm going to be trying to update more often.

Questions or comments? Let us know!

-Katie

Inspiration can come from weird places...

Hi,

Pretend that it hasn't been an insanely long time since I blogged. Are you pretending? Good.

Our minds are strange things. What comes up with even stranger things is our subconscious, specifically in the dream realm. What is more amazing to me is psychoanalysis; making sense of dreams. (I wish I were capable of that, I'll have to read up on it and/or take a class on it.) But I invite you to attempt to psychoanalyze me.

I say that because I've recently hit an important milestone: I've had 20 dreams that were crazy and memorable enough to make it to my: "Weird Dream List". Here it is:

"Weird Dream List":

1. Star Trek Canyon
2. Dark and depressing “Singing in the rain”
3. Weird interview at Sports Academy
4. Four pronged trident
5. Three kids try to steal my car
6. I time-traveled to the D.C. of the early 1900’s
7. Greek Temple/ Hogwarts/ Logan High
8. I meet my sister and her classmates in Israel
9. Alternate ending to “New Moon” bonanza
10. I disrupt a class and the Teacher and all the students are angry at me
11. Two pairs of socks on with my shoes
12. The BYU “The Help/ Book of Mormon” play
13. Low Budget “Doctor Who” Episode Parodying the “Wizard of Oz”
14. Lindsey and I go to a college fair in Canada
15. The Harry Potter 7 part 2 movie involved water slides, submarines, and the tune to “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, all on top of a snowy vista
16. My Mom is given a baby sheep as a gift and we decide to keep it as a pet. We go to a gift shop to buy supplies for it
17. Three robins hatch fully-grown but one robin has a deformed arm and its mother abandons it so I decide to raise it
18. Giant Vikings replace the mountains and reenact “The Sword in the Stone” in the middle of a snowstorm and it scared me
19. I fly around a ballroom that has a painted three-dimensional sky in it. I get a bit cold from all the flying
20. Grave marker dogs that guard dead Spartan warriors come to life and I keep them. I also discover the grave of a young girl who wasn’t actually dead but in a coma and delegate her rescue

Why show them to you? Roald Dahl advised prospective writers to keep a pen and paper by their bedside so they could write down as many of their dreams as they could, because maybe one of them could lead you to "THE IDEA". (And their kind of fun just to read back on.) Oh, and you're welcome to use any of these dreams for an idea, the funny thing about dreams like stories I think, is that two people can be looking at the same thing but they end up seeing two complete different things.

So this was a little bit of a different article. Be sure to tell me if you liked it or not and if you want to psychoanalyze me go right ahead! ;)

On another note, school starts back up again for me tomorrow so I might be updating even less than usual, but who knows?

Thanks for your time!

-Katie

It's been awhile, but at least I've been tweeting!

Hi!

It's been awhile but I promise that we will update more this summer! I just thought that I'd leave you with something light but substantial.

Here are my first 10 writing tips from twitter:

Tip #1:Read and write a wide variety.
Tip #2: Avoid the passive voice.
Tip #3: Write down all of your plot bunnies. Even if nothing comes from it, it's good practice.
Tip #4: If you're too tired to keep writing, you probably need to sleep.
Tip #5: Build up your wealth of knowledge, because it will show in your writing.
Tip #6:Read and write everyday.
Tip #7: Never forget your deadlines!
Tip #8: Prepare for a lot of rejection. A LOT.
Tip #9: "Follow your bliss." - Joseph Campbell
Tip #10: You have to actually sit down and write eventually.

And there you go! Also, have you guys seen my new twitter icon? It was drawn by a good friend and I think that she nailed it. When I get it scanned and colored I'll post the finished mascot here. (Do you guys get why we chose a goat? It's cause it's an animal that climbs on cliffs to go with our name. You probably already figured that out but oh well....)

'Til next time!

-Katie