/lit/ - Literature

Once upon a time

>>15516510
there was a little negro

>>15516515
Agatha Christie?

from the middle

>>15516466
It was a rainy day...

"It was a dark and stormy night", and then on from there.

>>15516466
This >>15516531
Think or write any other part or parts of the story first.

>>15516466
just be urself.

>>15516466
Don’t do it from the middle, that’s as overdone as once upon a time. Don’t begin with dialogue either.

Honestly really basic plot/setting details that are well written are good

STATELY

Write Drunk Edit Sober - Hemmingway

Bullshit "advice" all around, with these stupid rules

I start all my stories with the protagonist waking up and the stories are all great

Never from the beginning

>>15517051
pyw

>>15516466
Modern stories require some kind of hook, basically something that raises a question in the reader's head for which he wants to keep reading to answer. Contrast this with a thesis-like opening where you just state something.

As close to the end as possible

>>15517092
>Modern stories require some kind of hook
Hello Mrs. Fifth Grade English Teacher

>>15516466
start with the corniest intro, string the most obvious openong lines together
>once upon a time on a dark and stormy night our hero awoke to find...
then rewrite it one the story is good and underway

>>15517036
Based. Just start with a good sentence lol

>>15516466
Start with the Greeks

>>15516466
CRASH!

>>15516466
It was 1995 when asshole penetrate my mom's pussy with vagon of semen... that's how.

>>15517859
lol

>>15516466
Looks like the type of person who wants me to not exist and when talking to her assumes a bratty attitude.
Her smug eyes would look good poked out.

>>15516466
i don't read the first quarter of books anyway because it's all just gay setup and it takes too long so just put blank pages for that so i won't miss anything when i skip to the middle

Start with the character's name. Maybe something like,
>Call me Ishmael.

>>15517859
underrated

Rumbling slowly down your throat, my cum brought forth new life the universe had ne'er seen.

>>15516466
like this:

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the great mountainous island of Tremalking. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

>>15516466
You're going to scrap the beginning anyway about 95% of time. You just start and see where it goes and after like 5,000 words somewhere in there the true beginning manifests.

>>15516466
Just make some vague philosophical bullshit that just slightly relates to your book to make it seem deeper than it actually is.
Or just describe the current location in an overly poetic way so people don't even notice you've spent an entire paragraph just saying "we're in a field, there's some hills and trees over there, they're kinda neat I guess."

>>15518242
not sure if you're baiting but she's the author and main character from Persepolis which is basically an indictment of the Iranian Revolution

>>15516466
Just start it dude, You can always go back and change it.

>>15518292
This, there's a reason a first draft is just a draft, you're just building the framework of your story, inevitably enough will change down the road that you'll pretty much need to completely rewrite the first few chapters.

>>15518242
She got a man possibly executed because he checked her out for a second and acted like it was a cute little "I'm so naughty" kinda thing.

>>15516466
Generally by giving readers some sense of the conflict. Consider the first sentence of Charlotte's Web (a novel, but a good example nonetheless):
>“Where’s Papa going with that axe?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
Or Raymond Carver's Where I'm Calling From
>We are on the front porch at Frank Martin's drying-out facility.
Or T.C. Boyle's Greasy Lake
>There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it wsa good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste.
Or Tobias Wolff's Bullet in the Brain
>Anders couldn't get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper.
Or John Updike's A&P
>In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.
Now, I don't think you need to get conflict into the first sentence necessarily. Ted Chaing's Story of Your Life takes a paragraph, as does Joyce Carol Oates Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been. However, you should probably work it in as quickly as possible. Audiences are looking for stakes. Some audiences—editors, agents, and publishers—will simply put the work down if they can't determine the stakes quickly enough.

with the character waking up, of course.

>>15518252
That's not even the start of the book.

>>15516466
I was born a poor black child...

>>15516466

you break your pencil and jam the two pieces up your ass and coom all over your chickenchest

For the love of God, just make me care.

For my Iranian bros posting in this thread:

>Yeki bood; yeki nabood. Ghare az khoda, hichkas nabood.

The Persian version of "once upon a time..." is tremendously poetic.

>>15516466
Start with your characters. A story is not about the events it's about how the characters react to the events.

>>15517092
>something that raises a question in the reader's head for which he wants to keep reading to answer.
This is the moment-to-moment root of all storytelling; it's what we call "interest". You are interested in the story every moment along the way because there is something you want to know, even if it is as simple as "I hope the hero makes it out of this one!".
In summary, it's useless as a piece of advice to summarize what a story needs.
>Contrast this with a thesis-like opening where you just state something.
Which would be a hook, exactly the same as what you're saying. Because what the reader would be hooked on is the following proofs/expansions upon the statement put forth initially.

>>15519181
>chickenchest

u wot

>>15518430

>>15518468
...and raised as a white man.

In medias res>At the end with the narrator saying "I but you're wondering how I got here"> At the start.

Spoil the ending outright but only make it obvious once the ending has happened. I'm such a sucker for that shit.

>100YOS
>Book of the New Sun
>Entire plots of Dune
>Sandman

>NIGGER! Now that I have your attention, let's begin our story.

>>15516466
In the middle of something happening.

>>15516466

>>15516466
sauce on that image

Describe the setting

>>15520756
persepolis movie. based on a graphic novel which i prefer

>>15516536
like he said OP >>15520882

>>15516466
from the first part that pops into your head. if it's garbage just toss it out or edit edit edit

carefully

The first paragraph should be the last thing you write. It's the most important part of the book.

>>15517225
>>15518292
>>15518369
Good advice

thinking intently about structure and grammar is slavish, propagandist behaviour
A truly great story bursts forth unbidden by conscious design. The storyteller is infinitely superior to the “writer”. God wrote Beowulf and there is no God but God. God is great

>>15520053
Gene Wolfe is great at this

>>15516466
The metallic grey, cold tool is lying on the table. It is flickers in the gloom light of a lamp. Safety is over. It is almost 8.00 and i am nearly late for final part of things i must to do.

>>15521294
Yo sick prompt brav.

I was standing up to wipe my ass, thats when the dingleberry flew right into my underpants and stayed there for the whole day

>>15516515
from a land filled with human excrement and aids

>>15516466
>Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

>>15521294
I really feel the author's anxiety through this.

>>15516466
with an interesting hook within the first page

>>15523276
>Sacre bleu, le soleil! Waaaaaaaaah!

>>15516466
Two boys left their homes in search of names.

>>15516466
>As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.

>>15518366
It doesn't show the Shah on a good light at all

Start with some kind of action immediately. Stole that from some shitty screenplay advice book but I think it applies to basically any story if you want to hook the reader in. Sort of a cheap way but it can also get the ball rolling for you in your mind

>>15518242
>>15518366
>>15518382
>>15524657
All descendants of the Qajar "royalty" are trash and deserve to die. They are also commies and socialist monsters being back by Trump's administration. Qajar descendants overwhelmingly dominated MEK/NCRI. They are the trash of this Earth.