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Answer posted
on September 22, 2018 at 15:01:09

The PLHL is dedicated to helping

writers with their stories. We
Anonymous asked:

discuss plotting and character Help please. How does one start a Dragons!AU fanfiction? I got the other
development, and give advice to details (like the character and setting) just fine but I just can't find the correct
scene or approach on the first chapter. Thank you very much. OPEN FRI-SUN
motivate and encourage writers to
enjoy the process of creating
fiction.

 
 
 

Act One, Scene One (or Choosing an Effective Plot Building

Starting Point) Character

Central

Setting Design
The one potential advantage you have with fan fiction is that you don’t have to lay the
groundwork as much in the opening scene. Readers will already be familiar with your World-Building
and Research
characters and settings. The only backstory you may have to provide is enough to inform
your reader at what point in canon your story occurs. If the story is an AU, or non-canon,
then you’ll probably need to add more details to explain this so a reader knows what to
expect.
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Apart from this, I think the idea of first scenes applies to all types of stories, fan fiction
included, so I’m going to generalize this to cover all opening sequences. Click here to sear

Choosing Your Starting Point

We all know the pressures of that first chapter. I attended a panel earlier this year where
agents and editors listened to readings of the first page of a novel and raised their hands
when they would stop reading. It was astounding how quick they were to give up on each
work! I think the average reader is a bit more patient than paid readers, since their time
does not equal money, but the same principle applies. You need to engage readers from
the beginning if you want to keep them invested.

To simplify this process, we’re going to start wide and slowly narrow to that precise
moment.

Step One: Fix Your Mindset

I could do a whole post on ignoring structure and just getting the story written. I could
say that you should choose your opening scene later once you’ve drafted a good portion
of the story. However, I do not think that advice would help my anon since they’re writing
fan fiction, which isn’t typically written in drafts. I also think at some point, you do have to
worry about structure.

Nonetheless, you shouldn’t enter into any outline or first draft with that first scene
carrying so much weight. It simply needs to exist so you can move on to later chapters.
When the story is more developed, the opening chapter might be clearer to you. It’s okay
to start the process of writing a story with a flimsy first scene. You can find that sweet
spot in later drafts.

Step Two: Choose a Point on the Timeline

A good plot includes far more than the opening line and “the end.” There will be events
that happened before chapter one, and maybe even events that will happen after the
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final sentence. A novel isn’t necessarily a complete story from beginning to end - it’s a
 snapshot of the most important, most interesting part of something’s life, whether that’s
Tweets by ‎@plotlinehotline a character, a monster, a story universe, ect.
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Maybe you already know what point in your timeline you’re going to begin, but if you
The PLHL
don’t, start there. Write out everything you know about your characters and your plot and
@plotlinehotline decide which portions of this are going to be backstory and which portions will occur in
Is it possible to write a scene real time. Once you’ve chosen that point, you’re one step closer to narrowing your focus.
that's only focused on character
development and not the plot? Step Three: Choose a Character to Start With
tmblr.co/Z96kAl2cdGjv1 #writing

This character doesn’t have to be the protagonist, but I strongly recommend it. When we
start reading novels, we latch onto the first character we meet. If the character is

Oct 10, 2018 engaging, we dig deeper. If they’re not, we let go. Likewise, if the character dies in chapter
one, we let go.
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This was one thing that bothered me about how Leigh Bardugo began Six of Crows. The
@plotlinehotline
first chapter reveals a POV character, and at the end of that chapter, we’re done with that
Plotting your story for character. We get a small detail late in the novel that reveals that character’s fate, but it
NaNoWriMo was kind of like a “gotcha” moment. It put me on shaky ground for chapter two, and I was
tmblr.co/Z96kAl2cRzh85 slower to sink my talons into Inej’s perspective (who is actually a protagonist).
#nanowrimo #writing

I don’t like investing my energy in chapter one into a character that I have no reason to
care about. An exception to this could be changing the “chapter one" heading to
Oct 4, 2018 “prologue.” We have less character expectations for prologues and tend to assume that a

character introduced in a prologue is not necessarily a protagonist - they’re simply

involved in an important event of the story.

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Prologues are honestly a topic of great debate, and I won’t offer my opinion one way or
Embed View on Twitter the other in this post, but when it comes to choosing the star character of your opening
scene, I highly recommend you make that character an important one.

Step Four: The Perfect Moment

Okay, we know the general point of the timeline, and we know which character we’re
going to introduce first. Now, we need to find that sweet spot. A good opening scene will
do several things:

Introduce a main character

Show the status quo
Present a short-term problem
Hint at a greater problem

A popular way to start a novel is by showing the “status quo” of the world you’ve created
and showing a typical problem within that status quo. This is what I mean by “short-term”
problem - it’s a problem that your character faces on a regular basis and they’re solving it
like they normally would (with some possible hiccups along the way). For the character,
this might be routine, but for us, it’s new. We’re learning about this character and their
world in an exciting and suspenseful way.

I just started rereading Red Rising by Pierce Brown, and this novel does an excellent job of
showcasing this. Our main character Darrow is shown mining in the dangerous depths of
Mars, solving a problem when he runs into a potential gas pocket. This particular
moment does not define the story’s later conflict, but it shows us what Darrow’s routine
looks like in an “exciting and suspenseful” way. The author shows us the status quote and
presents a short-term problem.

Brown also hints at a greater problem in this opening scene by briefly describing the
conditions that Darrow’s peers work in and how much they compete for rations. The
hierarchy in this universe becomes hugely important later on, so it’s a detail that begins
to set up the later conflict.

Step Five: Don’t Make It Complicated

If your reader needs five pages of backstory to understand what’s going on in your
opening scene, then it’s not a good moment. It’s possible that you’re overthinking how
much your reader actually needs to know, and it’s also possible that you’ve chosen a
moment too far into the timeline. If you’re in a position to have your first scene critiqued,
experiment by eliminating most of the backstory from your draft. Have someone read it
and ask them what points were confusing. That’ll help you decide which details are
absolutely necessary.

This isn’t the only way to choose an opening scene, but it’s a popular method that should
help you start your story off with a bang.

Good luck!

-Rebekah

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