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You'll find there's a lot of "supposed to" out there. As an indie author, it's your right to take that advice or leave it. Tell your story the way you envision it. If you agonize over every bit of advice that's out there, you'll never finish!
I'll just add to what Missy said with this: If you're trying to follow some form of the traditional narrative arc, and your book is oh, let's say 150 pages or so, then getting to the inciting incident within the first couple chapters is a good idea - according to, as Missy put it, the "supposed tos" out there. That said, it is your story, and there's nothing wrong with a more narrative approach before the inciting incident to bring your readers up to speed and get them on board with your character. Have you thought about a prologue? That could help. But, again, this is all subjective. There is a lot of good advice out there from very successful authors (I'm not one of them), and since you're mentioning the term "inciting incident" I take it you know what you're doing. So, just write your story, as Missy said, and work it all out through beta reader programs and line editing. Just my opinion. Good luck!
If the setup chapters seem to be dragging, then I think the change would be a good idea (I personally like the opening you have here, without knowing what the original looked like) :) but if you do change it and it seems to be going too fast, then the setup was probably merited and needed. Whatever you decide, I wouldn't suggest changing the opening just to fit into the inciting-incident-as-soon-as-possible norm--just go with the beginning the story itself seems to demand :)
I like your "new beginning." And if it helps you have the best of both worlds, combining what you've already written, with what the "experts" say to do, then I say go for it. You've already solved the problem.
A couple of you mentioned that it was hard to "choose" without seeing what I had before. Here is where I opened before -- all B story, (spoiler: Rowena becomes a secondary villain)" I apologize for this being so long!--------text-------
“So, what are you all doing this weekend? Please tell me somebody has something better to do than memorizing another one of Ms. Crane’s vocabulary lists.” Eighth-grader Candy Darque looked hopefully at her classmates over the cafeteria table.
“Nothing for me,” Vicky Holtz, Candy's best friend, complained. The other girls commiserated with their own versions of “Me, neither,” until Rowena Davis spoke up.
“I am going to get a complete makeover.”
All conversation at the table stopped. You’d have thought Rowena had sprouted a second head, given the way everyone gaped at her. Annaleigh Forrester’s jaw literally dropped. Cassandra Jones couldn’t say anything except “Wow.”
“Don’t you have to have a ‘make’ before you can get a ‘makeover’?” Nikki White asked.
“Funny. Real funny.” Rowena crumpled a napkin and tossed it lightly at Nikki. “Seriously. This hair is sooo seventh-grade. I’m going to get something really new – maybe something with blonde highlights. Or maybe a perm. And my mom is going to take me to have my colors done. But best of all – I’m getting my make-up professionally done.”
Candy was speechless. What had she missed? None of them (well, maybe Nikki) had ever cared that much about make-up. Sure, they all carried make-up kits in their purses, but it was cheap stuff they bought at the supermarket, and they mostly just experimented with it at slumber parties. And, yes, they wore lipstick to school. All the eighth-grade girls did. But it wasn’t really that important. Was it?
“My mom says that hair and make-up and clothes are really important if you want to ‘fit in’ in high school, and that if I have this all done now I’ll be ahead of everybody next year when it counts. After all, as Ms. Crane always says . . .”
“. . . Eighth Grade is the Gateway to High School,” the girls chorused, dissolving into laughter.
Candy laughed with her friends, but she had been shaken by what Rowena’s mom had said. Candy had always known it was going to be important to succeed academically in high school. If pressed, she probably would even have admitted to knowing she might need to make some other changes to ‘fit in’ . . . but somehow she thought she would have a lot more time to figure it all out. To hear that Rowena’s mom thought this very weekend was the time to start making those changes . . . well, she’d definitely have to give this more thought. And if Rowena’s mom was right, she’d better do it fast!
- - - - - - -text end - - - - - - -
To me, I needed the slower opener to start explaining what the stakes are for the Horror Club: the girls' attempt to exert personal agency, to get something important to them instead of what's important to someone else (like Rowena's mom).
Jeremy wrote: "[A]nd since you're mentioning the term "inciting incident" I take it you know what you're doing."Ha, ha! I fooled you! You can lead a parrot (me) to water, but all you get is "Braak. Polly wants an inciting incident. Brrak"
Eh, if the experts were really all experts, they'd all be bestsellers instead of advice bloggers.But in all seriousness, not every story fits the same mold. You know your story better than anyone. Don't tell it in a way you feel is out of order just because some readers demand action on the first page.
I think an "early grab" in a book is very helpful for an indy author. My solution, in my first two works, was to abandon a chronological timeline. I think it works in the books that I have written, but I don't know if I would always do it that way.I want my readers eyes to stick to the page, because as as an unknown author, I don't expect my readers to extend me too much time to build a story.
Anthony wrote: "My solution, in my first two works, was to abandon a chronological timeline."I may have to go that route. I'm a little scared of it, because I am very linear -- I'm having to cut huge sections of my book where I just "absolutely had to" write my character from point A to point B -- if I didn't, my mind would not let me go forward. So I have all this "they got in the car, drove to the store, had an important conversation, stopped for gas, came back home, went to bed, woke up" stuff that I knew as I was writing would come out.
Susan wrote: "Anthony wrote: "My solution, in my first two works, was to abandon a chronological timeline."I may have to go that route. I'm a little scared of it, because I am very linear -- I'm having to cut ..."
The challenge is not to confuse the reader with the timeshift. In my book, I put the startup of the MC (a robot) in as a prologue, 'cause I really liked it and I thought it had a great first line: I had originally, written it as chapter 3/4, where he enters the story.
I think if you start with your new tease, and then skip a line and write something like "Two months earlier" (or however long it is) and then go with what you originally wrote, you'll do fine. The new beginning is more dramatic than girls talking about makeup; it shows an element of drama, which the original beginning lacked.
C.A. wrote: "[I]t shows an element of drama, which the original beginning lacked"Now that you told me that, I find I have lost absolutely all interest in the boring make-up discussion and I can't get interested in that chapter again at all. And I used to really like it (after that discussion, Candy gets asked to a dance and her vampire fangs pop for the first time -- all in the first 750 words).
Are all writers this bipolar?
I think the question to ask is, "Where does the story start?"To take a subject that my husband and I were talking about early this morning, you could technically say that the Wars of the Roses started in 1399, when Henry Bolingbroke made a bid for the English throne, and deposed Richard II. However, nothing much (from a fighting perspective) happened after that until 1455, when you get First St Albans. So most people count the Wars of the Roses as starting in 1455.
So if you are writing a story about the Wars of the Roses, you'd probably start it in 1455 (when the action really hots up) but you'd flashback, or drip-feed, to 1399 to explain why there's this sudden brawl in the streets of St Albans, and how all these people got there.
For the Wars of the Roses, the actual story starts in 1455 - the prior 56 years is setup.
The same with a lot of books - your "inciting incident" is often when the actual story starts. Before that, people are just moving into place. Hence, you start with the beginning of the action ("inciting incident") and feed in how it all got that way later. Apart from anything else, once the audience knows what the stakes are, they will then know what the setup means. Before the inciting incident, only the author knows why the setup is significant, so it can seem boring to "outsiders" (i.e., readers).
I tend to favour starting with a bang, and drip-feeding the background in later. I'm not too keen on flashbacks, because unless they're done well, they tend to stop the story. I think, for a flashback, the question you'd have to ask is, "What is in this scene that means it must be shown to the reader in its entirety, rather than simply mentioned by the characters at a later date?"
Looking at your two beginnings, the first one (horror club) immediately tells the reader what the stakes are: the girls want to set up a horror club, and Authority won't let them. They have a plan, a goal, and a villain. There will obviously be other stuff going on, but presumably the horror club is the skeleton of the book. Also, if these girls are going to try to start a horror club, this tells us something important about the girls: they like horror, enough to want to discuss it in a club setting (film or book, or both?). They have something that brings them together, and they're trying to put something together without adult leadership.
In the other one (makeup), it gives the impression that the book is mostly going to be about makeup and girly things. While you can be girly and like horror, it may not be a good idea to spring a bunch of horror fans on a readership who are expecting makeup and sleepovers. On the other hand, if your blurb says the girls are horror fans, your audience may be disappointed if they spend the first chapter discussing makeup.
I don't think you need to deliberately explain about personal agency etc before introducing the horror club - in fact, going for horror club first, and the girls' reaction to having their plan torpedoed by Authority, will tell your readers that this was something important to them.
Trust your readers - you don't have to tell them everything; let them read between the lines.
Here is my question. If the entire premise of the Save the Cat concept is thesis - antithesis - synthesis, with Act 1 (the "world before") being 25%, how can you start with the inciting incident (my rewritten version), because that starts the antithesis ("new world order" -- OK, Blake doesn't call it that)? I need to show -- somehow -- the "zombie" Candy (the one who just shuffles around, going with the flow) in order to get to the "vampire" Candy (filled with passion and determination). With just the Candy who is determined to get the club, there is no character arc.
While you can be girly and like horror, it may not be a good idea to spring a bunch of horror fans on a readership who are expecting makeup and sleepovers. On the other hand, if your blurb says the girls are horror fans, your audience may be disappointed if they spend the first chapter discussing makeup."You are exactly right, and I don't know why I didn't see that. Bye-bye make up.
So here is the new beginning. I'm flashing back, but not in a flashback. I'm teasing, but explaining. It took me an hour to write this one paragraph, but I think I'm finally getting it!-------text-------
"I have concerns about your proposal for a Horror Club." Ms. Crane, the Language Arts teacher glared disapprovingly at her four (former) star pupils. "I believe it is an inappropriate club for middle school."
All the blood drained from Candy's face. Was that all it took? With just those two sentences, a mere 20 words, Ms. Crane had destroyed all their plans for the year. In less that 30 seconds, she had turned all their plans – no, their hopes and dreams – to dust. How could things change so much from Friday to Monday?
On Friday, Ms. Crane told all the eighth-grade Language Arts classes that, on Monday, they would be starting an “exciting” two-week project. The students, she explained, would work in groups of four to propose new school clubs. She gave them the weekend to find like-minded friends for their groups, and to brainstorm ideas about what clubs they wanted to propose.
-------end text-------
And I'm just going to go from here. Make-up conversation is moved from stand-alone incident to discussion of clubs (Rowena starts a Fashion Club, so it works).
You people have all been wonderful and marvelous and I wish I could hug you all!
I think that's a good way to begin the story. The first line sets a nice tone with a little bit of humor and an immediate cue as to what's going on in the plot. Hearing dialogue from the teacher also puts us in the students' place and we can relate to them more easily right off the bat. There's no room for confusion.
Before I launched my book, I restructured it to include a hook in the opening paragraph, and I think it was improved by that. The question isn't what's the "right" way to start a book. The question is, how do you convince your target readers to stick with it long enough to find out this is a book they'll love? With an unknown author, I think you have to let them know up front that it has something that speaks to them. Otherwise, your ideal readers might glance at the sample pages and move on to something else.
WE Johns (Author of Biggles) tended to leap in to the action, starting with a gunfight or similar then, at the first chapter break, go back three months or so and explain how the characters got to the incident.Nevil Shute tends to start of by introducing the MC.
Both wrote multiple best sellers.
The moral of the story is, "Courage, and do it your way."
Susan wrote: "I have been thinking about adding a new beginning and starting with:- - - - - - - text - - - - - - -
"I have concerns about your proposal for a Horror Club..."
Another one of those "Supposed to" or rather "Not supposed to" is starting a book, chapter or section with dialog.
I ignore that rule sometimes, too.
Micah wrote: "Another one of those "Supposed to" or rather "Not supposed to" is starting a book, chapter or section with dialog."I'm glad I didn't read that one before I wrote this!
However, it would be easy enough to change it to:
Ms. Crane, the Language Arts teacher, glared disapprovingly at her four (former) star pupils. "I have concerns about your proposal for a Horror Club. I believe it is an inappropriate club for middle school."
The cadence isn't as strong, but if I'm breaking a rule , , , .
Susan wrote: ". . . but if I'm breaking a rule , , , ."Break the rules! But do it artistically and interestingly.
I'm glad you changed the make-up scene. It sounds much better now.
As for the, "inciting incident" piece, I think there might be some confusion as to the difference between an inciting incident and just a regular hook. TK Elliott had a good definition: where does your story start? I've also heard that the inciting incident is something like, "What launches the rest of the story into action?"
Maybe the teacher doesn't like the horror club. Does that set up the rest of the book? Or maybe it's that your MC finds out she's a vampire. Or maybe somebody kills the king or loses her job.
I can't tell if the students-in-trouble-for-club-idea is an inciting incident or just a good hook. Either way, it DOES grab the reader's attention, and THAT is what you need in the first chapter, regardless of whatever other label it has.
IMHO, you do need a hook in your first chapter. Outside of confirmed bookworms, such as you will find on Goodreads, a lot of people will abandon a book if chapter one don't get them.
And it does need to be relevant to what the whole story is about.
But. In the end you also have to write what feels right to you. Don't lose yourself in an attempt to do what somebody else might like.
Mod
Susan wrote: "C.A. wrote: "[I]t shows an element of drama, which the original beginning lacked"Now that you told me that, I find I have lost
absolutely all interest
in the boring make-up discussion and I c...
...Candy gets asked to a dance and her vampire fangs pop for the first time "
Hi Susan, I posted a couple of comments and didn't check back till later. This "vampire fangs pop out for the first time" is for me a scene that, written well, is a great hook! Did she know she was a vampire? Is she shocked, ashamed, confused? Does she try to hide it? Do her friends/enemies see it?
Something like that may even be a great first line!
On the other hand, I admit to being a little suspicious of ridiculous events in the first chapter, designed as hooks. It should be interesting, but if it is almost impossible, the rest of the book should show how it was possible, and why it was relevant, or I simply get peeved.
Mod
Joe, I want to take this comment, gold plate it and frame it and hang it on the walls of the homes of every author out there. YES! This is not to say you shouldn't read books and blogs with advice on writing, but as Missy said, in the end YOU are the boss. YOU decide the best way to tell your story. For me, to fret over all the "supposed to" advice gets confusing as, eventually, the experts begin to contradict one another. Also, it becomes less about the art and more about structuring a story the way someone else thinks it should be done, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.
Susan wrote: "How much do I have to dwell on front-loading this?"A double edged sword.
1. Enough to interest your reader.
B. It raises the bar: how long can you keep it up (the tight writing)?
The classic "plunge opening" (as this seems to be about) introduces the character (not characters, that is diluting), sets the scene, and ends with a hook. Three sentences.
Joe wrote: "Eh, if the experts were really all experts, they'd all be bestsellers instead of advice bloggers...."I also want heartily second -- or third -- this. There is no formula to writing anything in fiction. Stories have their own "logic" and flow that does not submit to rules.
In all my years of writing, I've only found one thing to always be true: all the "rules" and bits of advice propounded by so-called writing "experts" are bad. The only one who is "expert" on your story and how to write it is you, the author.
That does not mean ignore every outside opinion, but understand that these who offer them are not experts, and they are merely subjective personal opinions, nothing more.
Owen wrote: "Joe wrote: "Eh, if the experts were really all experts, they'd all be bestsellers instead of advice bloggers...."I also want heartily second -- or third -- this. There is no formula to writing an..."
If everyone just listened to "the experts" we would just end up with uniform formulaic slop. There would be no novelty!
Indie publishing offers a chance to break away from gate keepers publishing only what they think will sell!
Anthony wrote: "If everyone just listened to "the experts" we would just end up with uniform formulaic slop. There would be no novelty! ..."Quite so. "Experts" in this sense are, at best, "expert" at telling others how things have been done.
Not to impose, but I'm about a week from Beta. If anyone of you wonderful souls who have commented on my prose would like to be a beta reader, please let me know!Thank you for all your wonderful help!
When I read books about starting a book (that is, about "the first chapter," "the first five pages," et al.), I discovered the experts want the inciting incident front-and-center at page one.
I have been thinking about adding a new beginning and starting with:
- - - - - - - text - - - - - - -
"I have concerns about your proposal for a Horror Club." Ms. Crane, the Language Arts teacher glared disapprovingly at her four (former) star pupils. "I believe it is an inappropriate club for middle school."
All the blood drained from Candy's face. Was that all it took? With just those two sentences, a mere 20 words, Ms. Crane had destroyed all their plans for the year. In less that 30 seconds, she had turned all their plans -- no, their hopes and dreams -- to dust.
- - - - - - - end text - - - - - - -
Then I would go back to how they had formed the idea for the Horror Club and the other "set-up" stuff in chapters 1-3, then pick up with the "debate" in chapter 4-6.
Does this solve my problem? How much do I have to dwell on front-loading this?
Thank you for your help.