10 Ways NOT to Start Your Novel | iWriterly

in this video i'm going to share with you 10 ways you should never start your novel coming up [Music] hey you book nerds i'm meg latorre i'm the author of the cyborg tinkerer which comes out november 17 2020. if you pre-order a copy and fill out the pre-order giveaway form in the description below you'll be entered to win one of more than 30 prizes some of those prizes include signed copies of the cyborg tinker tct merch bookmarks character art books by authors you know and love and more stay tuned to the end of this video to hear if you won this week's prize i also formerly worked at a literary agency on this episode of iwriterly let's talk about the 10 ways you should never start your novel now before we get into today's content hit that subscribe button and ring the bell if you haven't already here on iwriterly we create videos about how to be a successful modern day author including traditional and self publishing this video is sponsored by pro writing aid pro writing eight is an app that analyzes your writing and highlights areas for potential improvement it offers grammar and style checking combined with more in-depth reports to help you improve your writing from line level tweaks to a deeper assessment of your writing style it searches out elements like repetitiveness vague wording sentence length variation over dependence on adverbs passive voice overly complicated sentences and much more one of the things that i really like about prowritingaid is that the app makes suggestions and then offers explanations videos and even quizzes to explain why they're making those suggestions they're not just blindly making a suggestion and then not explaining why you should be doing that thing stay tuned to the end of this video for an exclusive opportunity from today's sponsor one other quick announcement i am going to be hosting a goodreads giveaway for the cyborg tinker in the month of august 2020. if you enter you will be eligible to win one of three signed copies of the cyborg tinkerer it is limited to individuals in the united states so if you want to sign copy from me the link to enter the goodreads giveaway is in the description below without further ado let's jump into the 10 ways to not start your novel or not to start your i always get it mixed up let's talk about the 10 ways not to start your novel number one not introducing your protagonist right away keep in mind this is for modern day literary agents modern day readers most people want to be introduced to the protagonist of your story right away who's ever leading the story who is impacting the plot whoever spearheading whatever adventure you're going on we kind of really wanted to meet them right away and i see in a lot of books especially when i worked at the literary agency and then when i worked in freelancing and contests and different things i would say people would introduce characters that weren't their protagonist and have them sticking around doing a pov thing for a long time examples of this are a prologue chapter one from a pov or point of view of another character a chapter from the antagonist perspective or a prologue from the antagonist's perspective and another common one that's kind of become a cliche is a prologue or chapter one from the perspective of a character who probably dies and we never see them again it's overdone don't do it think very carefully if wherever your story starts needs to start with that point of view and if it doesn't probably want to start with your protagonist number two is dream sequences or faux starts let's talk about why dream sequences aren't just not a good idea the first reason is that you don't get a baseline for what is normal for the character a lot of times you're thrown into this dream it's very surreal weird things are happening but you don't know what's normal for that character so you don't know to think that huh these things happening are kind of weird now the reason is it's been overdone it's been so overdone to the point where it's cliche and therefore it's very hard to stand out in a good way when you're starting with something using a tactic that's been way overdone another reason that this probably is not a good way to start your book is that it's hard to identify a dream sequence is happening in a novel as compared to something like a movie or a tv show and those you have those special effects maybe films maybe the lighting is different maybe there's like a coloring or some difference i'm no expert in these things clearly but in novels it's much more difficult to identify as a dream sequence even if it's like an all italic so again it's very hard for the reader to be like oh this is a dream cool i know this is supposed to be a little different and then proceed with chapter one it's much better idea to have a dream if you have to have one later in the book once we get a baseline for what to expect from that character and the world apologies for the slight shifting of the camera my battery just died let's keep going as for why faux stars are really not a good idea for starting your novel it's basically just teasing the reader when you start the book chapter one is usually a promise to your reader it's a promise of what they can expect from the characters from the world the pacing the writing style so if you have a faux start you're kind of making a promise to your reader and then kind of quickly breaking it you might leave your reader disappointed maybe they liked that faux star and they thought the story that you were starting to tell was cooler than the one that you're actually telling which is not a good thing number three is opening with a scene that lacks any conflict for this one i'm just going to give a few examples waking up going through a morning routine talking with family or friends over coffee pastoral scenes sitting in a field and staring at your surroundings or just reflecting on the state of the character's life it's boring it doesn't make the reader want to keep going and read more versus if you start with conflict there's usually some issue either external or internal and the reader wants to see that issue resolved or maybe a question that needs answering whatever that thing is so you're propelling them and giving them a reason to turn to the next page but if they're just kind of staring and philosophizing phyllis sizing i don't know if they're thinking about life i don't i'm a reader and a writer i don't say words out loud but if they're just thinking about life then that's not a very interesting way to start a story you want to start with some type of conflict it does not need to be your inciting incident but you do need to have conflict at the very beginning of your story chapter one gotta have something number four is lots of dialogue without any context aka white room syndrome this is where you basically start a story and there's tons of dialogue usually between at least two characters sometimes more you don't know who those characters are you don't know where they are but they're talking a lot and oftentimes there's info dumps within the dialogue and the reader's like what the heck is going on here essentially it's two floating heads talking back and forth and what they're saying means nothing to the reader because the reader has no context for what the heck is happening whenever you start a chapter a scene whatever you need to have a couple of things you do need to have dialogue of course yes you do need to have that you also need to have setting describe just enough of where they are without the info dumps i'm looking at you fantasy and sci-fi writers you need to have a scene something is usually going on maybe there is a an exchange between characters maybe there's an upcoming battle maybe people are having a banter maybe there's some kind of conflict and they're talking about it whatever it is there's going to be a scene that is happening on the page and then of course maybe some internal monologues or thoughts or things from the characters you have to have all those things you can't just have external dialogue of people talking back and forth number five is info dumps about character backstory or world building or both while it's great to want to introduce your character and your world to the reader it must be done sparingly only share things with the reader just before they need to know it unless you're doing some type of foreshadowing in which case you're gonna probably start hinting much sooner than the the information happens then the event later on won't make sense if you haven't been hinting at it for a little while and giving those little teasers so instead of paragraphs of text aka an info dump of things about the character or the world building or the setting or whatever it is trickle that in during a scene show who the characters besties are what the character is like what the world and the weather is like and so on through their actions show the world as the characters are moving through it you don't need to pull the reader out of the scene with massive walls of text that's a great way to have readers stop reading number six is buckets of description without any scene at all because i specialize in fantasy and science fiction i'm going to reference usually examples from those genres but i think of the introductions where you're describing the setting in much too elaborate detail and you're like oh my gosh i don't care what the trees or the hills look like move on with the story this has been way overdone no one cares just get to the story number seven is flashbacks this is when rather than having the character actively participating in the scene in the present those scenes are interrupted by flashbacks of a character's past if you find yourself stuck looking back too many times for your protagonist into the past that might indicate that you started your story in the wrong place if those flashbacks are the most interesting part of your story maybe that's when your story should be happening in my opinion it's better for the reader to get to know your character as the things are happening as they are taking action as things are happening in the book in the present not in the past readers want to watch them take action make decisions right now yes flashbacks aren't evil and of course there's always a time and a place for it but if it's excessive and if the book starts with a flashback you know maybe you're not starting the book in the right place number eight is describing the character's physical description at painful length this is a massive cliche and specifically the most popular cliche is the character staring at themselves in the mirror and assessing their appearance or maybe things that they love or hate about themselves or indifferent or whatever don't do that also be wary of the clinical descriptions of your character if you're like i am five foot four and i have blonde hair and blue eyes and a jawline that's a little too round or whatever the description is that's a little bit too clinical keep it right simple to the point and move on a lot of times you can just describe their appearance as it relates to the scene you could also describe the character's appearance from an opposite pov so if you have multiple points of view in a story meaning you have maybe one character narrates one chapter a different character narrates the next chapter and if those two characters are interacting you can describe the character's appearance from the other person's perspective and it's one of my favorite things to do favorite tricks highly recommend it the ninth way not to start your novel is introducing gobs of named characters when a book starts in general the reader is inundated with a ton of information who's the protagonist what do they want who or what is in the way of them getting what they want what is the world like what's the setting who's the antagonist what's the conflict so to throw 12 named characters at them in chapter one is just confusing also i think there are a lot of writers who have the tendency to name irrelevant characters characters that are never gonna come up again in the story could be the barmaid or a random soldier or i don't know some random character that maybe serves them a cup of coffee once and then you never see them again if that's what the case is then just call them the bar maid the soldier whoever it is you don't need to give them a name again unless they're relevant to the plot you don't need to name them also only bringing characters in my opinion sparingly in chapter one introduce your protagonist as we discussed earlier in this video and then maybe one or two primary characters and maybe a couple of other bad guys again you don't have to name them and then gradually throughout the story and later chapters bring in more characters number 10 is breaking the fourth wall this is when the narrator of the story is talking directly to the audience or maybe the character themselves is talking directly to the audience often this is the only time it's usually the beginning of the story when the character or the narrator talks directly to the audience at the very beginning to give some type of background information to the story itself and then it never happens again later in the book it's just that maybe prologue or chapter one so it's awkward if it just happens in that chapter and then it never happens again sometimes when you're breaking the fourth wall this narrator gives tons of information dumps about the character or world which isn't fun to hear no matter who it comes from so don't do it sometimes i've seen writers do this like philosophical discussion from a narrator who's addressing the audience and it's a lot of times it's just not necessary and you could just easily take that out and still have a really good story so unless you intend to break the fourth wall throughout the book and that is part of your strategy you're breaking that rule in a fun way in a non-purpose way then don't do it don't just have it randomly in chapter one or in the prologue it needs to be intentional never night is a great example of when they do this on purpose and i'll leave a link to that book in the description below if you want to check it out anyways breaking the fourth wall should be a conscious choice and now for the exclusive opportunity you have all been waiting for prowritingaid is giving iwriterly viewers 20 off pro writing aid premium click the link in the description to learn more and now it's time to announce the winner of this week's pre-order giveaway for the cyborg tinkerer the winner of this week's pre-order giveaway is this person you'll be going home with signed tct character art thank you so much to everyone who's pre-ordered a copy of the cyborg tinkerer in case you missed this announcement cyborg tinker has already hit a few amazon best-selling lists even on pre-order before the book is out which is amazing so thank you so much and stay tuned for when another winner is announced in an upcoming video thanks for tuning in to this episode of iwriterly 10 ways not to start your novel the cyborg tinker is available for pre-order and paperback hardcover and e-book on most major retailers the link is in the description below if you pre-order a copy of the cyborg tinker and fill out the pre-order giveaway form you will be entered to win one of more than 30 prizes some of those prizes include signed copies of the cyborg tinkerer tct merch character art bookmarks books by authors you know and love and much more if you want to support what i do join me on patreon i currently have six tiers with a bunch of different perks including early access to weekly videos discounted merch and exclusive discord server and more hit the like button subscribe and ring the bell so you're notified every time i upload a video if you have questions or requests for future videos please do drop them in the comments below let's be friends on social media i'm on twitter and instagram i also have a monthly newsletter when you subscribe you'll receive free copies of how to format your manuscript for submission which is a word document template a querying checklist a book marketing checklist and a self publishing checklist you will also have first access to any information about my debut novel all the links are in the description below that's it for today as always keep writing [Music] you

Channel: iWriterly

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Keywords: writing tips, best writing advice, writing advice, how to write a book, writing a book, how to write a novel, how to write a book for beginners, publishing advice, tips for writing, starting a book, writing a novel, how to start a novel, how to start a book, how NOT to start a novel, novel beginning, first chapter, writing your first chapter, how to write the start of a novel, iwriterly, meg latorre, authortube

Id: KsshG9LZAok

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020