Midwest Princess

1. starting a story + first chapters

i.

hi! thank you to everyone who's been sending me requests on tellonym!!

i've gotten a lot of similar questions surrounding how to flesh out a plot, how to start a story, how to write a prologue, synopsis, first chapter, etc. so i thought i'd combine them all here since they fit into a common theme.

i'm not of the belief that you have to have your entire story perfectly mapped out before starting the writing process, but i do think it can be really helpful if you want to have a consistent theme and incorporate foreshadowing and easter eggs from the very beginning (which i like to do).

FIRSTTT of all, i'd like to say, i cannot tell you word for word how to create a plot. not to say "touch grass" but you have to go outside!! get inspiration!!! even at home, watch movies, read books, listen to lyrics, analyze what you like and don't like about them. don't just say "this character is well-written" or "this plot was interesting." ask why. what did the writer do that made the character compelling? what about the plot was interesting to you? which aspects of their writing style drew you in? i think the first step to figuring out your own story is to look at someone else's. what would you like to see that hasn't been done yet? what is there a lack of in media that you've always wanted? there's some things that you just have to dig around your creative wonderful author brain and find for yourself 👯‍♀️👯‍♀️

so, before getting into the synopses and first chapters, let's talk about the preemptive process before the actual writing starts.

     1. the skeleton

i'm sure this isn't an original thought, but i see books anatomically, starting with the skeleton: the shell of your story, or the very first spark of an idea. whatever it may be—a setting, a character, a specific scene—your initial idea is enough to create an entire book, or body, if we're sticking to the metaphor. i've recently written pages upon pages of worldbuilding and plot based on a single dream i had as a kid about a tall, creaky old building. that husk of an idea had sat in the back of my head for maybe twelve years? i always thought of it as being useless, until i actually decided to sit down and just write whatever the hell i wanted.

that's my first piece of advice. take literally whatever scrap of a concept you have and just start making bullet-points. listen to some music or ambience or whatever helps you focus, and write everything that comes to mind. everything. and let it suck!! here's an example of what a typical brainstorm looks like for me:

• big tall buildings inspired by parisian architecture but not??? there is no paris in this world
• main character (will name later) is super traumatized by a childhood event (will decide later)
• story centres poor people upset with government
• hey this is kinda like les mis

...it's going to suck at first lmao

the point is, there are ideas you have that you might not even be aware of yet, and the ones you are aware of aren't going to do anything unless you put them somewhere. you'll go back and reread it, edit some things, and be inspired to add even more, and that's when the skeleton starts to flesh out (literally hahahaha).

     2. the internal

my metaphor is getting visceral but we're not going to talk about it.

the thing about the human body is it all works together—connected by nerves and veins and tendons and muscles, fueled by organs and everything you feed it—if all you have is a skeleton, it can't live. it also can't live if you slap a brain and some arteries together and call it a day. (i feel like i could have used build-a-bear as an example and it would have been just as good)