Writing Tips and Reviews

How to Start a Story

I find the most boring way to start a story is to start off with regular, normal, boring school and then having a book that takes the reader into the fun part. Sure do it, but it's boring.

It depends on what the writer wants, it depends on the type of story and basically do what you want. I'm going to talk about fun ways to start a story that won't bore the reader before they even start.

A Good Start:

Look, here are some ways to not make the introduction boring:
* Have a good setting, can be school or home, I don't care
* Have the characters interact with one another
* Introduce the characters with hints of who they are so you can develop them later
* Hint at the plot
* Show the relationships between characters, like Ruby and Yang from RWBY, they act like sisters. Velvet Crowe calls Artorius "Arthur nii" or "big brother Arthur" and Arthur treats Velvet like a little sister
* Don't show off everything a character is in the beginning, development exists, use it
* Don't contradict a character's traits, "is well educated but can't do a test without a magic pencil" what? I wish I was making that up

Besides the billions of other ways to start off a story, I don't know how anyone could screw this up. But I've seen it. I've seen it when the story starts off with a bland character who is in school with the character interactions of "we're friends, let's go somewhere in the future to show that we're friends". Then the characters go home, the main character finds a magic book that links to the plot, and nothing happens. The main character is also the daughter of a noble family who are rich and privileged. Don't know what that has to say about the writer.

Legends of Serpheria:

Legends of Serpheria starts in a similar way, but more interesting. I think anyways. Riko Saito is a noble, and goes to school. The difference, is that she doesn't like it. The schools of my series aren't all educational based, the one Riko goes to, is fighting based. It's about training to become a knight to protect the kingdom but the kids only do it because of the nice life style. She starts in school and immediately she shows some of her skills and interactions.

Her best friend Nova tells her that she should take school seriously, Nova lectures her as many friends would. Even before then, the environment is shown and how Riko feels about it. During the scene Riko and Nova are together and the two are compared, Nova is the one who's more serious about her studies and is good at fighting while Riko would rather slack off and do what she wants.

This shows that Riko isn't just your stereotypical rich girl, she doesn't brag about how "well educated" she is while sucking at school, she knows she sucks and she doesn't want to do any better. Again, the school is based around becoming a knight. The story states why she doesn't want to become a knight and why she doesn't work hard in school, she's not lazy, she just has a different way of doing things. And this is the first chapter.

After that scene she goes home, this shows where the lower class lives. The filthy streets and poor living conditions are shown for a reason and it'll be a big part of her character development. When she gets home, her family is introduced along with her tutor, the story then ends with her feelings about the way she lives and she leaves.

Already, the plot is partially introduced, the characters are set up, the environment is laid out and development is already starting. Despite the story starting in school, it technically starts with the prince's arc but we're ignoring that for now, it's more interesting than just "go to school, go home, magic book". If you were to do that formula, you'd need to make the characters, plot, and environment more developed than a blank wall. 

Magic Book Plot, Thing:

We're talking about this subject, I've mentioned it three times already so let's get down to why that story failed and how to fix it.