Nov 22, 2021
Which part of your book do you spend the most time on? Beginning, middle or end? Something else?
Sometimes it seems that the more I think I know about writing, the harder it gets. That’s how I feel about writing the beginnings of my books.
The first couple of stories I wrote, I simply sat down and wrote. The opening was the opening. Things have changed. For The Ranger’s Dog Tags, I can document eight different versions of the beginning. Eight. And those are the ones I kept. I can’t tell you how many I started and then tossed.
You know what’s the toughest part? Finding the right place to start. I can throw all kinds of words on a piece of paper, but that doesn’t mean they are the right words. Or the right moment to introduce the reader to the adventure.
I dug out the earliest documented attempt to begin what became The Ranger’s Dog Tags. Here it is, in all its painful ineptness. “Four alarms blaring at the same time,” quickly changed to “Four alarms on my phone blaring.” I have one sheet of paper covered with variations on that theme.
And how did the book start once it had gone through countless edits?
The squad car screamed down the street, its red and blue lights tearing through the darkness. I feathered the gas pedal and waited for a second set of headlights to pass. Dolores, my salsa-red F-type Jaguar, growled in anticipation.
Quite the difference. I lost 3/4ths of the beginning chapter in the editing process.
I’ve got two books in progress right now. (One is deep in edits, the other is only at about 7000 words- a long way to go.) In the opposite of what I usually experience, I actually added most of a chapter at the start of the first one. For the second one, I have shrunk my initial beginning from about 2000 words down to 450, and turned it into a prologue.
Not that the middles and ends aren’t important. I will fight myself over that last paragraph. I want to wrap up the story as well as I started it. The story may be over, but those final words are the what the reader will walk away with. That’s as true for these blog posts as it is for a book.
Want to find out which part of a story the other authors feel is the hardest? Just follow the links below.
As always, until next time, please stay safe. And if you are celebrating the US Thanksgiving this week, Happy Thanksgiving!
Nov 22, 2021
Which part of your book do you spend the most time on? Beginning, middle or end? Something else?
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The countless edits were worth it in the end, lol.
Thanks!
The beginning is important, very often I won’t get the right one until the end.
The beginning can be a shifting target as you get to understand your story as you write it.
The beginning, for sure! At some point, I will have to go back and rework the beginning in order to make the middle work. And I’ll probably have to rework the beginning again while I’m writing the end. The beginning requires a lot more rewrites than any other part of the story. At least that’s how it is in my writing process.