CHAPTER ONE

[Minibit]

Does anyone else struggle more with the beginning of a story than any other part of it?

I just finished fleshing out (as opposed to drafting/outlining) chapter one of this fanfic I've been working on all summer. I've finished just about all of the rest of it; even polished the ending, but I always struggle the most with the first chapter.

I'm pretty fuckin' proud of myself; I'm just going to fine-tune it in the morning with fresh eyes and then I can finally start posting shit!

It's frustrating for me, too, because I very rarely write stories in order; I work on whichever chapter I have ideas and stuff for at the moment, and since I struggle with beginnings, usually the only thing keeping me from posting chapters is that I don't have the first one done >.<

Please tell me I'm not alone, Iwaku; DAE?


PS: I'll be posting it in the museum once it's polished, so prepare yourselves!

 

[Diana]

Getting a story started is prolly the hardest part for me too. O__O This is prolly why I never try to write stories anymore. >:[

But writing random "in between" pieces? TOTALLY EASY.

I think one day if I ever actually get the ambition to write, I will just write all the pieces I have in my head first and then put them all together. O__O Linear story writing seems like a pain in the ass anyway.

 

[Brovo]

I figured out how to do beginnings fairly easily via the plot hook transitioning to the establishment of the protagonist following into the setup for the first act. I struggle the hardest during the middle bits: I have a beginning, and I know what ending I want, and I have a general idea of how to get there, but tying it all together nicely and evading plot holes can be frustrating.

 

[Holmishire]

For me, the first chapter is always the easiest. Stored away on scrap pieces of paper scattered across my room are probably a dozen "Chapter 1"s, and I rarely get past that.

I think my problem may be that I'm used to writing short stories. I'm used to looking at a plot and story arc, taking only the most crucial moments–including the beginning, of course—and throwing them together into a cohesive whole. I have almost no experience dealing with the filler content, what goes on between these crucial moments, so I get stumped after the first chapter.

 

[Rainjay]

I hate starting from anywhere except the beginning, but the beginning is the hardest part to write... so I never end up actually writing. I don't tend to flesh out my stories enough to know what foreshadowing and little details I need to add where, so it's easier to start from the very start instead of having to jump around and edit things when I need details to have been mentioned earlier. But writing exposition (as often as I end up doing it in roleplays that never get off the ground) is not my strong suit. Like, how does avoid information dump?? How begin in middle of action scene?

It's so hard and I can't figure out why!

 

[Jorick]

Yeah, I guess I'd have to say the beginning of story things is hardest for me too. This is mainly because I prefer to write in linear order and mustering the motivation to actually start writing a new creative thing takes a while for me. If I did stuff out of order I'd probably have the same problem even though I might be starting with a scene smack dab in the middle. Almost all of my solo creative writing efforts either never get past being like 2% complete or they get finished. There is rarely ever a middle ground because once I get over that motivation hurdle then I get all obsessive over finishing the thing and it consumes all my free time.

For example, my previous roleplaying forum had a monthly writing contest and before I helped to run it I would sometimes enter it. Never ended up with half a story complete, always like one or two sentences or a full short story ready to go. Or for another example, in the Spam section of that same forum there was a little fad for a while in the summer of 2014 of people writing stories where fictionalized versions of the forum denizens did various things (the colloquial name for them was "Spamfics" and they were sorta-kinda fanfics based on the community, and yes it was as awkward as it sounds). It took me a couple weeks to decide to actually write something for it, and then once I started it basically consumed all of my free time in June and ended up being just over 100,000 words long; for those who might not know it, that's a full novel length word count, and a decently thick one too.

I guess my thing isn't really the same as what is being described in the OP, but whatever, it's sort of relevant. :P

 

[Asmodeus]

Middle is hardest for me. Why go somewhere if you have to wait till the end to learn things?