-
Openings: 5 Ways They Go Wrong
Openings are incredibly important. This was brought back to me recently as I was judging a contest. Those manuscripts that kept my interest for three pages were rare. Usually, they lost me by the middle of page two! Am I harsh? I don’t think so. Grab the Reader with Your Opening Lines Noah Lukeman has…
-
No Words on the Page, But I’m Still Writing
Today, there are no words on the page that I can point to and say, “I wrote that today.” But it was still a successful writing day. I reread the first book of a series and got the voice and characters back in my head. In the early stages of prewriting, I need to see…
-
START YOUR NOVEL: A Fiction Notes book
My latest Fiction Notes book is now available! Six Winning Steps Toward a Compelling Opening Line, Scene and Chapter You want to write a novel, but you don’t know where to start. You have a great idea and—well, that’s all. This book explains the writing process of starting a novel in six winning steps. CHAPTERS…
-
Opening Lines, Scenes, Chapters: Best, Worst, Fix Them, Write Them
Today is a compilation of previous posts on the topic of how to open a story or novel. These are among the most popular posts here on Fiction Notes, so I gathered them in one place for you. 12 Ways to Open Your Story: The Story in Miniature First Page: An Editor Discusses Why It…
-
9 Tips on Opening Lines & Opening Chapters of Your NaNoWriMo Novel
If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, you’ll be starting at midnight tonight or first thing in the morning. You’ll be opening your story with a great scene, right? Here are resources for those first lines, opening chapters of your novel. 10 Opening Line Strategies, illustrated with the top 100 opening lines of…