Beginnings
'No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.'
H.G Wells (1898)
What makes a good beginning?
In the excerpt above we can identify some key aspects to a good beginning. The first is the element of surprise, as H. G. Wells repositions the importance of the human race. There is no specific protagonist at this point but instead two groups, humans and martians. However, this is enough to set the scene, situation, motivation and in a way place the protagonist when he is introduced. The author uses mainly visual cues to describe the scene. He zooms out from the humans under the microscope to reveal the bigger picture. The martians are visually described later in the book but at this point we get a glimpse into the way their minds work. All of this works together to set up tension and encourage the reader to read on.
Introduction
Below I will continue reflecting on the feedback from the workshop and try to identify which aspects of the beginning and plot of my story might be confusing or lacking in some way.
Golden rule
I feel that there are surprises in my story but they are perhaps too slow to emerge. If I need to grab the attention of the reader, I need to make this surprise more explicit in the first paragraph.
The seven ingredients
Even though the character comes from reality, perhaps I need to modify some of his characteristics for my story. I think this can be helped by answering some of the questions from the workshop, such as identifying his desires.
Situation
Although I had the where and the what clearly in my head I will need to revisit the story to make this clearer. This can be done by looking at the bigger picture and perhaps by naming the city in which the story takes place. Another area I need to consider here is the when.
Special narrative voice
As I shifted perspective a great deal during the story, I might need to give each perspective a more clearly defined character. I think the changes in perspective are important for my story so I need to find a way to maintain this while still anchoring the story to the protagonist.
Motivation
What does my character want? Does he want to go to war? Why? These are the main questions I would like to answer when I go into the redrafting process. I also need to find a way of including this motivation into the first paragraph.
Action
The character is not really placed until the second paragraph so I need to decide whether to give this away at the beginning or not.
Sensory details
In the first paragraph I deliberately left of most of the senses as the character was in a virtual world. It might be a good idea to change this in some way.
No empty descriptions
I have tried my best to use every detail to develop the story but some of this story seems to have gone unnoticed, so again I need to make this clearer for the reader.
Plot
Looking at Friedman's 'types of plot' (1955) I find it difficult to match just one of them to my story. To me it seems that within each story you can have a variety of different plot elements. However, I'm not sure if my story completely fulfils any of these plots, which makes me wonder whether my plot is rather weak. Perhaps by identifying or selecting a more specific plot type I can give my story more direction or purpose.
Ideas for technology enhanced creative writing for beginnings and plot
I could definitely see Popplet or Mindomo being used to map out the main elements of a story in the planning stage in the same way I have mapped out the elements above. This in itself does not necessarily enhance creative writing over using pen and paper, but it does give learners the opportunity to link their ideas to other content online. Linking each element to media and websites with related content could aid the generation of ideas and help learners find initial inspiration.
These tools could also be used to create a plot diagram or you could use the ReadWriteThink website to build a story mountain. Another idea is to create your plot via a storyboard, there are a variety of tools online that combine storyboarding with images, such bubblr and Storybird.
If you get really stuck for ideas there are some websites that randomly generate story prompts, such as imagination prompt generator and writing fix.
You can always look to the internet to find advice on writing from the masters. For example, here are George Orwell's 6 question/6 rules and Stephen King's 7 tips.
References
Friedman, N. (1955) Forms of the Plot, Journal of general Education, Vol;VIII.
Wells, H.G. (1898) The War of the Worlds, William Heinemann.
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