The First Line is Sometimes the Hardest - Inspirational
- Blake Rice
- Dec 2, 2014
- 2 min read
You've done it! You've written up a thousand character profiles, done and re-done your plot outline at least six times, made a full on map, and even did your now-sacred pre-writing ritual. You sit down at your computer, tablet, or notebook with the feeling of electricity sparking through your brain, to your finger tips--you feel it, the time has finally come. You're ready... to write.
Except there's only one problem; you don't know where to begin.
The first line of the story is sometimes the hardest to get out on paper. For starters, you may have your story playing through in your mind, "this happens first, then this, and finally here is the conclusion," like an epic movie that you've seen a thousand times. You start to wonder what to write at the beginning of such an epic story; what one-liner could be the most worthy to start off such a great idea? Or, maybe you've been taught in school that "the first line should always hook the reader in," right? But you just can't think of a great "hook" to put there in the intensity of the moment of writing the first few words to your story.
Let me tell you right now, that is ok. It's OK because, believe it or not, no matter how many character profiles, maps, plot outlines, or pre-writing rituals you've done, and no matter how many thousands of times your story has played over like a scripted movie in your head, it's going to change. And so will your first line. The beginning of the book that starts off the series that I'm almost positive is going to be the best seller of all my works, I've re-written six times. I'm on my seventh time re-writing it as you read this!
It's OK if your story doesn't start off perfectly right now, because the beauty of it is that it is an ever-evolving thing. You'll find that your characters don't quite want to do what you'd planned for them to do, or maybe you're scraping by for content, inspiration, or wordcount (NaNoWriMo anybody?) so you insert some lame dialogue that ends up opening an entirely new possibility in the story that you never even thought of until the moment it traveled from your fingers to that paper, or screen.
So chin up, fellow writer! You may not have it down perfect right now--hell, you might not even start writing from the beginning--but it's OK, because once you reach that finish line of the first draft for your story, you'll have to edit anything anyway!
Cheers!
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