Lecture 1: Starting the Writing Process

Starting the Writing Process ..............................................................

Lecture 1

W

KHWKHU \RX¶UH D EHJLQQHU VWDUWLQJ \RXU ¿UVW VWRU\ HYHU RU D

professional with many publications behind you, few things

make a writer more anxious than facing a blank page. One

approach to overcoming this obstacle is to think about what the opening of

a story is supposed to do: draw readers in and capture their curiosity. The

beginning should also suggest something important about the story—the

main characters, the tone, or the setting. But even if you know the story you

ZDQWWRWHOOKRZGR\RXGHFLGHZKDWWKH¿UVWSDUDJUDSKRUVHQWHQFHVKRXOG

be? In this lecture, we’ll look at some ways to make the beginning seem

less foreboding.

Three Questions

z One way to sneak up on the start of your story is to break the question

“How shall I begin?” into three separate questions: the artistic question,

the logistical question, and the psychological question.

z Simply put, the artistic question is: What is this story about? What’s

the idea you want to explore? You may have an entire plot worked out

in your head already, or you may have only a character or a situation in

mind. Whatever it is, something has motivated you to write.

z The logistical question relates to the technical aspects of starting a story,

the basic decisions you have to make at the start even if you don’t know

everything about your story. This is actually a number of questions

combined, such as: Who’s telling the story? What verb tense will you

use? What voice is the story in? These early choices can be daunting

because every decision you make will have consequences later on,

many of which you can’t foresee.

z Finally, the psychological question relates to how you gear up—

emotionally—to begin. Even published writers become anxious about

starting something new. Trying to leap that psychological hurdle