Writing Great Fiction

Limiting Choices
z Another way to approach the start of a plot is to limit your choices.
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Thus, you could limit your time frame, having the story or novel take
place in a single day, week, or month, or you could limit the point of
view, telling the story from the point of view of only one character.
o Neither of these limits necessarily means that you have to leave
out other settings or other times in the characters’ lives.

o You can start the narrative at a particular moment and limit it to

particular time, the way Virginia Woolf limits 0UV'DOORZD\

to the events of one day, yet still range backward and forward

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place at other times and in different settings.

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which will both dictate and be dictated by what comes later.
o If you’re telling a story from the point of view of a character
who dies at the end, for example, you will be limited to third-
person narration—unless you want the character to narrate
the story from beyond the grave. If you’re writing a story that
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person present tense or in the close third person, so that the
reader lives in the moment right alongside the main character
and is just as stunned as the character when the surprise
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o Look at the openings of books and stories you admire, paying

attention to not just the immediate effect of the opening

moment but also how the opening prepares the reader for what

comes later.

Opening Examples
z One category of story opening is simply beginning at the beginning, the
way Tolkien does in 7KH+REELW: “In a hole in the ground there lived a
hobbit.” This opening sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale, with an