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Scary Beginnings
 Posted by Shoshana Brown Sep 28 2011, 12:01 am in Beginnings, Shoshana Brown, writing fears I’ve just finished one last pass of revisions on my latest manuscript, and you know what that means. Yep–time to start a new one. But beginnings scare me. Whether it’s beginning a new job (What if my boss hates me?), beginning a garden (How am I supposed to remember to water those things every day?), or beginning a yoga class (What if I’m not flexible enough?), I run right, smack into that fear of the unknown. Even beginning a new manuscript scares me. What if this one isn’t as good as the last one? What if this idea, which seemed brilliant when it came to me last week in a dream, turns to crap as soon as I start putting words on paper? I don’t know if it’s those fears or just a natural part of my process, but I never start my manuscripts in the right place. I scrap and rewrite that opening scene dozens of times, not to mention the first page, the first paragraph, and the first line. And it still seems hopeless. Even though I know the same thing happened the last time I started a manuscript, I’m convinced that, this time, I won’t be able to fix it. So I let it ride. I leave my terrible opening scene and move on. I write the rest of the manuscript, and it isn’t bad. In fact, it’s pretty good. There are even a few brilliant bits, like that part right after the heroine kisses an iguana, where she thinks about how it was less gross than kissing the villain. (Trust me–it works in the right context.) I figure that, if I can write the rest of the manuscript, I can certainly manage a decent opening scene. So I write it again. And again. Eventually something clicks inside my head, and I figure out the right first scene, the right first paragraph, the right first line. The funny thing is, at the end of all the rewriting and polishing, that opening scene usually turns out to be one of my favorites. It may be a painful process, but in the end, all the hours I put in net some good result. Sometimes, getting scared is a good thing. Is there any part of the manuscript that scares you? How do you conquer your fear to write a brilliant manuscript from beginning to end? Share:
              
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I loathe writing first drafts. There. I said it.
I’m a firm believer in what I’ve come to call “La Nora’s Adage” – that she can fix anything but a blank page – but geez, I hate puking out that first crappy draft. Because it’s SO CRAPPY. I have to fight so, SO hard to not let the perfectionist in me take over, to start tinkering and wordsmithing before I get the structure and sequencing of the sceen down.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like writing as much as I like re-writing. Revising is where the process comes alive for me.
Yes–rewriting is so much easier for me. I think it’s partly a psychological thing. When I’m starting the first draft, I know there’s this huge number of pages I have to finish, and that’s a lot of pressure. But when I’m rewriting, I feel like it’s all there and all I have to do is polish it a bit…even though it generally takes me even longer to do the rewrite because I end up “polishing” so much.
“I hate puking out that first crappy draft. Because it’s SO CRAPPY. I have to fight so, SO hard to not let the perfectionist in me take over, to start tinkering and wordsmithing before I get the structure and sequencing of the sceen down.”
Gaaak – this is EXACTLY what happens to me! My current plan-of-attack is to work on two ideas at the same time. If I am suddenly gripped by crushing self-doubt on one WIP, I Alt+Tab to the other and try and get some words down on the project. When I find a “flow,” I go with it.
It’s not working perfectly, but I’m BICHOK — and that’s at least *something.*
Right there with ya, Tammy!!!! I HATE the first draft!!!!! It is the hardest thing on the planet to do other than a triathlon. And possibly chopping onions.
Chopping onions? That’s what the food processor is for.
I’m at that exact point, Shoshana. Just turned in my ms to my editor yesterday, and the next one is due in February. Yep, blank page before me.
I already know the plot because I’ve already written the synopsis, so I don’t feel too fearful. Mine is more about time. Having a deadline is necessary but stressful, and I’m always afraid that I won’t be able to create a good story in such a small amount of time. That’s the scariest thing to me. Cranking the story out just to meet the deadline and ending up with a crappy final draft.
But somehow, I always get it done – crappy or not.
And you will, too. Just think of the blank page as an opportunity. The blank page is your friend. LOL.
Good luck
Congrats on finishing!
The blank page is my friend, huh? Tell that to the blinking cursor. He looks rather unfriendly.
You continue to amaze me, Liz, with how you keep reaching “The End”! I’m delighted to see A TOUCH OF SCARLET on the immediate horizon!! You know I gobble your books up as soon as they appear…so get crackin’ on that new beginning!!
Contrary to you, ladies, I find it a lot of fun to start a new manuscript. Usually the story plays in my imagination months before I write it, while I’m working on something else. Sometimes I just scrible the first paragraph or page, and return to my work in progress. When I am ready to actually start writing my first draft, I already have background, character and GMC for my hero and heroine, and I am excited to bring my new characters to life. Like many of you, I will write and rewrite that first page at least twenty times, while typing the story, and later when I revise and edit.
http://www.monarisk.com
I love the planning stages, when I’m working on something else and the new idea comes to me. I do get snippets of scenes in my head and write them down, but (of course) they’re never the first scene.
It’s only as soon as I’m “supposed” to be writing the new manuscript that my problems start.
Starting is very hard. I’ve started to plot my story arcs, so I now have a map. And I’m realizing (finally) that I can edit and excise at the end, so my inevitably horrible first chapter doesn’t have be good right away.
Yay, Ana! Sounds like you’re figuring out your process.
I hate chapter four.
I really don’t mind beginnings. Like @Mona Risk said, I’m a plotter so I have the characters et al worked out for months ahead of time and know whether it’s a viable story. I’ve now had several requests for fulls based on my first three chapters – aka “the partial” – but still haven’t racked up anything but rejections on the fulls.
So I’m at that place where I know I can write a bang-up partial…and chapter four sits there, mocking me. I think it knows it’s supposed to be the beginning of the second act. That place where things start to change, complications and conflict ratchet up. But it really comes down to the fear of spending so much time on something that will ultimately be rejected. UNLESS this is that one magical time when chapter four will lead to the sale. Pressure much?
So that doesn’t really answer your question. I don’t know how to conquer that fear except to just write and trust that my wise and lovely CP Cynthia Justlin will whack me over the head if it’s not working. LOL
>> But it really comes down to the fear of spending so much time on something that will ultimately be rejected.
Yep. I totally get that. It’s why I rush through my first draft–because, if I let myself think about how many words I’m dedicating to something that might ultimately be rejected, I’m afraid I won’t get through it.
Then, once I have the draft done, I figure that, as long as I’ve finished a manuscript, I might as well polish it up so I can submit it.
LOL. Yeah, chapter four is where you start to think “why am I writing this story?”
It is the worst chapter. Well, any transition chapter is hard to write and four seems to always be a transition chapter. Kinda like catching your breath.
Starting is easy for me. I love meeting new people and making friends and having new experiences. What I find hard is letting go. I wonder if I’ve done enough to make my work the best I can make it. I think I could layer and tweak a book for years, if the next set of friends weren’t calling to me.
I always wonder if I’ve done enough to polish a manuscript, but I get to a point where I’m so sick of it I have to stop working on it–at least, for a while. After it sits, it’s a lot easier for me to be objective about whether it needs more work or not.
Or, you listen to a cnoference workshop by a NY times author and think, I need to do more. Back to the POS with my eraser.
Or get comments back from a CP, agent, or editor and suddenly you have a whole new vision for the ms you thought was finished.
Exactly!
Sorry for the typo. Writing on the run.
Congrats on starting a new one!
It’s not the beginning that scares me. It’s the middle. My beginnings are easy (even if I do end up chopping off the first 3 chapters that I wrote, simply because they’re generall “warming up” fluff that I write just to get to know my characters…I then start from Chapter 4 on), and so are my endings. It’s the rest that throws me for a loop.
Heh. We must be opposites because, after the beginning, it’s the ending that’s hardest for me to write.
Mmmm…what if we collaborated?! The best of both worlds! Ha!
I like it. Sign me up.
Beginnings are so important. They set the tone, implant expectations, and impel the reader deeper into the story—one hopes.
Hate them.
Whether the beginning of the story or just the first line of a chapter, it seems to take forever to get it right so I can move on. That said, once the dreaded beginning is conquered, I spill like the Hoover Dam, so the angst and frustration might be necessary for building enough pressure to let the spillage begin. I don’t know. Wish I did. It would probably tamper the blood-pressure spikes! *G*
>> the angst and frustration might be necessary for building enough pressure to let the spillage begin
I like that way of looking at it. At least it gives me the illusion that all the writing and rewriting and rewriting again serves some purpose.
I don’t really have any one part of the manuscript that gives me fits more than any other. For me it’s more a question of giving myself permission to suck. It can all be terrible, from cover to cover. That’s the only way I can turn down the volume on my doubt long enough to get to The End.
Yep–giving yourself permission to suck helps a lot.
I seem much more worried about finishing a manuscript than starting one… I don’t know if it’s about endurance or what.
The beginning of a new MS might require more polishing than most areas of a MS eventually, but I feel like it always comes out more “inspired” in the first draft than most of my writing does… perhaps because it’s often tied to the seed of that new and exciting idea you have for your new story, which you’re generally more jazzed about than that previous MS you’re pretty sick of…
I wish my inspiration lasted through the first few chapters, but usually it’s over by the time I finish the outline, synopsis, etc. Maybe that means I do too much planning before I start actually writing….
Get it down now. Slice and dice, copy and paste later.
Just get it down. Good advice.
I loooove starting a new manuscript. My problem is finishing it. I have many half-written manuscripts on my computer.
Sounds like you’re a perfect candidate to take part in NaNoWriMo!!
It’s what finally got me to the point that I could honestly write THE END.
I have a bunch of files with “brilliant” ideas for manuscripts, but I don’t usually get as far as page one. Much less half way through.
First chapters are like the menu at the Cheesecake Factory – rife with too many possibilities. Just grit your teeth and get through it.
I quail in fear of the sex scenes, myself….
That’s also me. My sister/CP (who writes fabulous, steamy sex scenes) is always having to remind me to save them for when I’m up late and have had a glass of wine. Or two. Or twelve.
Still… it’s painful. (And I hate when other writers tell me I’m weird for struggling with my sex scenes.)
I’m right there with you, Eileen. My editor for ‘Obsessed By Wildfire’ asked me if I’d ever consider writing erotica. I’m like, Ah NO! I’d be a basket case.
I love sexual tension. I just have a hard time writing the sexual act. Maybe because I’ve read so few that are actually great. I hate the put slot A to hole B thing.
I’d literally start shaking and speaking in tongues if I was asked to write erotica.
There’s not enough wine in the world to make that possible.
Heh. That’s why I always order the same thing when I go to the Cheesecake Factory. I just can’t deal with that menu.
Count me among the “I love beginnings!” group….it’s that honeymoon period, the “this is going to be PERFECT!!” fantasy moment (as in new relationships, new jobs, new homes).
And then Chapter Four comes along (or, in a relationship, the First Fight, or in a new home, the first time the dog throws up on the carpet) and it’s “oh, damn, this is actually going to be WORK.”
Heh. Without that feeling, I don’t think we’d ever start new manuscripts.
Oh, and hey, Shoshana…congrats on that Golden Pen YA final!!!! You’ve clearly got a GREAT beginning there!!! What tough competition this year!
Thanks! I’m at the I-hate-this-POS stage of editing, so it was good timing with the final.
Beginnings are SOOOOOOOO hard!!! Oh my gosh, I cannot tell you how many times I write and rewrite my beginnings. Oddly enough, my GH manuscript, First Grave, STARTED in the right place. That is rare for me. But I did have to write and rewrite it dozens of times to get it where I wanted it.
And I am starting a new book this week, the second in a YA series, and I’m just scared to death of this thing! lol
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Go ahead and write the scenes that are pressing and worry about the beginning later. I write out of order a lot. I actually don’t have ONE single method to writing actually, I’m all over the place. Sometimes I plot, sometimes I write organically, sometimes I write out of order. Figure as long as I’m doing something every day I’m making progress.
I wish I could convince myself it’s ok to write out of order. I’m just afraid that if I let myself write all the fun scenes first, then have nothing left but the stuff I don’t want to write, I’ll never finish.
Heh. We can do our yoga breathing together.
Sounds like a plan! And I write out of order all the time. That is why I love to plot like I do. And still that first draft is hard. Oh well. It is what it is.
Oh, I like the first drafts, it’s all the rewriting/revisions I don’t like. I’m bored by then, lol.
I sometimes start a new manuscript before diving into revisions. By the time I finish manuscript 2, I’m actually eager to start revisions on the previous manuscript.