on Helping Writers become Authors:

Welcome to this week’s post, which is a continuation of what we talked about in last month’s video when we started a checklist of important elements to consider for your story’s beginning. Last time, we specifically talked about what you need to consider in regards to character and all of the many elements you can use both to enhance character in the beginning and to use character to create an awesome beginning that hooks readers.

I talked in that video about how complex a topic beginnings are and how the first chapter has so many moving pieces and so many things to think about, not just in hooking readers and convincing them this is an entertaining story, but also in laying the groundwork for everything to follow. If your beginning can’t do all that, then it compromises the story that follows.

So I wanted to divide this topic into two posts (and you can also watch the video or listen to the podcast, if you prefer those mediums). Really, there’s so much to talk about and we’re not covering all of everything that there is to consider about beginnings.