I've recently agreed to a collaborative writing project. The screenwriter had a "treatment" (like an outline for us writer folk) completed and wanted me to write a book based off of the four pages. Okay, I said, shouldn't be too hard.
I started writing where he thought I should. I went along with it. But after writing seven pages of word chunks in a few days (bad, bad, bad!), rather than flowing words, I figured that I really wasn't were the story started. I felt like I was cramming in too much in that first chapter and losing all of the feeling that the main character is experiencing.
I began to write a revised first chapter. I sat down and wrote six pages. Guess I found my beginning.
Do you ever start a project, write a while, and then decide that what you wrote isn't really the beginning?
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Yes...often! This is how I write a lot of the time. I start in and then figure out the beginning. It works for me : )
ReplyDeleteJoyce~Glad to hear I'm not the only one!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a journalist writing feature stories (although not the same as fiction), I could count on having to delete the first couple of pages before getting to the real beginning.
ReplyDeleteI often figure out where the story starts later, even though I think I'm writing it when I begin.
ReplyDeleteMelissa~I'm with you here - I try to start the story where I think it starts, but eventually get rid of the first couple of pages.
ReplyDeleteAndrea~ Guess we're not all that different!