More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Ensure your prologue targets a different question to that of the first chapter.
This means prologues are often used to depict pivotal scenes crucial to the development of the tension in the story that the characters in the main narrative could not possibly be aware of.
But most of the time, backstory is better given as a flashback later in the story, because that event in their past does not help the reader understand the beginning of the novel.
A prologue can serve to establish a unique tone, mood, or theme that is not as easy to communicate in a first chapter.
Focus on language and description that highlights that unique feature of your story—metaphors critical to development of a theme, dialogue supporting the tone, or descriptive pieces establishing mood.
In terms of how long a prologue should be, most agents and editors advise it to be short.
When choosing the problem your character faces in the first chapter, you should use it to reflect the struggles in the wider story.
Fundamentally, the mini-three-act-structure allows the author to go through the who, what, when, where, why, and how without it feeling like a laundry list of exposition.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
“The best thing you can do for your book is to make sure the first chapter adequately represents the tone of the rest of the chapters, so the book as a whole seems cohesive.”
The tone of the opening chapter is generally best received when it somewhat reflects the tone of the rest of the story.
The hook, on the other hand, is the very first moment in your story that intrigues your reader and makes them want to know more.
Most of the time, the hook does one of two things: It causes the reader to ask a question that they wish to know more about. It sets up a controversial statement that they may or may not agree with.
Summary Firstly, using the mini-three-act structure gives you the opportunity to introduce your setting and characters in interesting ways as you show what kind of problems arise in your world and how your character approaches them. Secondly, effective opening lines tend to be succinct and not superfluous. To do this, introduce only one central element of your story that makes it interesting: the conflict, the setting, the theme, or otherwise. However, don’t exaggerate these ideas to appear extraordinary and interesting for effect only to reveal them as ordinary later on. Thirdly, first
...more
Exposition is important and useful information that helps the reader understand the story and the world you have built.
This is a simple trick: make the reader work for it.
Placing obstacles in the narrative to get to the exposition helps the exposition feel more like a reward or payoff because it sets up exposition as a goal in the narrative that both the character and the reader wish to reach.
Using conflict to deliver exposition can bring out the personal beliefs of the characters, depending on who explains
rule: communicate exposition through your environmental descriptions.
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
A lot of good exposition tells the story implicitly through conflict and environmental descriptions.
Plot-twists that demonstrate the exposition they have just read or exposition that explains a plot-twist they have just read tie the exposition to a critical moment in the story or distinct moment of imagery—like
it is difficult to care about a world or society, or remember a magic system, unless the reader is given some context in which to care about it.
A pre-scene is where a smaller version of a much more important moment happens earlier on.
This irregular description signals to the reader that something mysterious happened in his past, but it also foreshadows the tension that will arise from the relationship he has with Voldemort in the future.
Giving an irregular description to something sets it apart as an important focal point for the reader, signaling that something will come of it.
A second method to set something apart is having a character interact with [x] in a way they don’t interact with other things.
“If in Act I you have a gun on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.”
Chekhov’s Gun is the principle that if something becomes consequential later in the story, then it should hold a foreshadowing presence earlier on; for example, a gun appearing on the wall in the first act when it is intended to be used in the third.
Whereas pre-scenes and Chekhov’s Gun tend to be more obvious to the reader, symbolism tends to be a lot more subtle.
Starks chance across a direwolf who died killing a stag—the two respective symbols of House Stark and House Baratheon. The mutual death is a symbol that causes the reader to anticipate a coming war that would not just engulf both houses, but result in the death of nearly all of House Stark and most of House Baratheon.
One of the more effective forms of symbolism foreshadowing is a motif, which often uses the repetition of a symbol throughout the story.
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
Foreshadowing shows the reader the shape of what is to come, but not precisely what happens.
Foreshadowing allows an author to lay the foundations for a shift in tone that happens later in the story.
It is not the worst thing in the world to desire more power unless the author demonstrates they value power over justice.
It is critical to understand the antagonist’s motives within the context of the protagonist’s.
“You must see the opponent structurally, in terms of his function in the story. A true opponent not only wants to prevent the hero from achieving his desire but is competing with the hero for the same goal… find the deepest level of conflict between them. Ask yourself, ‘What is the most important thing they are fighting about?’”
If the values that underpin the antagonist’s motivation wouldn’t naturally bring them into conflict with the protagonist, then it can seem a weak justification for their involvement in the story.
A story is not going to function as cohesively if the antagonists are motivated by greed and the protagonist does not care if others are greedy or are greedy themselves.
Either having such different motives that it creates conflict or such similar motives that it creates conflict can be an effective way to ensure the momentum of the story is firmly grounded in that relationship between the motives of the protagonist and the antagonist.
grey morality that makes the audience respect or even agree with the antagonist.
The reason a ‘good guy’ antagonist motivation works is that it creates a more relatable character, which can give the impression of complexity and depth, given how egotistical humanity is and that we all assume we are incredibly deep and thoughtful.
A morally grey antagonist motivation allows the author to explore theme in a way ‘evil’ antagonists cannot. It more easily allows for a comprehensive discussion between multiple viewpoints, creating a multidimensional protagonist-antagonist relationship that is not simply physical, but ideological.
One factor in building tension (that most authors will already know) is raising the stakes of the story—these
Throughout the story, the stakes continually rise until the climactic point,
The protagonists spend far more time concerned with whether they or their friends will die than with whether the antagonist is getting closer to their goal of destroying the world.
Even though the danger the antagonist poses is on a worldwide scale, its threat is primarily established by the threat it
