" When Samantha woke up, she knocked down the glass of water beside her bed with her tail. This was quite concerning for her, not only because her mom had already told her a thousand times not to bring glasses into her room, but also because, when she went to sleep, the night before, she didn't have a tail at all."
@peterg76yt Жыл бұрын
Then the radio alarm clock started playing a news report about newly-discovered dangers of glasses of water...
@mikaelafox6106 Жыл бұрын
@@peterg76yt Including a story about a new virus leaked into the city’s water supply that caused random things to happen to the people drinking tap water.
@MrInitialMan Жыл бұрын
See, that's not just "Waking up in bed". Her having a tail out of nowhere makes it interesting.
@cooliostarstache5474 Жыл бұрын
Poor attempt at Kafka
@PinuiPink Жыл бұрын
Oh wow. Now that's interesting. Link me to your books.
@Hi-fm1xg Жыл бұрын
I love how Kungfu Panda broke the fifth rule. The dream sequence set the tone of the film, showed us the type of action and comedy to come. Already introduced a few characters, the furious five, and when we finally learn it's only a dream contrasted with Po's real life, you know all about him. How he's unhappy with himself, what he wishes to be. And with the way the film progresses we wonder how does this guy get closer to the version that we saw in his dream. Because we know somehow it's gonna happen
@Dricon1997 Жыл бұрын
What I adore about that dream sequence is that Po wishes to still do many of those things. In the second movie he does the actual flying, rapid kicks to actual enemies - those that invaded a village of its resources. I like it when movies feel connected to a character, as if desires still linger and they are still them, wanting to be something they dream of before.
@matheussanthiago9685 Жыл бұрын
A good case of "if you brake the rules on purpose because you know what you're doing, then it's good"
@Hi-fm1xg Жыл бұрын
@@matheussanthiago9685 Definitely. I don't even think it's that much of a no go. I see why this guy doesn't like it, and of course dream sequences can be shit. But if it has a purpose besides having a cool scene at the start or setting the tone, it's probably ok to do it. In Kung Fu Panda it does so many things at once, it's amazing.
@Hi-fm1xg Жыл бұрын
@@Dricon1997 The KungFu Panda films were one best things DreamWorks has done
@Blaqjaqshellaq Жыл бұрын
PEEWEE'S BIG ADVENTURE also begins with a dream sequence (which sets the movie's cartoonish tone...).
@BimFoxVT Жыл бұрын
When ever I see lists like this, I don't see or hear "DO NOT DO THIS!" I hear, "How can I use these ideas to actually rough ideas and turn them into a gem?"
@Carlos-ux7gv Жыл бұрын
Tropes are tools. There are ways to write a usually boring opening into an amazing story, but most of the times is lazy writing.
@welkijken Жыл бұрын
This. this is so much more important than the exact parts. All you need is to intrigue, a hook. A setting describtion on it's own for example doesnt provide a hook. It needs to be added, something that makes the charcters move.
@sleepy_koko Жыл бұрын
It's actually quite easy Rule one- do a long set up where things don't tend to make since, talk about how the rats are walking backwards and the sky is the color of oil Rule two- a training scene with two characters, we see glimpses of their personalities and how they fight Rule three- if the news report is news to the character, their reaction is all we need. Maybe the news report is releasing a photo of the convicted serial killer in the area while the protagonist comments how he starts at his brother's face through the screen Rule four- focus on their mindset and how fast they leave the bed, do they sprint out because they are excited and get tangled in the sheets? Or do they linger because the protagonist is depressed Rule five- make it clear it's a dream and symbolic, make it wacky and how the protagonist watch a character get randomly set on fire Combine them and create Begin with a lengthy paragraph discribing the polluted sky as the scavenger protagonist wonders the land, they then are attacked by some others before they easy fight them off. Then they step on a landmine and wake up in their bed, hearing their mom call out with the news in the background, discribing what the protagonist recalls as the vivid inciting incident to the apocalypse
@ognicho2333 Жыл бұрын
@@sleepy_koko Rule three plot twist: the MC is the news reporter
@CalamityCain Жыл бұрын
Same! I love this comment. When I watch bad movies, I oftentimes get so bored with bad writing that I rewrite a bad premise in my head, trying to figure out how to make something good out of it. It makes bad movies so much more enjoayble to me. Do you know that feeling?
@magnaillusion6085 Жыл бұрын
Plot twist: the entire first book was a dream sequence. If you want to read the *real* story, you gotta get the sequel.
@Wintercourse Жыл бұрын
The sequel starts 2 years in the future and if you want to know what happens next you have to buy the prequel, but that will come out after another book that follows a side character that you didn't really care for to begin with, but is paramount to understanding the prequel when it does come out.
@mandalorianroby254211 ай бұрын
and the moment i bought the sequel i woke up
@FilmBlendCentral11 ай бұрын
Sequel starts with the protagonist waking up in bed, hitting the snooze button once, then alarm goes off again, protagonist hits it while under covers, yawns, stretches, takes a shower, brushes teeth, gets dressed, talks to him/herself in front of a mirror, goes downstairs, mom set the table full of breakfast but protagonist grabs an apple because he is in a hurry and almost late for school😂
@Wintercourse11 ай бұрын
@@FilmBlendCentral Take the apple out and it's a piece of toast and they put it in their mouth as they hurry out the door.
@nowsendindustries877110 ай бұрын
And then they woke up. The End.
@ulla7378 Жыл бұрын
Now I have the urge to write a story that begins with someone waking up in their own bed and frantically checking if there are any severed body parts, alligators or if their wrists have tape marks on them, because that would be more common way for them to wake up and finding themselves in bed truly disturbs them :D
@WriterBrandonMcNulty Жыл бұрын
Haha let me know how it goes
@TheQuantumWave Жыл бұрын
Or because they had dreamed it after seeing a news report about it the night before.
@finnnation123 Жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNultyIn response to worst way 1, I believe it’s still important to at least attempt to describe the environment of a scene, otherwise the audience doesn’t have a clue about where the story/scene is taking the place. Let me know your thoughts.
@Wolltazar Жыл бұрын
@@finnnation123 it is important, but do it briefly, not the Tolkien way, where every tree branch has it’s own backstory
@coconoisette Жыл бұрын
A very unusual day for Johnny the Events Guy
@santiagorojaspiaggio Жыл бұрын
My personal worst way to start a story is when they start at the end, or at an exciting scene, but then they have to remember or bring you back to 'where it all started', and so now you're in a more boring scenario, knowing that you're gonna have to slowly go back to the actual fun part. It's emotionally deceptive and disappointing, and sometimes it just feels like a cheap trick.
@magicmulder Жыл бұрын
Literally every movie that starts with a scene and then turns to "you're probably wondering how I got here" can do without that framing scene and his 300% better for it.
@edo4359 Жыл бұрын
The book Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians (trust me, it’s weirder than you think) starts with the main character about to be sacrificed on an altar of outdated encyclopedias over a lava pit full of sharks, followed by a “you may be wondering how I got here”. However, the book quickly establishes that the main character and narrator is intentionally untrustworthy, and at the end of the book, which was noticeably lacking in encyclopedia altars, the main character just basically says “Oh, and by the way, I was totally just lying about the encyclopedia altar.”
@gemiguess Жыл бұрын
Lol I watched yokai watch (treasure) English sub and that was a running gag they always did lol. It did get boring tho I see what u mean
@theoutsiderprod Жыл бұрын
In some cases I think this works well, I read a book where the first chapter was the protagonist in front of a firing squad with some light worldbuilding, and then cutting back to before this happened, making a pretty interesting hook.
@santiagorojaspiaggio Жыл бұрын
@@theoutsiderprod Yeah, just today i saw another case, and the thing was that... while it was interesting at the intro, and it kind of worked fine... when we came back to the end, it was kind of repetitive. And i knew which character was alive or dead until this point, so it had less suspense on the middle. The actual beggining was interesting too (maybe that's why it worked), so it makes me think that starting from the end was unnecessary in the first place. (I'm talking of the first Brothers in Arms videogame.) A case in which i think this worked fine was in the film Elite Squad 2, but because the thing they showed from the climax, wasn't that important. You saw the protagonist was alive from the beggining, but along the film you start to see that there are a lot more important things in question, instead of the protagonist's life. This film has a great escalation and suspense, so there was no point in which i "missed" the climax, nor where i knew much of what was going to happen. A contrary case, which i think it's pretty bad, was in the film Mission: Impossible 3. They show A LOT of important things in the intro/climax. So then, i knew that the things that were happening in the middle weren't that important, and so there wasn't the same tension as in the intro. (This film ALSO had another interesting intro at the beggining of the story, after the climax intro.) Overall, if you can have a good intro, that doesn't happen at the end, it's preferable over changing the natural flow of the story, i think.
@Dark_Peace2 жыл бұрын
Writer : my story strats off with an action scene, but it ends up being a dream and the MC wakes up in their bed and turns on the news report to hear an setting dump Brandon : **confused screaming**
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
@user-hf9hf6hw8j2 жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty this is the exact opening to the movie total recall
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
@@user-hf9hf6hw8j Really? It's been so long since I watched TR. I have zero recall of the intro
@DirtyBobBojangles Жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty 🙄
@KasumiRINA Жыл бұрын
Almost perfect! Now begin it with "It was a dark and stormy night..." as a bookend to "it was all just a dream" for pure bliss!
@Nexol13 Жыл бұрын
I remember writing a dream as the start of a novel in a writing class, and the professor told me that I managed to make the a dream-sequence opening work because I literally started the story with “The dream had been the same for as long as James could remember.” I set it up as a dream, one that was made interesting by the instant knowledge that it was a recurring dream and also by having the dream continue further than it ever had before. Though some of the classmates wrote down that the opening as a dream was still a cliché, I’ll take the professor’s analysis of why it worked, as it has a huge bit of foreshadowing for later on in the story.
@ishashka Жыл бұрын
Just because it's a cliché doesn't mean it can't be used well
@awol_b Жыл бұрын
@@ishashkaif it was always bad no one would use it and it wouldn’t be a cliche
@anshulanshulpandey Жыл бұрын
i think what works here is you being honest to the audiance.
@MBZ901 Жыл бұрын
I'm planning to have one of my stories start with a recurring nightmare about a true event that happened to the character
@Nexol13 Жыл бұрын
@@MBZ901 This dream’s also a memory, but the reason for it suddenly playing out farther than it has yet is the foreshadowing for another aspect of the story.
@queenmarynovelwriter53972 жыл бұрын
When I was in college my writing teacher told me to 'Start with the fire." I went back and changed the beginning of my book from a long descriptive paragraph to an action scene.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Great point... An editor told me a very similar thing, and I ended up cutting Chapter 1 from my debut novel so the it started with Chapter 2, which had much more intrigue and energy
@tattoodude8946 Жыл бұрын
Unless you are writing a cookbook... 🤣🤣🤣
@Wolf-ln1ml Жыл бұрын
As JMS phrased it - "Roll in a grenade and come in firing." 😄
@leonmayne797 Жыл бұрын
Lol my book actually begins with a fire.
@queenmarynovelwriter5397 Жыл бұрын
@@leonmayne797 Mine too!
@mrclean29 Жыл бұрын
2:50 one of the greatest stories ever written starts with the main character waking up in a chariot, as a prisoner up for execution, and a fellow prisoner saying “hey, you’re finally awake”. The rest is history
@robokill38711 ай бұрын
Skyrim is not one of the best stories ever written.
@mrclean2911 ай бұрын
@@robokill387 bruh it’s for the memes
@modestfirerpu11 ай бұрын
PURE GOLD!
@thegoodgeneral10 ай бұрын
I used to be a prisoner like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
@xPhisch10 ай бұрын
Jokes aside, i think the elder scrolls lore goes really hard. Especially the dreamer theory
@treeNash Жыл бұрын
Good points, and I agree with pretty much all of them. But remember people, if you want to start your novel in one of the ways stated in the video because you have something specific in mind, go for it. As I understand it this advice applies mostly to people who don't know how to start their novel or don't know how to go about presenting certain information to the readers, and they default to one of these generic clichés.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty Жыл бұрын
Yep, nothing wrong with bending the rules (if you can make it work)
@Wailwulf Жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty If you know the rules, you then can make a statement when you break them. If you do not know the rules, how can you make a statement that will be understood?
@gnarthdarkanen7464 Жыл бұрын
@@Wailwulf ONLY by "pure accident"... which is tantamount to winning the lottery. Writing is WORK... a LOT of work. It stands to reason, "blindly hoping to win the lottery" is NOT the kind of strategy you should employ when putting forth the kind of work required to write something worth bothering to read. ;o)
@BagheerathePanther Жыл бұрын
Sometimes you just gotta start. A bad start is better than no start at all, and once you get started you may have a better idea of how that opening passage was supposed to unfold.
@Khontis Жыл бұрын
Cosmic horror is great to start with dream sequences
@captainobvious9233 Жыл бұрын
One thing I really hate with a passion are sudden times skips in the middle of or just after something intense happens. You get invested with the people you see on the screen and them something happens to one of them... you are eager to see how his or her friends are going to deal with the situation, but then the screen goes black and you get something along the lines of '10 years later...' I've actually stopped watching movies once they did that.
@Newfiecat Жыл бұрын
Ughhhh! I know, right?! I wanna see that emotional fallout!
@davidhoffman6980 Жыл бұрын
I know what you mean. There's a movie called "The Tomorrow War" in it, there's a sequence where our heroes have to get out of Miami before it's bombed. They don't make it out on time and they get blown up by 2,000lbs bombs at close range. They get blown off their feet and out of frame as the screen is engulfed in a fireball and then it fades to black. Obviously they're dead. Nobody could survive that. But it cuts to a few days later in a different place and the cast is alive, uninjured, and nobody mentions the bombing again. There's absolutely no explanation for how they survived being blown up by one ton bombs, or how they got out of there afterward. It's absolutely mind numbing.
@matheussanthiago9685 Жыл бұрын
Notable exception: the end of the 1st act of Arcane Because everything up to that point were just the set up for the rest of the story You know, like a prequel, but with intention Instead of a glorified after thought
@nightfall4434 Жыл бұрын
@@matheussanthiago9685arcane is such a good show, I’m not a league fan but it’s really well made
@johnyshadow Жыл бұрын
It happens quite a bit in books as well. Example: Throughout the book, you are following 2 different characters/points of view, the A and B parts of the story. Then they are supposed to meet up so the ending/part C can start. You´re excited how their first meeting will go because of their differences, but when the first chapter of part C starts, they are already talking together like best friends (or enemies) Maybe you get a flashback in the future, but it can still take all the excitement out of the moment. Or yeah, as you say, the classic: "Somehow, we survived..."
@drparadox78332 жыл бұрын
Worst way to open the story in my experience was in a visual novel I almost dropped. It was a detective story and a sequel. Basically protagonist is a private detective who tries to locate a kidnapped girl. First scene is quite good: he meets the girls mother and discusses with her all the things about the girl and after that he prepares to leave and suddenly his sister calls him saying that she found a man who tried to commit suicide and brought him to the hospital, however he needs blood and the only person who she knew had the same blood type was him so he goes there and as he starts to drive his car we immediately jump back in time and follow said suicidal guy's life from childhood all the way to the present and only AFTER that do we return to the main plot and to the detective which is BAD! not only we abandon our main storyline with familiar characters and ignore the missing girl but also at least 60% of the rest of the story is about characters we do not know or care about in a different time period and location and with different mystery which sucks and kills the pacing Of course in the end it is revealed that it is connected and such but it was still horrible. They could have shortened it or not do it at all and have the detective INVESTIGATE THE GUY and THEN throw in flashbacks and snippets of his past cause it is you know DETECTIVE STORY, BUT NOOOO.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Ouch, what VN was that? I need to know so I can avoid it (Actually a big fan of some VNs like Zero Escape, Somnium Files, Phoenix Wright, DDLC, Fata Morgana, etc.) The structural setup you described make me believe the writers were afraid to push the main story forward because they didn't have enough content to work with. Retreating into flashbacks is a huge turn-off for me.
@drparadox78332 жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Kara no shojo 2 First part was good a solid detective story but second feels like a filler where a 15 hour read was stretched to 50
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
@@drparadox7833 Yeah, even some of the best VNs drag, but that one sounds awful
@drparadox78332 жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty funny thing is it does pick up after that but i ended up skipping that portion when it started to drag instead i read the summary. They wanted a trilogy so they could not possibly move the main plot significantly as a result it is a mess
@finnanima2413 Жыл бұрын
That reminds me of one of the problems with Passengers. If Aurora were the narrative protagonist, she’d be more active via her investigations of the incident and what her partner did would be a huge plot twist.
@schmalzilla1985 Жыл бұрын
I think the waking up in bed can be done, if you're writing a "slice of life" type of story. Maybe you have a young teenager who's an only child and who's parents are never home, so they wake up to an empty house, alone, and has to go about making their own breakfast and all kinds of things that go along with that. The kid woke up in their warm bed, but the air was cold, it was silent, silence as the grave, and they wished that they never woke up. In their dreams it was always lively, always warm, never deathly silent.
@draketheduelist Жыл бұрын
In my experience, "slice of life" and its direct inverse (what I've heard called "speculative cheeseball") basically operate under near entirely different rules paradigms. As a practitioner and partaker of the latter, I keep bumping into writing advice presuming that I'm writing the former and it throws me wildly. Why would you presume at any point my story would be taking in the atmosphere of a coffee shop during a slow morning? My universe doesn't even have a _sun_ anymore, and nobody has seen true sunlight in eons. (Cue the imbeciles wondering where all the black people are and me going "...seriously?") Literally every character has bigger things to worry about than the drudgery of their 9-to-5.
@n0vitski Жыл бұрын
Most advice about writing on youtube is given by people who presume that you're writing for an attention deficient American audience that cannot tolerate a story without getting a dopamine hit every two seconds. This is a toxic standard that is essentially manufactured by publishing industry that treats writing not as an art, but as a hustle. I suspect around 70% of great literature of the past would not pass the bar of "quality" with these people. Not to imply that the advice is worthless, but it should be taken with a grain of salt.
@PengyDraws Жыл бұрын
@@n0vitski Attention deficient worldwide audience, actually. To claim that it's just America is silly. That being said, you have a point. The other side of the argument, of course, is that as a writer, you want people to read your work. Thus, making readable work should be at least somewhat of an objective as you write.
@n0vitski Жыл бұрын
@@PengyDraws Aren't you the guy who swore up and down that my entire outlook was categorically wrong and that I got DESTROYED in the neighboring comment chain? Despite the fact that I essentially said the same thing there that I'm saying here? Anyway, "readable" implies well paced and well structured prose, it doesn't mean that you just aren't allowed to include certain occurences in your narrative, because they are inherently "boring" or "unreadable". The point about bed in the video is daft, or at the very least so poorly explained, it's misleading. But I already said all of that, didn't I? In that other thread that you read and got angry about. Maybe you're right about American thing and it's a global trend in publishing, I don't know. I just hate to pass up an opportunity to be racist against Americans.
@alwayswatching5545 Жыл бұрын
@@draketheduelistI’m really curious about your story If there’s no sun and no one has seems true sunlight for eons, how has anything/anyone survived?
@petehealy9819 Жыл бұрын
Great points! A dream sequence at the *end* of a story can be just as bad. I was a huge fan of the TV series "St Elsewhere" back in the 80s, and never missed an episode. When the final scene of the last episode - after six seasons - revealed that all the characters had existed only in the mind of an autistic boy, I was super pissed! I couldn't explain why at the time, but I must have felt betrayed after investing emotionally in the characters for so long.
@istolethispfpsorry485 Жыл бұрын
The same happened to my family and I, with a show from the 80s.
@LendriMujina Жыл бұрын
God, the St. Elsewhere finale makes me furious. I hate, hate, hate everything about it. Everything, from how it invalidates the rest of the series, to the insensitive nature of the framing device, _to what they did to the cat in the freaking logo._ Definitely one of the worst if not THE worst TV finales of all time.
@ananyabailey1057 Жыл бұрын
I have never watched that series. But it reminds me of another 80/90s TV sitcom ending, which I didn't exactly like or understand when I watched it as a kid: the last season of "Roseanne". In hindsight, in the meantime I like the idea behind it though. When the ending revealed that the whole last season had been a mde up alternative universe, written by the protagonist to overcome how depressing the real ending actually was. It's not satisfying and wasn't meant to be, but it sticks in memory.
@SimonMoon5 Жыл бұрын
And the strange thing is that St. Elsewhere connects to so many other TV shows (for example, Cheers) that ALL of them must (presumably) all be dreams as well.
@chargeminecraft Жыл бұрын
*Luke Skywalker wakes up and saw a different place, a bustling city* Luke Skywalker: Wait, it was all the dream? Audience: *About to Spam Dislikes* Luke Skywalker: *Start to having existential crisis* Audience: *Pulls the hands in* Luke Skywalker: *Surprised Pikachu Face* The End Audience: I’m not scared of anything, but that ending? That scared me, I hate it.
@thatterrariaguidenpc8054 Жыл бұрын
for the dream sequence, a good way to avoid its flaw is to let the audience know it is indeed an obvious dream through making it mysterious and perhaps even light foreshadowing in the future, and also make it meaningful, so now its less about it not mattering and more about the audience trying to figure what that dream meant for the rest of the story until it finally pays off
@isaachuegedeserville8627 Жыл бұрын
I love Harry Potter dream sequences. It's just a regular game of Quidditch. Except the Slytherins are riding Hungarian Horntails.
@GhostOnConsole02 жыл бұрын
I think the worst of those is the dream sequence. Makes me have a obscure outlook on where the writer is going with the story but in a negative way.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Last night I was watching an episode of Ozark that opened with a dream sequence. There was a second dream in the middle of the episode, and at the very end a scenario that felt dreamy--but ended up being real. The confusion killed the ending's impact for me.
@xanthias2001 Жыл бұрын
Arguably, you could start with a dream - so long as the first chapter ends with an indication that the dream is starting to come true… makes the reader reassess their first impression. Lesson: use conventions unconventionally. One way in which “Worst ways to…” can be simultaneously obvious and provocative is to prompt you to think up counter examples which might work well. For example, “Don’t start with a description of the setting and no action.” Good advice if it avoids the novice mistake of the writer wasting the reader’s time by fixing the picture in their own mind as a preliminary to telling the story. But, counter example: “The White House was a dump. The Oval Office looked like a frat party had gone on rather too long. The body on the President’s desk reinforced that impression…” Just an example. Have fun making up some of your own…
@Merilirem Жыл бұрын
@@xanthias2001 The dream sequence only hurts when its literally pointless. If you have a story about dream worlds you can start within a dream because you will be going back and adventuring in the dream with things actually mattering.
@Khontis Жыл бұрын
@Merilirem Yea. Even if the dream sequence's whole point is to illustrate how the characters bad day has started even before they woke up its got to be relevant somehow
@beauhorner31719 ай бұрын
My story begins with a dream sequence, but it's necessary for the entire story. The first chapter is literally called Four Shadows, that predicts pieces of the story as it moves along, so you can go back and say, "huh, I made that connection". I use tons of tropes in a way that makes fun of tropes and adds some humor to the idea.
@TyIerTheCreatorLover9 ай бұрын
“John woke up and died of a heart attack.”
@paulbeardsley4095 Жыл бұрын
I read one author's first novel which not only began with somebody waking up, she even got angry with the alarm clock. And then, as if that wasn't enough, she looked in the mirror so that she could describe herself!
@paulbeardsley4095 Жыл бұрын
@@oculartremors I did. I even revisited it because the reviews were so favourable, and the second book, to see if I was missing something. If I was, I missed it the second time too!
@DonVigaDeFierro Жыл бұрын
No rules. Just tools... But still, not everything is a nail, and not all you have is a hammer...
@n0vitski Жыл бұрын
And that's bad because?..
@paulbeardsley4095 Жыл бұрын
@@n0vitski Because it's cliched, makes the protagonist a bit pathetic, and you can be fairly sure the account has started well before the actual story has started.
@n0vitski Жыл бұрын
@@paulbeardsley4095 What makes protagonist pathetic? Sleeping in bed? Or looking in mirror? Do you personally sleep on a bathroom floor, because beds are too cliched, or do you prefer a garbage heap outside? When does the actual story start? Once somebody starts blasting or a little bit after? But i mean, yeah, you're right. It's not the execution of the narrative that makes the story fail, but the inclusion of completely normal things that a bunch of youtube shmucks arbitrarily decided to be "the bad". Totally. This is not a silly position to hold.
@JesusMusic1988 Жыл бұрын
I think the dream opener could work, but the rest of the book should be centered around the dreams themselves. And with each dream, we learn something different about the main character. That would actually make a crazy psychological horror... maybe ill wirk on that. 😂
@deltastory4011 Жыл бұрын
Writing something with that element right now.
@Dark_Peace2 жыл бұрын
Key things to establish in an opening : - setting relevant to the genre : reader should understand the genre from the setting, other setting can be explained later (fantasy ex: show magicbut don't explain how it works yet) - suspension of disbelief : readers shouldn't be surprised by the irrealism of your story. Ex: in Kill la Kill, it's established right away that one can throw people through walls, make inhuman jumps,... But in Baccano, even tho the séries has magic, the setting is realistic and when a guy shows inhuman strenght midway through without introduction, it feels weird even tho it's nowhere near Kill la Kill's bombastic action. - story axis : your story is made of ridiculous battles with political subtext ? Lighthearted atmosphere that hints at something sinister ? Fantasy mystery that focus on character relations ? Then show that ! Action isn't necessary, but you have to show the fingerprint of tour story. - conflict : even if it's just a hint to it - scène that matters DIRECTLY to the first chapter ! Not like Venom's opening scène that only matters 40min after. For a example of a perfect prologue, watch an analysis of Kill la Kill's one.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
I'm with you on these, especially the suspension of disbelief one. That's a great point... Can't tell you how many times I lost interest in a movie because something ridiculous happened midway through
@LeepoyIfurung Жыл бұрын
Yes, I do think you don't need action at the start of the story. Harry Potter did not start in action.
@jamespilgrim37748 ай бұрын
Neither did the Hobbit @@LeepoyIfurung
@Anika38d Жыл бұрын
Honestly, I love the theme of dreams because of how much symbolism and foreshadowing you can put into it. One of my short stories starts with a character having a nightmare where they're stuck in a room and the walls are moving towards each other, almost crushing the character before they wake up; later in the story, when the reader learns about the actual situation this character is in, it gets clear that this nightmare reflects their feeling of helplessness, their desperate need to get out of that situation mixed with logical understanding that there's no way for them to get out. So I get why a dream sequence can be a bad start to the story sometimes, but I don't think it's always like this!
@alexmajewski92352 жыл бұрын
I literally just wrote an opener with a news report about missing people, I felt so clever haha
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Haha I included the "news report info dump" in this video because last week I was watching a 90s movie called Crimson Tide. It's a tense thriller about two naval officers fighting for control of a nuclear submarine, but it opens with a cable news report that rambles on about the state of the world and nuclear subs. Got the movie started off on the wrong foot IMO.
@Dhips.2 жыл бұрын
Roadside Picnic starts with a news report, but since that's the only good story I can think of that does so, I'm more than willing to say it's the exception to the rule.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
@@Dhips. News report openers rarely ruin the whole story IMO; they just make me less excited to read/watch the thing.
@KasumiRINA Жыл бұрын
@@Dhips. The Stalker book? I need to read it before the mines russians planted on Zaporizhzhia NPP go off. My tenant is a refugee from Nikopol, it's across the river and being shelled every week FROM the nuclear power plant. IAEA closes their eyes and pretends literally putting firing positions on top of reactors of the BIGGEST NUCLEAR PLANT IN EUROPE isn't a risk of another Chernobyl times ten.
@EV_Comics Жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty If you don't mind me asking, do you think a newspaper opening works for a prologue? My story takes place in 2002, but the MC's parents meet in the 80s. This is important info to the story.
@theperfectbotsteve491611 ай бұрын
someones gotta just put this whole channel in a play list so i can just listen to it over and over again absorbing the absolute top notch advice this man is giving
@Priscilla_Bettis2 жыл бұрын
A dream sequence is my least favorite story opening to read. It's usually a disappointment to find out it was all a dream, and then . . . the character wakes up in bed!
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Haha here's a wild idea: Let's start a story with a dream sequence that involves tons of action (without stakes), then the character wakes up in bed and describes the setting in extreme detail until they check news reports on their phone. What an opener!
@Wolf-ln1ml Жыл бұрын
It _can_ work sometimes, such as in the Final Fantasy animated movie... Then again, we're told with the first two words that it _is_ a dream, and the imagery is fairly 'dreamy' by itself...
@me-myself-i787 Жыл бұрын
The Matrix also starts with a dream sequence, and it is one of the most iconic movies of all time.
@istolethispfpsorry485 Жыл бұрын
@@me-myself-i787 Because it was done well and it fits the film.
@baileycarter5141 Жыл бұрын
Would it be more fun if I made the dream happen at the beginning of the book but then those events actually happen at the end of the book?
@0StarGirl5000 Жыл бұрын
Worst way to start: Someone waking up in bed, to read a news report, about a setting description, but then it was all a dream, and they're really in a high octane action scene where nothing even matters.
@DarinMcGrew Жыл бұрын
Your comments about a "waking up in bed" opening reminded me of Stranger Than Fiction, which deliberately opens with Harold waking up in bed, and then he goes through his boring morning routine. But the point is that while he is doing that, we hear a narrator describing everything he does. And then Harold starts hearing the narrator too...
@hazee039 күн бұрын
That sounds really smart. If you take the concept of the protagonist interacting with the narrator from this film and adapt it to a more serious book, this could work really effectively.
@sasakihaise6299 Жыл бұрын
I started the story with the protagonist lamenting to her magic teacher about showing her the time spell more clearly. That teacher then disappears and that forces her to go find other methods. Further down the story, my mind came up with the idea of her being a self that came from another timeline because she gave up on her destroyed timeline. Yet when she realised her actions brought more harm than good, she decided to rewrite her memories and meet that time teacher for help. And that time teacher already knew everything. So, when the story starts with her complaints, that was because the life 'she' remembered were just false memories created for her own plans.
@kempiro2 жыл бұрын
My least favorite opening is an opening sentence that goes: full name (specifically a full name that I couldn't possibly have heard before) with job title, followed by a filter verb and an object without tension. F'rinstance: "Marttholemew "Chachi" Brotein, captain of the U.F.F. T'Manchild, surveyed the scene before him." Oh my gawd, I wanna die - or I want that book to die.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Ohhh I hate those. A lot of military stories open with those, and those intros give me nothing to latch onto.
@flybatramirez350 Жыл бұрын
I could not agree more! I was actively perusing the comments to see whether anyone had already caught this particular one. I read a lot of sci-fi (bedtime reading never dies), the number of books I put down after that first sentence. The nickname and meaningless elaborate description of whatever vessel they're on I find particulary grating. "Captain Chuck "Chukster" McChuckface looked pensively at the sensor display from his chrome-and-steel seat on the bridge of the "Hulamaree", a 2000-ton dee space frigate with triple BS engines, a crew of 53, 2 showers, 6 point-defence turrets, &c." I'll never find out what happened to Chucky.
@InfernosReaper Жыл бұрын
@@flybatramirez350 Reminds me a bit of this one book that spent over 10 pages talking about the geography with a vague sentence or 2 every other page mentioning some history snippet before a paragraph of dialogue happened out of nowhere, which was immediately followed with more terrain descriptions. I feel like that book is one people are forced to read in Reader Hell. Some writers get way too far up themself when they front-load their story with a mountain of information that isn't immediately necessary for the reader to know to understand what's going on. The technical rambling you mentioned is a great example of "too much too soon" especially when the book could simply have an appendix section that compiles the minutia in 1 place for those who do want to read *everything* at once.
@lotharrenz4621 Жыл бұрын
@@flybatramirez350 BS engines, aren't these the ones that run on Unobtainium?
@tabularasa0606 Жыл бұрын
And it's so easily avoided too. Just first describe the action and then explain who is seeing it. "Chaci surveyed the scene before him" . Also the scene better have some action going on, and not be a field of flowers.
@BRDoriginal Жыл бұрын
Remember: These are rules. If done right it can still work. Harry Potter is an excellent example (although the readers are already introduced to the world and the stakes). The final 3 points in this video have been used in the Harry Potter books to open up a story. Newspaper in Half-Blood Prince, waking up in bed in Philosopher stone, and Dream sequence in Goblet of Fire.
@heatherknopp3723 Жыл бұрын
BUT, we already knew Harry, and that there would be multiple stories, so the beginning of each new book is not the beginning of a new story.
@jamespilgrim37748 ай бұрын
@@heatherknopp3723but the stories are new in each of these examples, from the fresh nightmare about Voldemort, to the important information in the newspaper, to the exposition in philosophers stone.
@Abegilr_Dragonrider Жыл бұрын
Me, a Zelda fan, realizing that those last two points can be applied to most games in the franchise. Especially to Ocarina of Time.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty Жыл бұрын
As an OoT lover myself, I have to admit that the intro didn't grab me back when I first played it on N64 as a kid. I actually dropped the game for months until I came back to it, beat the Deku Tree, and fell in love with the rest of the game.
@paulbeardsley4095 Жыл бұрын
Thing is, with a game like that, the setting is crucial.
@Forlorn-kg7zm Жыл бұрын
Gotta be honest, that's the worst part of the game and it's not an exception to the rule. As a kid it felt like such a slog having to listen to the ramblings of the Deku Tree. (the kokiri forest and the deku tree dungeon were great though)
@spinostu6 ай бұрын
Actually this might be why I'm NOT a Zelda fan
@hannahl.4494 Жыл бұрын
Even worse: A dream sequence that's followed by a character waking up, throwing her hair up in a messy bun because she was not like other girls, and then looking at herself in the mirror long enough to describe herself in way too much detail. (Can you tell I spent a lot of time on wattpad in my teens?^^)
@kai-in1xt Жыл бұрын
The only way to make this opening work is if it is immediately followed by the main character’s mom selling her to One Direction
@hannahl.4494 Жыл бұрын
@@kai-in1xt Which is then followed by Harry choking in the parking lot, to be saved by our MC performing a tracheotomy on him, using a bread knife and a ballpoint pen.
@chalksakademiya Жыл бұрын
@@hannahl.4494 and then harry starts to fall in love with our "not like other girls mc!!
@hannahl.4494 Жыл бұрын
@@chalksakademiya Exactly. But she's also interested in Zayn.
@twilightguardian2 жыл бұрын
Here’s two of the most miserable reading experiences I’ve had in terms of openings: I read a book a couple of years ago that started with an air raid and I nearly DNF’d it 2 chapters in. I hated that it started basically on an action scene because I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t even know this protagonist yet so why would I care about her safety (She was a miserable person throughout most of the book so I never ended up caring about her) and the world wasn’t established yet and all of these things were happening and being explained in the middle of the chaos and it irked me so much because holy crap I don’t care. I don’t care about your character, I don’t care about these certain people everyone is afraid of, I don’t even know what’s happening so why should I care about any of this crap. Stop confusing me. Second was from a long time ago in a children’s book series that even as a kid I had problems with but didn’t have the understanding of why I was dissatisfied. It starts with a prominent occasional POV character who cannot sleep because evil is stirring and she’s worried. Then she proceeds to tell us the princess and her unicorn have been injured and fallen through the portal to earth and the princess no longer has her memories. Well, gee, thanks. It’s not like 9 year old me would have liked to figure out she was the princess and her “horse” was actually a unicorn or anything. But there are a lot of authors for children’s media who don’t respect kid’s intelligence.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Your complaint about that air raid scene is something more novel writers need to be aware of... Action-heavy openings don't work as well in novels as they do in movies because movies have the advantage of being a visual medium. Audiences can be gripped by stylish visuals on-screen, but in books we can only care about action if we get invested in someone experiencing it.
@KasumiRINA Жыл бұрын
Does Mark Hamill voice the air raid siren warning? He does and it here and makes for such a better experience, I mean being bombed every other night sucks but when Luke roasts Palpatine before that with "proceed to the nearest shelter... don't be careless, your overconfidence is your weakness", it's better... And gee I'd love to depend less on prayer and two walls principle every time the dones attack if our mayor wasn't arrested for embezzlement and figures there's no shelters in my 300k people district... I love Mark and he does a great job fundraising to United24, I just increasingly want to hear his voice less. On a plus side, I now get triggered by every song that uses a siren. I don't think you can actually do it in a book? Like how would air raid be even written WeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu weeeeeeeeeeeee-iowwwwwwwwwwwww???
@kellywilliams1332 Жыл бұрын
How soon after the action sequence did you start getting to know her to the point where you felt like you cared about what happened to her?
@twilightguardian Жыл бұрын
@@kellywilliams1332 I ended up hating her. I get that War Is Bad and all that but she was always dour and became so whiny and defeatist even halfway through the book that I started enjoying the second POV character (a Mulan-expy) much more. But because that first character was disabled it felt like the author was making the more likeable POV character pity and baby her because of it, which made her more unlikable.
@Eye_Of_Odin978 Жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty I don't know about that. A setting should be established in your opening succinctly yet also in-detail, and a good way to do that is the "show, don't tell" method. It should snapshot life in your setting on at least a semi-regular basis, as far as the main cast of characters you'll be focused on. It should provide a good indicator of not only many style and story motiffs of your narrative, but the tone of story within. If "action" is justifiably part of your setting, at least for your cast and especially your protagonist, then it should front-load at least a LITTLE bit of it. Good example is *Halo: First Strike* The story starts off with a brief establishing sequence detailing the date, time, and what planet the story begins on inside a flying human troop transport known as a "Pelican" Inside, as the VTOL screams towards the planet Reach to drop off our main characters, we find out about who (and WHAT) they are and their mission there to repel the alien invaders of the Covenant Hegemony, all in a brief few pages. We discover that the SPARTANs aboard the Pelican are not only supersoldiers clad in power armor, but that they're MASSIVE as the writer cleverly tells us without directly telling us. He (the author, Eric Nylund) does this by telling us that the Pelican, which is designed for over 14 Marines easily, had to be stripped of ALL its troop bay seats and equipment just to fit the mere dozen or so SPARTAN-II Commandos. It also depicts cleverly that Spartan Commandos are genetically-engineered and trained for even the most strenous circumstances while depicting the linked-in integrated technology of warfare in this desolate future by describing the EKG monitors linked to the mere human pilot (which is going haywire) to the very calm and steady heart-rates of the SPARTANs in his troop bay as the Covenant'a anti-air flak starts to chew up the craft. Soon, the entire cockpit is blown off and the pilot flatlines. Now on a doomed collision-course, the SPARTANs look to their leader (our protagonist of the book) Frederic-104 to make the next call, showing that Fred is the leader of the team. Fred commands on of his fellow SPARTANs to take control of the aircraft via remote link to their power armor and try to guide them in for as good a landing as possible, but realizes they are most likely doomed. This raises the stakes as Fred and his team have not been established yet as the "main cast" of the book so there's no expectation of him surviving. As the aircraft passes over a ridge, Fred makes the decision that jumping from the burning aircraft is the best chance of survival, and the team jump. Over half die in the fall, leaving a mere handful of SPARTANs left to complete the mission, showing us that even the NORMALLY "invincible" SPARTANs are vunerable during this mass-scale invasion of Reach, the largest battle of the Human-Covenant war thus far and the last fortress world before the Covenant get to Earth. ALL of this and MORE that I didn't even mention such as characterization of our main cast and more subtle lore-drops happens in less than 35 pages, I think. And the REAL plot hasn't even started at this point, this is all just showing you the world. It's a great way to start the book.
@kojikicklighter371 Жыл бұрын
My favorite "waking up" opening scene, is in Donnie Darko. Followed by one of my favorite opening songs - The Killing Moon. That song describes Donnie's quandry perfectly. "Fate, up against your will..."
@GhostOnConsole02 жыл бұрын
Your videos are really helpful. I’ve not done any of these clichés like this though luckily. I usually start with my character doing something, something personal to them. I feel that gets any readers interested in the protagonist and the story
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Thanks! And yep, and one of the best ways to introduce a character is showing them doing something that's personal/unique to them
@claudiag8823 Жыл бұрын
Oh, that's incredibly helpful and just about legitimates the way I wanted to start my project and introduce my character! Because most of the other tipps I read on the internet said to start with a bang etc., but my character starts indeed with something very personal which may not be the most exciting thing for people though (he's a fisher, and he's going out before sunrise to fish on the sea). Your comment helped me get a new perspective on this. Thanks!
@TylerYoshi Жыл бұрын
Man, the waking up in bed thing had me really concerned for a moment, but I'm glad you specified that it's only bad if it's mundane. My story starts with the main character waking up in another dimension and being confronted by a supposedly fictional character who asks him to join an interdimensional protection force. I think I'm good on that one, right?
@Gabriel_JudgeofHell Жыл бұрын
nah bro thats mundane happened to me yesterday and many times before
@rsj2877 Жыл бұрын
@@Gabriel_JudgeofHellthat is a fantastical setting though, are you trolling?
@Gabriel_JudgeofHell Жыл бұрын
@@rsj2877 it happened to me wym
@tattoodude8946 Жыл бұрын
In the same vein as the "it's just a dream" section, I can't stand it when "the main character" dies in the first chapter and then you find out they are not the main character. Dean Koontz did this in one of his stories and it shut me right down from the book. He described everything about this woman and her running routine early in the morning and then she gets taken out and the real main character shows up in the next chapter to investigate her murder. I felt robbed - of my time and my emotional investment. I hate this with a passion and (I see you have a bunch of his books behind you) Stephen King has a tendency to something similar: describing a character to death and then killing them the following page. Now I have read many books by both these authors and have enjoyed them, but that one by Kootz (can't remember the name and it may be a great book after that point...) and King's habit of trying to make me care about someone with loads of backstory - but then they only survive ten minutes in real time in the story, drive me crazy!
@Newfiecat Жыл бұрын
Ughhhhhh this drives me crazy too!
@Gabriel_JudgeofHell Жыл бұрын
DEAN KNOOTZ DID THE SAME IN ANOTHER BOOK WHERE SOMEONE DIED IN A FIRE AND THEN THAT TURNS OUT TO BE IMPORTANT 20 CHAPTERS LATER
@Gabriel_JudgeofHell Жыл бұрын
but his books tend to have many characters and are interesting enough for me to enjoy and read before bed (helps with insomnia)
@redflag0477 Жыл бұрын
In the final dark tower book in the series they do this with a certain character only to kill off that character and another important one that has been throughout the entire book series as another main character. No spoilers but I absolutely hated when they did that. Still an amazing series though. Real ones know.
@derekhandson351 Жыл бұрын
Works well if the chapter is short and it's something like a Detective Novel solving that murder or a Post Apocalyptic setting where we understand how someone died (Last of us did this well with the first chapter)
@IcyEnderman4 ай бұрын
0:49lord it is called a hook
@juliaoliv28822 жыл бұрын
This video was extremely insightful. I haven't made any of these mistakes, but it's good to keep in mind what I shouldn't do.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Thanks!
@lebabygirl12 күн бұрын
My story seemed like it started as calming,but right after those like 10 seconds of peace 2 characters died and now the other 2 characters are traumatized for the rest of there life
@notsostealthmission5184 Жыл бұрын
2:16 News Reports are the best kind of info dump. Those scenes are often really cool when well edited. Only in movies and shows though
@zacharykavanagh62242 ай бұрын
Children Of Men is a great example. Helps that it immediately is followed by an explosion!
@namstel9225 Жыл бұрын
I really like these short videos! They're easy to digest and go straight to the point. Thanks!
@SarahHyatt-n1w Жыл бұрын
An exception to the dream sequence bad opener is the movie Kung Fu Panda. The movie opens on Po’s dream of becoming a Dragon warrior. It works because this dream is CENTRAL to the plot and tells us everything we need to know to interpret the next 10 min. Another opening I hate is when the character feels a sense of foreboding when arriving at a place or seeing a place for the first time. It just feels overdone. A book I halfway liked started that way, but it was difficult for me to take the book seriously when the opening felt overly dramatic.
@Unknown17 Жыл бұрын
I liked the opening to The Grapes of Wrath where we get descriptions of landscape, weather, topography, history, and all the stuff you said NOT to open with, and the only action is a tortoise wandering this landscape. Brilliant! Not every story or novel is some kind of gripping, action-packed tale. The opening should reflect the general pace you intend to set. It need not introduce a main character, his goals, why those goals are important, etc. Not at first.
@desertgecko45492 жыл бұрын
#6 Opening up with an action scene followed by a "TWO DAYS EARLIER" (or whatever timeframe) announcement to begin the story. Is this cliché yet or just overdone? We see this in a number of TV shows also. With some stories, knowing the ending will spoil it; but with other stories, knowing the ending increases the pleasure of the journey. For this type, the latter, this is a necessary structure. Otherwise, it's sort of a false _in media res_ and backstory becomes the story. Lots of caveats, too many for this brief reply, but this is something to consider.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Good call DG! I'm sick of the "# Days Earlier" intro as well. Screenwriters seem obsessed with nonlinear plots, so I doubt this cliche will disappear anytime soon. If we're being honest, I'm sick of nonlinear plots in general. I grew up loving linear stories like Star Wars and 24 (both of which NEVER engaged in flashbacks), so that's probably why
@henrikherranen26102 жыл бұрын
Chernobyl the miniseries. Starting the last episode 12 hours before the accident to let the audience finally on why everything happened. Memento.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
@@henrikherranen2610 Never finished Chernobyl, so I can't speak to it. With Memento, that one has to start at the end because of the story's premise
@henrikherranen26102 жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty You should, it's really good and pretty much as close to the truth as is possible in a dramatized series. (Though there was no Bridge of Death and embryos don't "suck" radioactivity from their mothers.) Also, as someone who has visited both Chernobyl, Pripyat and the Ignalina RBMK reactor they used as a stand-in for the Chernobyl plant, man the series looks realistic!
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
@@henrikherranen2610 I watched the first two episodes a couple summers ago and got sidetracked. Need to re-add it to my list. Always hearing good things about it
@M.J.Conway Жыл бұрын
I'm a fan of visual novels (a type of video game that's like a Choose Your Own Adventure book) but so many of them open up with a main character waking up. A close second is waking up to clouds, usually accompanied by an info dump. I got so fed up with both of those they ended up making a visual novel, myself, just for the purpose of making fun of it.
@princessmarlena1359 Жыл бұрын
I love CYOA books!
@error-try-again-later Жыл бұрын
The info dumps are so bad 😭 especially when they lead into something mundane like "let's walk to school together!" and then you get ANOTHER one about your best friend or w/e
@superdupercooper5826 Жыл бұрын
One of my favorite writers, Chuck Palahniuk, would often start a story at the end, from first person with the character, reflecting back on the events that led them to this moment. I was always sure that this always worked, but the journey was always fun.
@Reggie2000 Жыл бұрын
It had just been a crappy day from the beginning....
@Mixx_ Жыл бұрын
I was browsing KZbin one day and came across this channel, which could be a good thing since I've been writing a singular book for 5 years now... my intro is nothing like these, and I notice that I seem to be doing everything right! I could give you a quote on my entire two-paragraph intro... it's mostly to clarify one thing: I'm mixing Omniscient with First Person... in a way that probably won't clearly tell the reader that so clearly... I don't know if this is really an intro, but my chapters are long, and these are the two first paragraphs that aren't in a chapter: ""Every story has some kind of beginning… usually it’s, “Once upon a time,” maybe it’s, “A long time ago.” But no. This is a story that you get to spectate. A story that keeps on going but switching between characters in the chapters… But our protagonist is a young lady named Robyn Quillenton who faces the most otherworldly adventure anyone could ever imagine. This is a story about: A WORLD CALLED THE EDGEPOINT."" FYI: "A WORLD CALLED THE EDGEPOINT" is the title of my book. and the beginning of the story might involve a character waking up in bed... Actually, I read it and I just sugarcoated it to the point I don't think many will notice until they finish reading the first paragraph. But the VERY beginning of the story, has it start off quite chaotically... since it's less than a page long, I might be able to quote the whole thing: ""I walked down the street for hours, hoping one day I’ll reach my end. I eventually heard the sounds of a terrified child. I peeked down an alley and saw a trio about to terrorize what it looked like a nine-year-old… I decided to run for help, but seconds later… I died. I felt no pain, but it was dark. I hated it. I observe around me, and slowly, felt like “I” wasn’t the correct term for me anymore. “Me” too felt wrong… “My” now disappeared in _ _ _ _ _’s vocabulary as the other two did. _ _ _ _ _ was confused, but _ _ _ _ _ still wants to find what happened… At least _ _ _ _ _ reached his end of earth like he wanted!"" This was a flashback about 5 years before the story begins. And yes, the individual does in fact DIE immediately, he gets officially introduced as somebody else in chapter four. See, I replaced the character's name with underscores to maybe make the reader curious about who the character is... by chapter 6 the reader should know exactly who this character is. Also, the "Terrified Child" is the protagonist of the story. That's why the scene seems so important. about I year or less ago, I set a deadline for when my book NEEDS to be finished, and it's one that won't force me to work faster, but it is a deadline regardless... I want it to be done or published by or before the year 2030. Which is 7 years from when I'm writing this, and 12 years since I began...
@messinalyle4030 Жыл бұрын
I once read a book called Aunt Dimmity Goes West which subverted the generally accepted advice against starting with a dream sequence (and then having your protagonist wake up in bed) by keeping the dream sequence only half a page long, if that, so that the reader could see that the world of the dream was not going to be the world of the whole story. I think the dream sequence was also in italics to further emphasize the disconnect between it and the rest of the book. So the reader had no time to emotionally invest in the idea that this dream would be the whole story, and no trust was broken. In this case, this worked really well. The dream that the protagonist had was about a real thing that had happened in her life--a man who had shot her and was threatening to finish her off on the cliff where they were standing in the middle of a storm. This dream made a wonderful inciting incident for the rest of the story, because it concerned the PTSD that she had developed from the attack, and the vacation that her husband arranged for her to try to heal her psyche. The plot driving most of the action was a murder mystery that took place in the small town where she and her sons went on vacation, but the question in the background was whether this vacation would help her relax, recharge, and face up to her trauma, especially with the help of the new friends she met there. And also whether or not her investigation into the mystery would put her on the wrong side of the killer and set her up for yet another traumatic incident.
@kank247910 ай бұрын
Thank you very much for this video, even if I am a bit late, My scene was originially going to start with my character on his motorycle riding at night being tired from his long drive. But then you mentioned the trope of "waking up in bed" it gave me the idea to instead have him wake up from having temparaily fallen asleep at the wheel, the only thing waking him up being a semi-truck almost coliding with him.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty10 ай бұрын
Awesome, best of luck!
@TheBluenyt092 жыл бұрын
I agree. Stakes are really important to a story 😎👌
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Especially early on. If the characters don't have hopes and fears, we don't have a reason to get invested
@cripple8339 Жыл бұрын
0:54 How about opening with describing the environment through action? Take Someone running through a deeply overgrown forest, and instead of having a paragraph about it then it reducing the person you could describe each part of the location via its interaction with the character.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
What's the worst story intro you've come across? Let us know!
@Dhips.2 жыл бұрын
I really love Brave New World. It's one of my favorite books, but the intro is always a slog for me. I understand it has a lot to set up, but man.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
@@Dhips. I had the same experience with BNW! The first 40 pages were awful, then it became amazing.
@DonVigaDeFierro Жыл бұрын
@@Dhips.You can probaby cut it down, and it won't affect the story. They make more than enough references to the whole "high-tech selective breeding" thing anyways.
@phecto Жыл бұрын
I've read books with each of these style of openings and they worked quite well and interested me enough to finish the book and keep reading the rest of the series
@GeeVanderplas Жыл бұрын
I uabe to say, I love Michael Crichton's info dump openings, like at the beginning of Jurassic Park. While not exactly a news stories, the essay style gives his work a grounding in reality.
@S_S-WHYT4 ай бұрын
I agree with you on openings with too much description of location or too many details honestly. I’ll put the book down immediately!
@sachisen66512 жыл бұрын
I have a question. What if the dream is a foreshadowing? I mean, I had chapters in my WIP that started with my MC dreaming, and in those dreams, they see things that might come off as useless, but later in the chapter, they realized it totally has meaning.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Opening scenes usually foreshadow current events regardless of whether a dream is involved. .. Unless dreams are key to your story's concept (like in Inception, for example), I would try to avoid the dream intro.
@AtlanticGiantPumpkin Жыл бұрын
Any character describing their appearance by looking in the mirror. It is such a pet peeve of mine. I make sure to describe what a character looks like as it comes up. I had one character who was upset she had different hair from the rest of her family because it made it obvious that she was the adopted one. Or one character who suffers from a hair pulling disorder. Describe skin color by talking about blushing, tanning, scarring, burning, etc. Eyes by how eye contact feels. Lips by how a character smiles or smirks. Hair by grooming it. It works so much better than staring in the mirror and getting a whole bunch of descriptive info at once.
@12thDecember11 ай бұрын
No one does the "waking up in bed" trope better than Franz Kafka.
@DavidMay-cc1xo2 ай бұрын
Kafka: I'm going to open my story with a guy waking up in bed.
@lepidoptera933713 күн бұрын
Kafka was a horrible author. Not many people are reading him today. He has a way of making his readership suicidal. :-)
@maxeisenhardt8800 Жыл бұрын
The opening dream sequence trope also applies for training/simulation scenarios such as the one in X-Men: The Last Stand. The movie begins with a huge apocalyptic battle (that was even used in the trailers to advertise the movie), and then, alas, it turned out to be mere training session. But the worst of all? Every fight scene that came afterwards wasn't nearly as visually ambitious as that one.
@mgr1084 Жыл бұрын
This is a fantastic channel! I’m in the middle of writing a fantasy novel and my book begins with a wake-up scene… now I’m scheduling time to re-write something a lot more interesting. THANK YOU for these great tips!!!
@MTMguy Жыл бұрын
4:08 The first chapter of the novel I'm working on right now starts with the main character, Aurora, falling down the stairs at her school after leaving her classroom. She hits her head and has what seems to be a dream in some sort of magical world for the rest of the chapter, but then she wakes up at the hospital at the start of chapter 2, losing all memories of the "dream". I _think_ it should be fine to do this in my novel's case given that Aurora ends up having a dream later in chapter 2 where she speeds through all the experiences she had in that world during chapter 1, and, in later chapters, she starts noticing some interesting connections between her world and that "dream" world.
@Sorain15 ай бұрын
As long as the dream serves some purpose and isn't thrown away, I think your covered.
@DavidMay-cc1xo2 ай бұрын
I hate the use of the news in movies or tv shows where one character calls a main character: Are you watching the news? No. Why? Turn to channel 4 now. To recap our top news story, here's some info dump that you're very lucky to have turned into at the right time. Are you watching the news right now? No, I'm at work. I'm sitting in my office doing paperwork. Turn to channel 4 now. With what TV? I told you I'm at work. Don't you have a TV in the breakroom? Yeah, but it doesn't have a channel 4. I think it's hooked up to Dish. What network is channel 4? I don't know, ABC or NBC, one of those. Well I figured that, but which one? I don't know. Isn't there a logo on the screen? I'm in the car, I'm not watching it. Mary called me to say that the news was doing a story of how a camera caught you on video exiting a store where the owner had been killed. WHAT! Why didn't you start with that? Why would you make me watch the news for that? Because the news has the video and how else will the audience see you coming out of the store where a guy was killed? If Mary saw the video already, why do you think me turning to the news now would let me see the video? They're probably already talking about the weather or traffic.
@ulrikof.2486 Жыл бұрын
The dream thing does somewhat apply to one of my stories, but might be unavoidable... it's about a person finding themselves in a simulation, but many levels deep, and needs to find out how deep and which level is reality. Thus, the "awakening" in a different reality will occur repeatedly.
@tabularasa0606 Жыл бұрын
The dream is the plot of the story.
@ulrikof.2486 Жыл бұрын
@@tabularasa0606 Right :-)
@lastfirst5863 Жыл бұрын
Thank you. A lot of this I was already avoiding as it’s annoying to read, but the bit about stakes convinced me to rethink how I start my story. Instead of explaining later how it happened, I can start with it happening. No need to rob myself the opportunity, especially when I’m just going to explain it later in a less compelling way.
@DoctorPretorious616 Жыл бұрын
"It was a dark and stormy night..."
@WriterBrandonMcNulty Жыл бұрын
Brutal cliche
@throughthoroughthought80644 ай бұрын
I like it. It has depth and foreshadowing.
@KnugLidi20 сағат бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Not if the second line is along the lines of "Disgusted, I ripped the page out of my typewriter, grabbed my jacket, and headed out in search of chemical inspiration."
@superethanbean5 ай бұрын
I was the kid in gradeschool who thought they were a mastermind for ending all stories with "and then they woke up".
@0StarGirl5000 Жыл бұрын
Personally though, I kinda like a good setting description, if it doesn't take too long and is actually good. Sometimes a setting can really set the tone and get the imagination churring. It's like an establishing shot in film.
@macblink3 ай бұрын
A dream can be useful if it's used as foreshadowing, and a flashforward to an exciting event can be used to show the reader what to expect for
@FractalParadox Жыл бұрын
I literally just started a story with the dream/flashback sequence into character walking up in bed duo. So hear me out... it stablishes so much stuff so efficiently I am hard-pressed to find something better. The prologue is about 5 years ago and stablishes her trauma, part of the setting, one of the magic systems, some intrigue about her now gone best friend, and also hints at both the real villain of the story _and_ the red herring villain. All within a scene with a fair amount of action, that also stablishes tone pretty well. When the character wakes up on the next chapter, she does so onto a panick attack, clutching a hand she lost that day and now isn't missing anymore, having to calm herself and remind herself she's safe, and her friend is dead. Also, her landlady is there to demand rent, which makes her do a couple extra things on that day to earn some quick cash and ends up taking her to the inciting incident. It's all very tight. It bugs me that it's a dream sequence/character wakes up in bed sequence, but every time I try to change it it just gets confusing: if I cut the 'waking up' section, the flashback to day in life transition gets jarring, and if I modify the flashback too much to accommodate for that, it loses a lot of its impact. I'm very tempted to just pull a stormlight archive and slap a huge "FIVE YEARS AGO" in all caps bold letters and be done with it lol.
@PengyDraws Жыл бұрын
If it works, it works. There's always exceptions to the rule. But you should probably check to see if it works with readers, first.
@senny- Жыл бұрын
"Tropes are tools"
@WRLO563 ай бұрын
Rule #3? "The Secretary of State for War has today received the following dispatch from Lord Chelmsford, Commander of Her Majesty's forces in Natal Province ..." (Opening of Zulu, 1964) Proof that it CAN be done effectively.
@DrR0BERT Жыл бұрын
Whenever I watch a Brandon McNulty video about advice what not to do, I try to come up with a scenario make it work. For example, with the news dump, I would follow it up with the main character saying "Well, they got about a quarter of that right."
@lotte3274 Жыл бұрын
I really love this technique that Dan Brown uses in several of his books. He starts with a short scene, a mind-blowing discovery, a violent death ect without sharing details. Then he actually starts telling an entirely different story, different characters, different setting, he makes you almost forget that first scene, and then there comes a part 300 or 400 pages later where that first scene fits into the main story perfectly. It's amazing because he jumps right into the action without giving anything away, and leaves the reader utterly confused and wondering how this scene fits the rest of the story.
@lukeleslie9648 Жыл бұрын
One of my stories begins with a dream sequence, and it feels completely justified due to the fact that this dream is what progresses the plot at the start, and because the reader is told it's a dream in the same chapter.
@RantarosAmami9 ай бұрын
honestly, videos like this have been helping me a lot with coming up with ideas and stories for my OC (Owen), as his story is pretty difficult to write since a lot happens in his life (I made it so that his story is in Danganronpa V3 since I'm a fandom/fanfic writer and a lot of things for his character are kinda nonsensical and goofy). a lot of different events in his life could be good starters for Owen's story, such as when his dad died, or when he was being experimented on, or when he gets trapped in the killing game. but with the knowledge I have now from all these videos, I think I know where to start. so, thank you for creating these videos and giving advice to people!
@Dhips.2 жыл бұрын
Years ago I was told the best way to make somebody throw away your script/story is number #4, its an instant sign "this is a waste of my time."
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
HUGE red flag for the reader
@randomcat864910 ай бұрын
I’ve actually read a pretty good comic that started with a news report about a murder, and every other panel you would see said suspects running away from danger.
@carlosalbertolealrodriguez5529 Жыл бұрын
4:45 With a text scroll SOOOO LOOONG, that you get bored. Example, at the beggining of the movie Battlefield Earth.
@wddaww Жыл бұрын
This gave me the intro I was looking for. I changed some things up and I’m able to overcome the first step in the story. Getting the beginning together.
@thomaswilliamson33662 жыл бұрын
Hello, I've been watching your channel for quite some time, this is my first comment. I've started planning a fantasy novel based on the bronze age era, although I'm still in the planning stage of creating the map, the history of the kingdom, and the historical research. One opening scene I have in my mind is of the royal servants walking and going into the monarch's bedroom, to prepare them for the day. Although I've been mindful of the waking up cliche for quite some time, I'm unsure if the scene I have in mind would come under the cliche.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
What is at stake for the servants? If it's just a mundane task on a regular day, try to come up with something more intriguing or conflict-driven. Perhaps one of the servants needs a huge favor from the monarch but doubts the monarch will help?
@thomaswilliamson33662 жыл бұрын
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Thank you for replying. Currently, it would be the monarch's birthday, the day they gain absolute power over the kingdom. However, the monarch is later overthrown and left to die.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
@@thomaswilliamson3366 Might be interesting if your servants have some bad news to deliver (or better yet, maybe they're aware of some bad news but holding back for some reason...) Just the first things that popped into my head. Best of luck with the book!
@justine_holloway Жыл бұрын
'fantasy novel' - instant turn-off for me. The most boring, unimaginative genre of them all.
@praisednote04445 ай бұрын
Yeah, for my first try at writing, I chose to go with a foreshadowing intro, then the next chapter is a “life flashing before my eyes.” And third is basically the beginning of the real story. Now for the one I’m currently writing, I opened with a mission brief that leads into a treasure hunt for the first chapter in 3rd person. And the second is the big adventure in first person. And yet I keep getting pulled to past tense while trying to stay in present tense
@notinthemoodfornames8033 Жыл бұрын
Agree with a lot for Writing for english speaking audience, but the dream starting one I really don't get. A lot of dream openings are very obvious so they really don't break the contract, and many audience understand how dream starters can often be used to hint at the future or to emphasize certain themes. Also, dream starters can often be quite short, like, "I am looking at a white rabbit sitting next to me on a chair. It doesn't speak and just sits there staring at me. Then, I wake up, but start to see white rabbits everywhere even when I'm not dreaming..." Like, in this sort of case, it seems impossible that the reader could think well i'm just so disappointed the character didn't pursue his dream or that the dream didn't turn out to be real.
@cloverfield_l9 Жыл бұрын
Hi, I'm a student, rookie storywriter and I got to say, this video helped me with writing my own story and actually give it proper structure, Thanks! :)
@russellvitranoiii3504 Жыл бұрын
Worst story beginning I've read would have to be the cliche, "It was a dark and stormy night..." How do you feel about dream sequences where the dream is actually an extension of the story, meaning even though the character wakes up in the morning, at night they can actually pick up the dream where it left off? I feel like that could be interesting... And it may or may not be one of the driving forces of one of my projects.
@wendywei28815 ай бұрын
But dream sequences can be foreshadowing? Also what if the dream is an old traumatic memory, so you’re showing the character has PTSD and has to cope with it. Or they have a very faint memory of someone who will be more important later in the story.
@use71554 ай бұрын
I agree it can be used for something important like foreshadowing or PTSD. Long as the dream is releavant to the story, its a great idea.
@privatename5788 Жыл бұрын
What if your main character is someone with PTSD, and you open with a dream sequence of the highly traumatic event that caused it? Does that qualify as too much setting, too much action, info dump, waking up in bed, or dream sequence?
@eliseintheattic9697 Жыл бұрын
IMO that's just an info dump. Don't do it. YOu have to set up mystery and suspense and make the reader care about the protagonist in the opening. It would be better to have the protagonist have a seemingly bizarre reaction to an everyday situation because that sets up a mystery. We want to know why he bolted out of the grocery store as he was attempting to put a can of corn in his cart. From there you can drop info a little at a time to keep the reader invested.
@privatename5788 Жыл бұрын
@cinema_Danny Sorry, but I don't think Hollywood is up to accepting scripts from AI bots just yet. Give the writer's strike time while you hone your adaptive learning. Sorry you won't be able to actually experience any of the things you write about.
@privatename5788 Жыл бұрын
@@eliseintheattic9697 Good advice for my next draft, thanks.
@curtisjones61622 ай бұрын
I write the books I want to read so I have an audience of one, the money sucks, but still having fun.
@henrikherranen26102 жыл бұрын
I'd say that 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) takes a good while before there is anything even resembling any kind of action (#1). Star Trek: First Contact (1996) begins with Picard's dream sequence (#5) of him being assimilated by the Borg. I don't much care about the movie, but still think the beginning is effective. Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1987) begins with a newscast (#3). It's the perfect start to an extremely efficient and competent film. Brazil (1985) begins with an advertisment for ducts, followed by a *boom*, then a newscast (#3) that supposedly explains the boom (but really doesn't). Doctor Who's (2005) first episode, Rose, begins with Rose waking up in her bed (#4) when the alarm clock beeps. The waking up part takes 7 seconds of an 80-second "a day in life" montage; a really efficient way to start a new series after a hiatus of over a decade. These five rules you mention are definitely not something that should be written in stone tablets. At least if you are writing for the big or small screen.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
All writing rules are meant to be broken. In general though, it helps to avoid these.
@KasumiRINA Жыл бұрын
And many people tell you to skip the first two parts, the absolutely useless monkey opening that Barbie trailer remade really only needs its last part of bone turning into satellite as a metaphor for weapon evolution while Blue Danube plays to highlight the expanse of Milky Way. Second part people also don't like but it is actually the one where most dialogue and special effects happen. They did amazing job with fake gravity but things like videophones being a whole room and most unrealistic thing in sci-fi, Soviet Union existing in 2001, didn't age well. Third part is the cool one with killer computer. And final is a drug trip with heavy-handed symbolism of a guy becoming Nietzhe's (sic) Übermensch shown by playing Ric Flair's entrance theme and showing that Spaghetti meatball painting by one of the turtles (Creation of Adam). xD
@SoldatDuChristChannel Жыл бұрын
yeah and 2001 is boring af, audiences would put uo with anything back then there wasnt much competition. Now every market is oversaturated. You want to have a slow burn novel it has to be earned
@derbimpeti2770 Жыл бұрын
These things all support the narrative especially doctor who, her mundane world is about to change significantly, and we the audience know that shes in store for the time of her life.
@TroySpace Жыл бұрын
As you say, these examples are for movies or series. Not books, which most people watching this are interested in writing. Movies are much easier to start with action - eg Saving Private Ryan. Anyone with a smidgen of history knowledge knows this is D-Day and what's going to happen. You've already paid for the movie and the posters and trailers convinced you to be there. The book has to convince you to buy it with the first few pages.
@gosnooky3 ай бұрын
Character is dreaming, the alarm clock wakes them up, they go to brush their teeth in front of the mirror, long physical description, they do downstairs to make coffee, they turn on the TV to a news segment info-dump.
@Pharaoh_Tutankhamen2 жыл бұрын
I laughed so hard at Number 5, looks like the lava tomb is going to have to be cut or moved
@WriterBrandonMcNulty2 жыл бұрын
Lava tomb sounds fun though!
@DiMono4 ай бұрын
Worst story opening I've ever seen was the film version of Don't Say A Word. That movie is a fantastic suspense thriller, where the audience is riding along with Michael Douglas as he tries desperately to get a number out of a mental patient to save his family. He doesn't know who these people are, what they want, or how this random girl knows the number - just that it's the only way to get his family back. Unless you watch it from the beginning, because the first 8 minutes and 45 seconds are a flashback that tells you *exactly* who these people are, what they want, and why the girl and the number she has in her head is so important to them. The worst way to start a story is by removing the suspense from everything that follows.
@migmit Жыл бұрын
BtVS starts with a dream sequence followed by the main character waking up in bed. It's an awesome story.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty Жыл бұрын
Oh sure, it can work, but more often than not it’s a problem
@enjoythestruggle3 ай бұрын
I hate the waking up in bed thing and then getting up and contemplating their looks in a mirror.
@Trevor_NewJerusalem Жыл бұрын
Question: What if your opening is a dream sequence but it's only 3 paragraphs long and a premonition and everyone who was asleep that night dreamt of it? Cuz... My story is kinda reliant on using points 4 and 5...
@blakchristianbale Жыл бұрын
That’s definitely an exceptional case, you’re good
@Trevor_NewJerusalem Жыл бұрын
@@blakchristianbale Thank you very much for the feedback. That is a relief.
@michaelwilcox8187 Жыл бұрын
Setting start worked for me. It was a bleak nothingness written in deep pov. My character was literally bound in a gem. Trapped.
@CitruKori Жыл бұрын
I like to think that intros to stories are like a job interview. When you’re in the interview, you’re not gonna talk about the weather outside or what you did this morning to get ready. You’re going to talk about your qualities and what you’re planning to do at the job. That’s exactly what you need to say in your opening chapter: who are the characters and what are they doing
@hans17836 ай бұрын
What u said about the waking up in bed is absolutely spot on… i remember reading an opening with so much detailed put into describing the drawers. It was so boring i clicked off and died.
Жыл бұрын
These are very good advices in general, but you always must be cautious not to go too far with overgeneralization. For example, Franz Kafka's famous story, "The Metamorphosis" begins when Gregor Samsa wakes up in bed. Also, famous Kafka's novel, "The Proces", begins when K. wakes up in bed. For advice no. 5, there is Ingmar Bergman's movie "Wild Strawberries", which begins with a horrible and very memorable dream sequence.
@blakchristianbale Жыл бұрын
I mean Metamorphosis is a clear example of the exceptions he gave in the video, it works because the main character wakes up to something extremely out of the ordinary
@porterfr Жыл бұрын
Good examples! Also, Fellini's 8-1/2 -- arguably one of the finest films ever, along with Bergman's Wild Strawberries -- starts with a dream sequence, which is also parodied memorably by Woody Allen in Stardust Memories.
@KnightmareLives Жыл бұрын
Man, it's like KZbin knows what I'm doing and recommended this video to me. But I'm glad it did.