Some authors, when starting a novel, imagine a place first. Others, a character starts taking shape in their head. I start with a hook, a situation, a 'what if.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.
I think a conceptual idea comes to me first - something I've been mulling over a lot right before I feel like writing a book - and then the characters start to develop around it.
When you start a novel, it is always like pushing a boulder uphill. Then, after a while, to mangle the metaphor, the boulder fills with helium and becomes a balloon that carries you the rest of the way to the top. You just have to hold your nerve and trust to narrative.
In a lot of cases, writers discover that the novel needs to begin later in the action than they'd first thought.
A novel is, hopefully, the starting point of a conversation, one in which the author engages readers and asks that they see things from a different point of view than they might otherwise.
I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.
If you're gonna start a story, you start from the beginning, right?
I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.
I have to know the killer, the victim and the motive when I begin. Then I start to create the characters and see how the novel takes shape based on what these people are like.
There is no 'right' way to begin a novel, but for me, plot has to wait. The character comes first.