If you've been writing for even a few days you'll have noticed how difficult it is to get the opening of your story/novel right. In fact, aside from writing a satisfying ending to your story/novel it's probably one of the most difficult components of the entire story arc.
If you're the type to seek help from
other writers you will have probably gotten this comment: What you
need is conflict. Sometimes this may be accurate. Other times someone
may simply be parroting a common piece of story-writing wisdom –
successful stories need conflict.
The big issue is that word “conflict”
which is frequently misinterpreted to mean
explosions/death/kidnapping/alien invasion/discovery of magic/etc.
But not every story needs explosions/death/kidnapping/alien
invasions/discovery of magic in order to be successful or
interesting. A good story does, however, need conflict. Or, as I like
to think of it, “something going wrong”.
It could be something relatively inane.
The Blue Sword starts out
with orange juice and boredom, but the heart of the opening chapter
is still “something going wrong”. In fact, every story I like has
“something going wrong” and an Main Character trying to overcome
the problems created by that “something”. Usually, in trying to
solve the problem of “something going wrong” that MC causes more
things to go wrong and winds up with more problems to solve and
challenges to overcome.
That is conflict.
Something going
wrong.
Simple, yes?
So, what have you
written today?
