On Consistency and Beginnings
Some more thoughts on self-editing.
Hey Story Crafters,
I’ve touched on?consistency in character as a self-editing tip ?in an earlier post, but it’s important to make sure?all?aspects of your story are consistent when you’re editing.
Regardless of where you fall on the plotter or pantser spectrum (if you identify the type of writer you are at all), there’s a good chance you end up discovering new, unexpected pieces of your story during the writing process. (This is part of what makes the writing process fun for me, as a writer. ??)
The consequence of discovery-while-writing is that, usually, the last half of your story doesn’t match the first half. For example, there could be character development or a plot twist that happens partway through the story that isn’t set up (or foreshadowed) properly at the beginning, because you hadn’t thought of that character development or plot twist when you first started writing.
Inconsistencies like these are ones you’ll be able to pick out, once you’ve gotten some emotional and mental distance from your story. Editing can feel a lot like writing—rewarding and enjoyable at times, and incredibly frustrating at others. Since you were able to finish writing your story in the first place, approach self-editing with trust in the knowledge that no one knows your story better than you. This should help you work through the more frustrating moments of editing.
When you read through your story with fresh eyes—as a reader—I encourage you to make notes on your manuscript. Leave comments where you think “something” might be missing or could be improved (this could be detail-wise or storytelling-wise). You might find those details or storytelling elements are explored later in the story, and simply need to be established in earlier chapters; or they might need to be added to throughout the story to give it more depth.
One part of your story that will likely need to be reworked the most is the beginning. This is true even if you wrote based on an outline. The act of writing is different from planning out a story, because there are factors like voice and writing style to consider—factors that you usually can’t plan for, and don’t discover until you start writing. So the beginning of your story might sound and/or feel different from its ending.
It's important to polish the beginning of your story, because a good opening is what hooks a reader into buying and reading your story. For a resource, I recommend Paula Munier’s?The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings: How to Craft Story Openings that Sell. She breaks down and analyzes what makes up an effective story opening, and gives several examples. She also goes into how an effective opening resonates through the rest of the story—in other words, how to plant seeds for subplots in the opening chapters that grow over the course of the story.
It's also important to consider reader expectation when finetuning the opening of your story. For example, a romance story will have a very different beginning from a mystery. And the expectations set at the beginning should remain consistent to the end (i.e., the expectations need to be executed and followed through).
Below are a few examples of opening paragraph(s) from books I’ve read recently:
(Note: The block quotes look better on the Substack version of this post .)
(**Warning: Somewhat graphic description of an animal carcass. Skip to after the block quote if needed.)
There was a dead fox in her path.
At first Mattie only saw it as a streak of scarlet across the fresh snowfall. Her initial thought was that some predator had gotten a rabbit from the traps she’d come to check.
Then she saw the orange fur matted with blood, and the place where something sharp had torn through the fox’s middle. Viscera were strewn over the snow, the scent fresh and strong despite the cold air.
There weren’t many creatures that would eat a fox—a bear would, of course, a bear would eat anything. Maybe a mountain lion, sometimes an eagle, but almost no creature would take the trouble of killing an animal and then not bother to eat it at all. None, as a matter of fact, except people, but there were no people at the top of the mountain except for Mattie and William.
Right off the bat, there’s a clear sign of danger: there’s something in the woods that’s killing for sport. Maggie (the protagonist) provides the setting—the top of the mountain—and that she and William are the only humans on the mountain.
The reader expectation is clearly “horror,” here. Not only because of the somewhat graphic description of the dead fox, but also because there is a “hunter vs. hunted” relationship that’s being established. There’s an expectation that the humans might go from “hunter” to “hunted.”
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Up in the far north, away from everything you know and dream about, lies a small village called Shady Hollow. There are many settlements in the woods, far from the cities and the bustling world. Shady Hollow is only one such community, where woodland creatures of all types and temperaments, from the tiny mouse to the mighty moose, live together in a successful and mostly peaceful society.
This is the first paragraph of the prologue for this story.?Shady Hollow?is a cozy mystery, and the “coziness” factor is established in the prologue by focusing on the setting of Shady Hollow. Community is the focus of this story.
While this opening doesn’t necessarily set up the expectation for a mystery, it does set the expectation that how the events of the story affect the community of Shady Hollow is what’s important, more so than an individual character. (There is, of course, a protagonist that serves as the focus point for the story.) Also, based on the prologue, the reader can expect the pacing and narrative to be relatively slow and steady, not the frantic rush of a fast-paced thriller.
The forest had become a labyrinth of snow and ice.
I’d been monitoring the parameters of the thicket for an hour, and my vantage point in the crook of a tree branch had turned useless. The gusting wind blew thick flurries to sweep away my tracks, but buried along with them any signs of potential quarry.
Hunger had brought me farther from home than I usually risked, but winter was the hard time. The animals had pulled in, going deeper into the woods than I could follow, leaving me to pick off stragglers one by one, praying they’d last until spring.
They hadn’t.
There’s a sense of grim determination and desperation established in this opening. The protagonist is clearly a skilled hunter, fueled by the need to survive. This opening sets up the expectation that the protagonist will do whatever she believes is necessary to survive (in other words, she’s scrappy and resourceful).
Munier goes through the openings of several books in various genres as examples. You can do an exercise following her examples, or one similar to what I did above. You can choose books you’ve recently read, but I recommend evaluating the openings of books similar to your current work-in-progress, especially recently published books. This will let you see what openings are currently popular and effective with readers in your genre, and find inspiration for your own opening pages.
If you’re planning to pursue a traditional publishing path, polishing your opening is critical for getting an agent’s attention. If you’re self-publishing, the opening is just as important, because it’s one of the deciding factors readers use to decide whether or not to buy your book. Once you’ve polished the beginning of your story, it’s important to make sure the details and story elements added to the beginning are consistent with the story, all the way to the end.
Self-editing can get frustrating when you’re trying to make sure all the story elements and details are consistent from beginning to end, and then polish the language until it shines. I believe the journey ultimately helps you have a deeper understanding and appreciation for your story, and your writing ability.
But if you get too frustrated or if you’re uncertain at any point of the self-editing process, or if you’ve done all you can but still feel you need additional help, don’t hesitate to seek out professional editing help! I offer developmental, line, and copyediting services to independent and querying authors of fantasy, dark fantasy, science fiction, and horror.?Learn more about my services , or get in touch!
Best,
Leah
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