Before we can go on an adventure with a character, we need to become friends with them. Learn about them. Empathize with them.
One book that does that extremely well is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. At the beginning of the book, the main character is in one of the most uncomfortably-relatable scenarios: being dragged to a party by a friend that she doesn’t want to go to.
During the last stream, we took a look at the opening few pages to The Hate U Give and examined it sentence by sentence.
I love the opening to this book because it’s a perfect example of how to start a story. There are no explosions or fights or escapes to try and entice the reader. Instead, all we get is a character and the juicy details surrounding her.
Her voice leaps off the page with how real she feels, and her inner conflict is more than enough to suck us in as readers.
Here’s a sample of the annotating that we did.
We don’t even know the character’s name yet, but we instantly relate to her.
There’s a ton of great stuff going on in this first chapter, more than I can get into in a short post. If you’re interested in leveling up your own writing, then be sure to watch the full video below.
After that the chat voted that we write this prompt: An old man talks to his younger self through a payphone.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.
Featured image: Amazon