My (constant) struggle: how big is too big?
I love melodrama, action, HUGE EMOTIONAL moments. Other people see those things (especially lit people, as opposed to drama people) as over-blown.
Everyone says: start your story with a bang! The only caveat they give is: don't make it such a big bang that you can't follow it up.
No worries about that caveat, because my first whammie is always a ho-ho compared to the wedding cake that is my climax.
BUT, I think that ho-ho might already be a little too much to handle.
Case in point: my first manuscript chapter starts with a dog-fight in which one dog is killed. ALSO: three named characters are introduced, there's a gambling-fraud angle, a weird-science angle, a strange-world angle, and an illicit flirtation.
Too much, even for 10-12 pages?
I especially *hate* starting with a dog-fight.
On the one hand, the fight itself is necessary for the story, gives an early warning that this is a manuscript with a lot of explicit action, and tells you right off-- the dog owner is a *bad* guy.
On the other hand-- animal cruelty in the first few pages? REALLY?! George Pelecanos did it in Hell to Pay, but I don't need a sh*tload of agents turning me down to know I don't have the same leeway as George Pelecanos.
I've heard it's good to start with straight action, not to get bogged down in details, and not to center the action in emotional drama (ie, the action = argument) b/c it's concerning characters who we don't yet know.
I've also heard you've got to start with either the hero or the villain, to lock someone into the story. Starting with a side-character as an unknown writer is shooting yourself in the foot.
As I'm structuring my first fifty manuscript pages now:
1. Dog-fight! Intro: villain, inciting incident
2. Argument! Intro: hero, arch-villain
3. Weird situ! Intro: subplot character, see the hero/villain in action
4. Arch-villain in trouble! Intro: arch-villain, but in sympathetic light
5. OH GOD! First major action sequence. End-ish of Act 1. Point of no return for the hero.
6. And SHIT! Complete end of Act 1. Arch-villain rachets up the stakes
It was previously: 3, 4, 1, 2, 6, and there was no 5. The momentum in my current sequence is much better, and it introduces the most important characters more immediately.
Still not sure, though-- is this way best? Have the conflicts gotten too big, too fast?
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