: Avoid beginning your draft with the first sentence. I know that sounds unintuitive to the point of madness, but I speak from experience. Even when I begin the drafting process with a clear

Avoid beginning your draft with the first sentence.

I know that sounds unintuitive to the point of madness, but I speak from experience. Even when I begin the drafting process with a clear idea of where things are headed, there are always at least one or two surprises waiting for me (usually in the 2nd act, but that's a personal thing). And the stress of trying to work out how best to hook your audience right off the bat can be paralyzingâ€¦which is not an ideal way to begin any writing project, be it short fiction or a screenplay or a full-length novel.

So do what I do: hold off on finalizing the first sentence, or even the entire first paragraph, until you've settled into the story you're trying to tell. Let the narrative breathe; let yourself make mistakes and revisions thereof; trust in your ability to circle back through it for however long it takes you to decide "This is it!". That'll never be as difficult as simply banging your head against a blank page, hoping to get it perfect on the very first try.

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: How to write a telephone conversation in a novel? If Closed Captioning on TV is any guide, then dialogue heard over a phone would be in italics, not in quotes. The same would apply to dialogue

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: I don't usually write stories. But my theory about the difficulty of begining writing something is, it depends on assumptions about the audiences. If the story still subject to change, the

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: How to write about pouring water? When someone treats a wound, like a burn, thereâ€™s this sound of the water pouring down, hitting the sink. Does anyone know what the sound is called? What

: Avoid beginning your draft with the first sentence. I know that sounds unintuitive to the point of madness, but I speak from experience. Even when I begin the drafting process with a clear

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: How to write a telephone conversation in a novel? If Closed Captioning on TV is any guide, then dialogue heard over a phone would be in italics, not in quotes. The same would apply to dialogue

: The theme Magic and sex is common in many magic books. In my magic research I stumbled over Aleister Crowley and his written stuff about magic. He described some rituals, that required masturbation

: I don't usually write stories. But my theory about the difficulty of begining writing something is, it depends on assumptions about the audiences. If the story still subject to change, the

: How to write about pouring water? When someone treats a wound, like a burn, thereâ€™s this sound of the water pouring down, hitting the sink. Does anyone know what the sound is called? What

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