Kicking Off the Plot

[MNValentine]

Okay. I guess I do have to ask, since I’m a little worried. I think I know what everyone’s suggestions will be but…

My current novel, in rewriting for the millionth time, has a very long beginning. A lot of important things happen in the beginning, but it isn’t exactly exciting. The action doesn’t kick off until chapter seven or eight. One of my beta readers (one of my sisters) said she’ll be mad if I cut anything from the beginning because she loves it. No one else complained about it, so I’m not sure if it’s even a problem. Still, it makes me a little nervous that people will lose interest.

So I decided to ask this question:

How close to the beginning of the book do you need the action to start? And how could I make the beginning more interesting without making it shorter?

Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!

[Daeus]

@mnvalentine It depends a bit on what you consider “action”. If action is battles and desperate plots, no novel actually needs those and you can bring them in at any point in your story. If action to you means confrontation, which I think is a good synonym, perhaps you do need the action to come in earlier, though it depends on how long your book is. If you have 100 chapters, it might not be a problem at all, but if you have 40 chapters, it’s much more likely problematic.

The sure way to tell is to look at your plot structure. I don’t know if you know much about plot structure and outlining, but if you’d like to learn more about this, I highly recommend K.M.Wieland’s Structuring Your Novel. In that book, she teaches that certain structural points in any story should happen around a certain percentage through that story. As long as your structural points line up close to those percentages, you’re fine. 🙂

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[MNValentine]

@daeus When I say action I mean the point at which the plot officially kicks off, which also happens to be the first moment of mortal peril. There are a couple points of minor conflict in the beginning, and the story is set up – important things to the plot do happen. I found a reference chart based on the book you suggested (which looks useful, I’ll have to look at it further) and it appears my plot moves very similarly to the recommended percentages.

Thanks for the advice, I feel more confident already 🙂

Silence! Silence everyone, for the king's speech!

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