Ep 295 How to Start Writing A Story

Welcome to Pencils and Lipstick. This is a podcast for indie authors. I'm Cat Caldwell, novelist, short story writer, and book coach. Here on Pencils and Lipstick, we're obsessed with bold things story. And it is my goal to bring you the writing tips that you need to make your novel come to life.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode two ninety five of Pencils and Lipstick. I am Kat Caldwell. And today we are going to be talking about how to start a story. This comes from a comment I got in TikTok of someone literally saying, I have an idea for a story.

How do I start? Which is pretty broad. So we're going to go through a couple of different ways for you to start. This, this is not to say that you have to do all of these things in order to start. I just want to give you a few ideas, because it really depends on where you are, how much writing you've done before.

And it's, it gets complicated to answer that question, not knowing who you are and your background. But I do want to say there are lots of people out there that sell you a certain way to start writing a story. And I just don't believe in that. I believe that there are many, many ways for you to start writing a story and it really depends on you. So we're going to go through a couple different, ideas for you, and I hope that this helps you guys out.

Before we get into it, I want to make the announcement that, I and Becky Grogan are going to start doing well, Becky is going to start coming in every month. So if you don't remember that episode, I highly recommend you go find it. And it's a marketing episode with Becky Grogan. She's been in marketing for decades. She says, probably, decades go by so quickly, and now she has niched down to book marketing.

And so she has a lot of ideas and a lot of thoughts in it. It's really hard to put into one episode and she was going to come back on just to do another appearance. And then I asked her, well, why don't we just do it monthly? Because marketing is something that authors need to do all the time and we need to be consistent in it. So I hope that you guys are excited for this news.

I'm very excited for this news. We I want to encourage you guys in your marketing. I want to help you in your marketing, and help myself quite honestly with her expertise. So we're going to go from like basics to, to intermediate, to advanced, and we'll probably bounce back and forth between them knowing that, you know, in any given month, somebody listening is in that spot, but you'll also be able to go back and listen to the other episodes. And then an exciting little part of it is that we will, we will start doing, live episodes.

We'll be recording them live. We'll be talking about a certain topic, but you'll be able to join us and either put your question in the chat or ask it, in audio, and then that will be the episode. So that isn't yet, we're going to be brainstorming that we'll be coming on with a couple of topics first. But if you do have topics that you would like to, talk about, definitely DM me, on my Instagram or TikTok. If you're part of my newsletter, which you should be, you should, you can just answer any email there and it will go straight to me.

So all the links are in the show notes below. There will also be, and we'll keep telling you she's going to come on very soon in the next few weeks and we'll give even more details. She'll probably be on, oh my goodness. It's the January already. Like she'll probably be on next week or, Yeah.

Or the next. So we definitely be be looking out for that. And I hope that you're excited about it because I'm excited. I know that we need help with our writing and our editing, but we also need help with our marketing. Right?

So, so let me know, click on the links below and let's get into how to start a story. So this is a lot for I realized that this sounds like it's for beginners, people who maybe don't know where to start. And some of you are really advanced in your writing. Like some of you are beyond me. You have more books out than I do.

And so maybe starting is not an issue for you and, and that's cool. Absolutely. So if you do listen to this and you have any like extra ideas or, even disagreements, I would love to hear from you, or if you just have different, different ideas to help out beginner writers. But this can also be for anyone who maybe has written in one genre for a long time and just as like needs some oomph to start a new genre maybe. So the first thing that I want to talk to you guys about when you are starting a, a book, if you are beginner, beginner, beginner, if you've never really written before, but you've sort of hit your reading era and the more you read, the more this story sort of forms in your head and you want to join, you know, the author talk or whatever it is.

But if you've never really been a writer, I would suggest that you figure out storytelling first, that you look into storytelling. And I am going to recommend the science of storytelling, by Will Storer. That is a really easy book to read. I think it's even easier to listen to. There is an audio book.

He has a nice British accent. I think that that goes into what story is and how it, how our brains absorb it. And that might sound kind of dry if you're more of a fiction reader, but it is really important to understand what story is. There are, I'm sure other, other YouTube videos about story, like what makes a story. It's a lot of people will say it's a beginning, middle and end.

Okay. But you can write a lot of words with a beginning, middle and end, and it not be a story that hits home. There are certain things that human brains look for when we're looking for story. Lisa Kron has a great course on it. I don't know where you can find it anymore because that the place that hosted it shut down, but Lisa Krone, her books are a little bit more in-depth to read.

Her name is C R O N, Story or Die is one of them. Story Genius is another. They're a little bit more in-depth. They're a little more, they're going to take a little bit more focus, I would say, but it is, it is important for you before you just start writing words, because if you're on social media and you see all these writers, you know, saying I hit 50,000 words, I hit 80,000 words. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are words that belong in the story, which is, is hard to sort of wrap your head around when, when you're starting out, because even I had had a difficulty figuring that out.

Even I, as though I'm, you know, like all of us have difficulty figuring that out. And especially if we haven't spent some time understanding what story is. You can also look into the trope thesaurus by Jennifer Hilt. Those are really good and they're a little less in-depth. But she does go in to just the main points of, of character building in order to add the tropes to the story.

So so you should, you can look at those as well there. And she has a great newsletter, Jennifer Hilt, h I l t. Of course, I will have the links in the show notes below. But what you're really going to want to do is look into the goal, motivation and conflict of your story. Now, backing up a little bit before we get into that, you need the next thing that you can start if you, if you really don't want to look into storytelling, which I think is a sort of a lifelong, learning curve, basically, like we should always be continuing to, continuing our education on storytelling, reminding us what humans are looking for in storytelling.

And again, like you could probably find quite a few, videos through Readsy talking about it. They just might go in-depth, more in-depth than you want to, but I highly recommend that you look into that. Now, the second one, the second place that you can start is building your character. So if you have this character in mind, we'll get to plot in a second, but if you have a character that has come to your head more than the plot, what you should do is build that character. So a little of this has to do with the genre that you want to write.

I assume if you have a story idea, it's, you know, the genre, and with the character you're going to have to go into the goals, motivation and conflict of that character. And this is going to be the easiest way to build this character out. I know that there are a lot of character quizzes out there, that are honestly, most of them are nonsense and not worth your time. They can be fun if you're stuck, I guess. It is important to know a little bit what your character looks like.

You know, where they're from. Sure. Like what did they do in high school? I don't know. Like some of that is important.

A lot of it is not, it's just not, but if you're going to have fun with it, go ahead. What is really important is the goal, motivation and conflict of your character, and then we can get into their backstory. Okay. So when we talk about goal, motivation and conflict, and that has gone into in-depth in both the science of storytelling and the tropes thesaurus, the original. She has lots of genre ones now, but the original, the trope thesaurus, Monica Lionel talks about it in her Substack a lot.

I talk about it on my email newsletter a lot. We're always talking about it because it's what carries the story through. And here's why this story is about the character and how they're making decisions in order to get their goal. Whether the character is human or alien or animal, that doesn't really matter. The main character has a goal for their, for this story.

So when we're talking about their goal, like find your character's goal, we're only talking about the slice of life that this story is, is encompassing for that character. So on the first page of the book, when we open that character, you know, it opens in medias res, it's like in the middle of their life. It doesn't start from when they're little, usually, like, unless it's a You, but it's starting, you know, like the doorbell ring, They're already alive. They've already lived a life. We don't know what age they are yet.

Maybe, you'll you'll probably find out in that first paragraph or two, but there's all, you know, media reses that we're starting, like, right in, we're being dropped into that person's life. And we know that as humans, it's not a big deal to us. Weirdly enough, we'll just accept it. And that's, what's so cool about the science of storytelling. It's just like, we just accept these things.

So media res is that we're just dropped into this book. So when we open the book to page one, that person's already alive, they've already lived a life and they have a goal in mind. There there's something happening for this book. This is where the author comes in of understanding where this person is in their life and what they're trying to achieve. Okay.

We're not talking like, I don't know, like if they're 25 and their goal for their retirement, I mean, unless that really has to do with the story, I guess, trying, I can't think of a reason why would be, but they have a goal. They're trying to get a certain job. They're trying to get a certain man. They're trying to get, you know, deal with a certain colleague or a certain boss. They're trying to get a certain murderer.

They're trying to, you know, whatever. So they have these sort of goals in mind. And this is, this is where you as the author need to understand what that goal for the book is going to be. So then the motivation is why do they have that goal? And this is, this is sometimes missing when I'm editing books.

And this is what I sometimes, spend a lot of time thinking about for my books is why do they want that goal? Why? What is their motivation for it? And if you don't have that motivation answered, you can write a lot of words that go nowhere and don't really mean anything and don't, don't really hit. Okay.

You need that motivation. Why do they want to get into Harvard? They have to have a motivation. They've always wanted to work for this one law firm. They're, they come from immigrant parents and, and they don't want to be like their immigrant parents.

They, they want to be a lawyer or whatever, and not struggle. Like there has to be a motivation to it and it can be depending on your genre. So like if it's sweet, the motivation is going to usually be a little bit more surface. And if it's a little more gritty novel, it'll probably they'll claim that to have a surface and they'll really have a deeper level. I'm thinking of that Adam Sandler movie where, help me out y'all, where the mom is the is a cleaner and she's clean like, being a maid for Adam Sandler and Tay Leoni, I think.

And then the the girl is always trying to be better, be better, be better. Right? And then the mom finally asks her what's wrong with being, being somebody like me. And she was getting to the deeper point. Right?

And the whole movie started with her, her applying to Harvard. You know, why, what is her motivation? And so that movie is a little more complicated than what we're getting into now, but the truth is like the motivation that the whole question of the story was asking this girl, what is your motivation for getting into Harvard? Is it to be rich or is it to be, I still want to be kind like my mother, I just, you know, want to use my intellectual abilities to their maximum. There's a difference there and that they will make choices.

That's the thing, depending on their motivation, they will make the choices that they will in the story. And those choices are going to lead to conflict in the story. Okay. So your motivation is that important. Why do we want this?

And here's the thing, when, as the story goes, I use Casablanca in one of my master classes where his goal at the beginning is to be left alone, because he's so hurt by Elsa, just not showing up when they were supposed to escape together and his whole motivation, you can see it in the first scene is he doesn't stick his neck out for anyone. He's just going to survive the war. Nothing is worth fighting for. Don't worry about it. And then here comes Elsa again, you know, of all the joints and all the worlds she had to, you know, walk into mine.

And his, his motivation in the first half of the story is like to basically show her that there's, this is not worth it. Right. And then it, his goal changes and he realizes that he doesn't want to be that person anymore. And that's, that's the whole character arc right there. So if you're asking me, you know, silently in your head or out loud, can their goals change?

Yes. But, but I highly doubt that that, that whole character arc didn't take any thought process. That took a lot of thought process for those writers to figure out how they were going to write that character. So that character, they wanted to have it be a hero at the end. How could he not be a hero in the beginning?

Okay. So you need to have the goals, the motivation and the conflict. The motivation is going to create the conflict because the, the motivation, like if I want to get into Harvard, no matter what, I'm willing to step all over people. And if the next, if my best friend suddenly becomes, closer to valedictorian, she's trying really hard, let's say, and has always been behind me. Or let's call her Laura, has always been slightly behind Laura and Laura loves her best friend, but really she thinks that she is better.

And then all of a sudden her best friend gets better grades and gets better awards and it looks like she might become valedictorian or maybe they've switched up how they choose the valedictorian. Maybe Laura is willing to do whatever it takes to become the valedictorian to get into Harvard, even if it means hurting her friend. And then the whole story can be about, well, she gets to the point where she's hurts her friend, she gets the val, you know, she realizes that she's probably going to be chosen for valedictorian and then she has to face the question, is it worth it? Okay. So this is going to take all of your, this is your thought process here.

Okay. Now, even if you are somebody like let's go into the third, like when you're starting a story, I'm never going to tell you to not start writing before you figure this stuff out. It is totally possible for you to, to write while doing this. I like writing. I'm willing to throw away the words.

That's the caveat there. If you have a character in mind and you already have scenes in mind, I would go ahead and start there. That's number three. Just start where you what's in your head. Just understand, I want to be kind to you and warn you, that you will still have to figure this out, the story, the goals, motivation and conflict, but sometimes it takes writing to figure that out.

Okay. So be okay with tossing the words. So if you have a, a scene in mind, for this story, go ahead and write it, write it out and then say, basically you would say what would happen next? Okay. And you, you think about the scene that you have and what decision that character has made and think about what would logically come next.

Okay. Now you still, again, have to figure out the goal, motivation and conflict. So writing right away can cause you to do a lot more rewrites and can lead to having to toss words. I'm okay with that because that's just sort of how I figure out my characters. So I just want you to be okay with that.

I want you to be warned. So if you have a story in mind and and you have one scene in mind, go ahead and write it, write it out, see how it feels, see how it flows. Do know that every scene has in itself a beginning, middle and end, right? There has to be a reason for that scene. I do have, a masterclass about scenes you have, and it goes into like what every scene should have.

And it's just six simple, simple steps of what should be in a scene, but definitely go ahead. Just remember, you might, you might toss some of these scenes and some of them might be fun that you can, you know, sort of add into other books or, you know, it's just that as the motivation and the conflict unfold in your head, you'll have to go back and see if that scene is worth it. But I have written out many scenes that started the story that didn't actually end up in the book, which is interesting. So it just sort of helped me solidify the character. And then it didn't actually end up in there, which is, that's just strange how our, how our brains work.

So go ahead and write the scene and just ask, you know, what would come next and check out some teaching on, scenes, liverightthrive.com. I will put that in the show notes below, and my masterclass on scenes. And, you can, I will say, you know, you can find books on this as well? And Weedsy as well. They have a great YouTube channel.

You can find a lot of information that way. Okay. So what if you have a plot in mind first? If you have a plot in mind, you probably think in a certain way that would go with plotting out the novel and you might have a little more, difficulty in developing the characters. So I, if you have a plot in mind, I would go ahead and try to plot out a timeline of what you see in your head for what will happen and understanding that every story, you know, leads up to the biggest conflict, right?

There are turning points and plot points, plot twists leading up to that. There's usually a plot twist turning point after the the conflict and then the dem deme deme demeagement, act that leads to the end. If you want to type out the timeline and that might help you visually, figure out what what's going to happen. And then what character did you need to add to that story? Understanding that if you're a little more plot oriented, you're going to have to think of a character that, that really has to be there in that plot.

So remember that the character of the story, the main character, it can't just be anyone. It has to be somebody that, that shows the reader it couldn't be anyone else. And so you have to figure out that, like, why couldn't it be anyone else? Why couldn't it just be the neighbor? Why has it gotta be this kid?

Alright. Or this, you know, whoever. There has to be a reason for it. So if you watch any of your sci fi fantasy romance, whatever, there is a reason why the character is chosen. So if you have your plot, you know, write out your plot points, plotter.com, is a great one to use to sort of write that out.

I'm going to put that in the show notes below. It's a nice visual of it, and then trying to figure out your, your character. And so what you would do then afterwards is go choose a character that most likely is in your head already, and then you're still going to have to go and find their, their goal, motivation, and how it fits into your plot. So you can start with plot, you can start with character, you can start with a scene. You know, it really just doesn't matter where you start.

It all depends on what truly invigorates you to keep writing the story. I want to also give you the option to write if you don't have a scene in mind, but you have a character in mind, most likely you have the character visualized as they should be at the end in their most hero state. That's what I like to call it, their hero embodied state. So write the ending and how they are at that bit, at that point at the ending. And why do I say that?

Because then you can, write, then you can figure out who they should be at the beginning. So remember how I said in Casablanca, they, if, if they were writing this story and maybe they started out with, we want him to be this hero guy that sacrifices love, like his second chance at love because World War II and is so much more important. And getting this guy out, who's the face of the liberation is much more important that he becomes this hero. Okay. So who does he need to be in order to actually become a hero?

Well, he needs to be an anti hero. So you can either make him a villain, which is difficult to get sympathy for from the reader. Right? And and it it can happen, but you have to have a a lot of goal, motivation and conflict. You're going to have to figure out how, at what point they're going to become likable to the reader.

Or you can sort of have him be the anti hero that's just like nonchalant and, apathetic in which that's what they chose. Right? So he's just apathetic, which leads to selfishness. He's just looking out for himself. So how do you then the plot twists, how do you get him to change his mind?

So if you have, if you're starting out, you don't really have a scene in mind, but you do have like a, a certain character or character idea right out the ending. This can even, work for plot. If you have most likely you have the ending in mind, like they, you know, the one of the heroes is going to fly his plane up into the, to the spaceship and blow it up and sacrificing himself for all of earth. Of course, I'm thinking of Independence Day because it's now on Netflix and my kids were like, what's this? So interestingly that that's a side character, right?

It's not the main character. There's reasons for that. So, character. Right? It's not the main character.

There's reasons for that. So write out the ending. You might write that first. Maybe they wrote it first as the Will Smith character doing it, and then they realized that's not gonna work because everyone will be so sad that Will that Will Smith killed himself. And it actually works better that the alcoholic dad does it, right, for his kids.

So so write out your ending and then make some time thinking about who that character is, who you've stuck in there, and then who they need to be at the beginning. Okay? And then decide if that ending if who is who is the hero in that ending? The main character or side character. So I think that that will help you get started.

Write several different versions of the ending. That is, an idea that a lot of people suggest. You can also write the beginning if you think you know the beginning. I would say, a lot of people say this to write the beginning. The beginning will probably change.

I don't think I've written, I'm looking at my books now. I don't think I've written a book that from the very beginning, beginning that that chapter never changed. Yeah. I think only an audience with the king, the first chapter just stayed the same. No stepping across the desert.

That one also stayed. Okay. So the majority of my books, whatever beginning I started with changed by the time I was done editing it. Okay. So you can write the beginning, maybe you have the beginning in mind, just understand here's the biggest, issue I see with that is most more likely than not, you see that character and they're already embodied hero state.

So you're going to have to ask yourself hard questions about how, how this hero is coming off, because if they're already quote unquote perfect, if they've already quote unquote learned their lesson and they already are the hero, then what's the story? Because the story is about them making choices, hard choices to reach the end goal. And in the, in the time of making those choices, they are maturing and changing as a human. Okay. And this is where the science of storytelling really gets into.

Like he gives lots of examples, which is why I like it so much, of how the character is changing. And I don't think that we realize this as readers and viewers until we're actually studying story. Okay. So again, I would go back to the science of storytelling and pick that book up, but just know that if you're starting with the beginning, really be hard on yourself to question how you're portraying that character, because more likely than not, you're portraying them already as a hero. And that's why a lot of people, disclaim and say, do not make your hero too perfect.

And what they're, they're not saying, don't make him too perfect in the like physical or personality sense. That's not the thing. They need to be the opposite of the hero there'll be at the end, at the beginning. Well, maybe not even the opposite. They just need to be a notch away.

At least they have to learn some sort of lesson. They have to mature somehow. They have to understand the world a little bit better. They have to, tweak their worldview by the end of it. That's just what story is.

It's, it's, it's walking with the main character and seeing what they would do and living that out, that experience without us having to do it. So, you know, if you are, walking with the main character, who's always in the cave, because they're so afraid of going outside because all of the mountain lions will eat them and then they discover fire, you know, like, do they take the chance and go, go see that figure out fire or do they stay where they are? You know, we are like, what would I do? We get to answer that question without leaving our house, which is wonderful. So that, that is why we're coming to story.

So just be careful with that when you're, when you're starting with the beginning. The last thing that I would say, if, if you have a story in your head, and you're not really sure where to start, you, you can pick up a lot of different courses. If you are somebody who likes to have, groups to sort of motivate you, there's a lot of them out there. There's a lot of coaches. I do one on one coaching.

There's a lot of group coaching. I would just say if that works for you, take the time to find that group. Okay. Take the time because that's money. That's time.

Really be purposeful in choosing, you know, what group or coach to go with. And understand that, you know, just starting to write is amazing in itself and that you will probably have to edit a lot. So it's okay to just start anywhere. Really. Just start anywhere.

Start with any of this. Take a couple of these, six and and dabble in all six of them, you know, try to write out the plot, try to write out the character goal, motivation, and conflict that might change from the beginning. If you're very, very, very new, that might even change because you might start with one thing. And as you write out the plot, realize that you need something else, you know, dabble in listening to an audio book on storytelling and, and the, the basics of it, or read it while, you know, trying to write the ending, write a couple of different endings, you know, try to go back to the plot, try to write that out a little bit, try to spend some time thinking about how, how all of these things are going to fit together, because it really is a lot more than just writing so many words a day, which is the easy thing for us writers to put on social media, right? It is a layering of all these different things that the character, the side character, the main side characters need their own goals, motivation, and conflict.

They need to under because they're going to come up against the main character. Right? The, you know, try to write the ending, try to write the conflict, try to write the beginning. You don't have to necessarily go linear, you know, write linearly either. So the the seventh point is just to start anywhere and start mixing them up.

Because in the end, all of these layers are going to have to be put in there. So it doesn't really matter if you are starting with one and then going to the next, or if you're somebody who just needs to take a little bit from every place. There really is no perfect way to start writing a story. It's just gonna come, it takes work, it takes effort, it takes, encouragement for, from others. We are here to encourage you.

I think it's great that you're starting a new story and that you're starting to write and just try and don't put pressure on yourself to have it done within a certain timeframe other than years, like maybe give yourself a year, but don't, you know, try to say, I'm going to have this done in six weeks. If you're very new, that probably won't happen. And if it does, it will probably need a lot of editing unless you really understand storytelling. But don't put the pressure on yourself if you can't, you know, keep up with it. It's really more important to me that you understand the storytelling aspect and you produce a product that you're proud of and that readers gobble up than to do it fast.

If you, if you understand me. Okay. So I hope that these points helped you, especially one through six. Those were the main points. And then the seventh point is just to start anywhere and mix them up if you need to.

Just, you know, maybe start with one. If it doesn't work for you, start with a different one. This is also a learning process on who you are as a writer as well. So definitely check us out next week, pencils and lipstick. We'll have more announcements about the marketing episodes on TikTok and in my stories on, on Instagram, check out the show notes below.

There's going to be a lot of links down there. And as always, you can always message me on Instagram or TikTok or reply to any email, that I have sent you, but otherwise, good luck in starting your story. And I will see you next week.