(I haven’t stopped laughing self-indulgently since I thought of the term page fright)

You know the feel, when you’ve got your idea and got your cast, maybe even worked out an outline, and you pull up the document and spend a good 20 minutes picking out a nice font and formatting everything just to your liking, you type out Chapter One or maybe even a snappy little chapter title and then you look at the empty page and you think ha ha. what.

Maybe you’re scared you’ll fuck up that first line, and after that it’s all down hill. Maybe you’re overwhelmed by the fact that you can literally choose any words now so how can you possibly know which ones are the best ones? Maybe you don’t know your beginning. The pressure is too much. It’s not really interesting anymore. Everything you put down feels clunky and weird. An object at rest stays at rest.

Here are some exercises that serve as the force which acts upon that object (you):

start just before the beginning

One of the writing world’s favorite phrases to shove down your throat is “Start at the beginning.” And while that’s true for when you are trying to level up your story to Publishable, this is draft one and it’s super easy to chop out a scene or two later.

Maybe you just need a little kick to get you going. Write a prologue from the perspective of the villain. Write a chapter one that takes place the day before the inciting incident. Write a flashback about an important moment in your protag’s childhood. Tell yourself you will cut this out later so there is zero pressure and then write.

start way before the beginning

If you need more time to build up your momentum, go back further. Tell your character’s origin story. Make a short story out of their early years. If there is part of your character’s backstory that affects who they are now/affects the plot of your story, explore that even if it doesn’t fit into the flow of your actual story. This serves both as momentum builder and character developer.

start after the beginning

Those first few pages are heavy. The writing world tells us our first chapter HAS TO immediately make the reader care about the characters don’t intro too many characters don’t have backstory get conflict in there as soon as possible must be able to hook a reader in the first 250 words if your first line is lame an editor won’t even bother to read more

Sometimes it’s just too much. 

Personally, I suck at beginnings. I never know where my stories need to start. My beginnings never feel right. My characters are awkward because I only know how to build characters within the context of a story, and the story hasn’t been established. And I’m always always always thinking This could be better this could be more powerful this should have more–

So, listen. You can come back to it. Your beginning will be so much easier to see, you’ll be so much more comfortable with the story world and the characters if you know where exactly your beginning is heading. Outline that first chapter, or the first two chapters, and then start where the outline ends and just dive in. Once you know where you’re going and what you’re doing, you can whip those first chapters out and you can probably leave some nice little foreshadowing hints that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of before.

start at the end

I know writers who say they can’t know the end of their book until they get there otherwise it ruins it for them, and to those writers I say ?????? That sounds fake but okay. (Do y’all not ever reread books? Also I’m glad y’all have your brain together enough to be able to form a coherent narrative arc without at least sort of knowing where you’re going but I do not have that ability)

(Personally I love knowing the ending before I start because I’m able to give every scene purpose and direction toward a certain goal, I am able to twist my subplots as I go to make everything more powerful for that finale, I love dropping little easter eggs and symbols as I go, but that’s just me.)

Starting at the end, writing that climax scene or that denouement scene first can be a great way to give your beginning direction. Once you’ve solidified in your brain where your story is going, it’s easier to let it go and to guide it efficiently.

You will certainly have to change at least a few things about your ending scene when you’ve worked through the rest of your story to that point because stories never behave exactly as we want them to, but that’s perfectly fine. There’s no pressure in writing that ending either because you know the ending is going to change, so you can worry about making it the best it can be later. 

~

The most important thing is to just get the words going. Anything that get’s you writing without having a panic attack is good and purposeful and beneficial, even if no one will ever read it ever again.

If you start writing, the words will come.