At the beginning: How my writing journey began
First - My Writing Journey
I’m new to the world of ‘taking writing seriously’.
Before taking the leap to leave teaching and pursue writing fully, I remember writing as a child and teenager. But then I became an adult and this funny thing called ‘life’ got in the way; I began my teacher training, then I became a teacher, my family circumstances were forever manic. All of this is true but at some point I realised I was using it as an excuse to start. To step into a world where I would have to believe in myself – something I’ve never been good with.
I started dipping my toe in the pages by researching. How could I take my writing seriously and develop my untrained creativity?
That’s when I came across the Writing For Young People MA at Bath Spa. Now I’m not a scientists, but even I knew that I needed more evidence to know that this course was the real deal and not just some dressed up webpage on the internet. So, I delved deeper. I looked at past anthologies, student declarations and I sought to know more about those I’d, potentially, be learning from – the lecturers.
Everything was telling me the MA was the right course for me. It would be the first and largest stepping stone towards getting my name on the front cover of book (of course this doesn’t include actually writing a coherent and somewhat entertaining string of 50,000 words). But at this point, I still didn’t know I was going to apply for the course or that I was going to leave one career in pursuit of another. That is, until I I went to the MAWFYP open day – or at least that’s what I thought I’d done.
What I actually did was drive to the wrong Campus and miss the MAWFYP Open Day. Maybe this was a sign? Maybe my awful sense of direction and inability to follow instructions on a webpage fully were in fact confirming what I had been telling myself; you have no business applying for a MASTERS in writing when you’re only writing experience has been crafting the odd paragraph on a once-in-a-blue-moon-evening you haven’t been stuck working until 11pm.
But something happened. Something that made (most of) that doubt disappear. I bumped into none other than Steve Voake. At this point, I knew the name from my research of the course, but I didn’t have a face to pair it with (I know, I was shocked too to find out that the Steve Voakes wasn’t making it big as a BookStagrammer or BookToker). But he did introduce himself as a course lecturer for the MAWFYP. We got chatting about what it was I wanted from the course and Steve asked me what I liked to write about and I just couldn’t stop telling him about all the things I wanted to write about. I explained about my worries around my lack of experience and how I thought I’d be miles behind everyone else who I was sure would be coming from other writing course or have backgrounds in writing.
But his response is one I’ll always remember. I have it pinned to my board where I write and when I feel like I’m not good enough or I don’t know enough about writing, I read it and it reminds me of why I chose to write, and why I am still choosing to. His response was,
‘Don’t compare yourself to others - they are not telling your story.’
Of course it wasn’t this one line alone that made me apply for the MA. There were other factors too, but having that permission that I was allowed to tell my story and not worry about anyone else’s, that was the final piece I needed to step over the edge into self-belief.
Second - What makes a good beginning
So, it’s pretty clear now that I haven’t been writing very long. I’m writing my first Middle Grade novel which encompasses friendship, loss and discovering one’s place in the world. Not to mention the ghosts and the evil scientist and the creepy house.
One of the many brilliant things I’ve learned from my time on the MA is that none of that matters if the reader can’t, or won’t, make it past the first page. Any good book must draw the reader in from the very first line even. The first line has a huge task in that it has to leave the reader feeling hungry for more.
Here’s some examples of where the first line of a book has pulled me in and there’s been no chance of letting go…
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” – Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone, J.K. Rowling.
“They shouldn’t have been out on the snow.” – FrostHeart, Jamie Littler.
These first lines may seem like just any old sentence. But they’re so much more than that. They’re the introduction to everything. They show the threat of change. In Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling is setting the Dursley’s up as the normal and any first time reader of the book will be able to guess that ‘the normal’ is about to be shattered.
In Frostheart, Jamie Littler makes us ask questions. Why shouldn’t they be on the snow? Who are they? Are there secrets hiding in the snow? Raising these questions in the readers minds means they are drawn to need to read on to find the answers.
Activity – Recreate The Opening Line
Take a look at this book’s blurb - The Care and Feeding of my Pet Black Hole, Michelle Cuevas. (Or you can choose a random book from your bookshelf if you’d rather, whatever floats your boat).
Thinking about what makes an opening line work, have a go at writing your own opening line for this, or indeed your chosen, book.
What will make the reader desperate to move on to the next line and the next and the next?
Now do the same for your story. And remember, you’re the one who gets to tell your story, no one else.