Everything writing...everything Wattpad [Complete]

[8.4] Because there's more than three ways to start a story... [4/4]

And now, we’re here.

Earlier, by which I mean a lot of months (read: years) ago, I’d embarked on the journey of enlightening all the grasshoppers across the globe on how to start their stories. Four parts were promised, and this is the fourth.

Quick recap: There’s three other options, which are equally amazing, as shall the following options be (and as everything that I type out is), all previously uploaded. A very detailed walkthrough on how those beginnings are to be handled has already been uploaded, so all I’ll offer now is what they may be referred to in layman’s language: Alarm Clocks, Hi…my name is, and Nightmares.

There is just one more key method of starting a story remaining, which I shall get to in a bit. You’ll want to consider this for one of your other stories, and after that, I’ve got a few wonderful propositions from other enlightened grasshoppers which I consider to be viable alternatives, too.

Other stories, master? How do you know they have other stories?

They’ve been reading my guide, o foolish one.

Forgive me master, but I am still confused.

By now, they have summitted the peak of popularity. Popularity means demands for more books have been put forth.

Ohhhh. I see! How wise you are, master.

Let’s just already go there!

 Profiling

If you’ve done psychology, or watched Criminal Minds, or…basically not lived under a rock for all of your life, you’d know that profiling is very important in the world. In fact, Edexcel suggests Offender Profiling to be a contribution to society, and the criminal world has practically illustrated its importance the best, where profilers painstakingly amass individual details about a suspect and piece them together to produce a complete image which has all the bits fall together to give the impression of one complete person.

Well, it’s the same thing in the world of writi…er, Wattpad. The gist being: it’s very very important to have profiles.

Having profiles, master? But isn’t this about starting a story?

It’s simple: get to the point. Depending on your tastes, you may want to name all the characters in order of importance, and separate them into main characters and otherwise. So, for instance, we can have this:

MAIN CHARACTERS! (This is to draw the attention of your readers, and also to help you out. It’s rather brilliant, and I’m not the only one to say so. As your story progresses, or maybe after a long break, readers and yourself may forget who’s what and what they look like. A bold title will help you and your readers locate this section quickly. The use of exclamation marks has been discussed previously.)

Name: John Smith

Age: 16

Appearance: really ripped and hot.  

Cover: High school student.

Real identity: super spy.

Name: Janet Smith             

Age: 14

Appearance: really pretty.

Cover: John’s sister.

Real Identity: Agent for the enemy camp but actually also John’s sister.

Name: Anna Patel

Age: 16

Appearance: Extremely ugly

Cover: Newspaper editor

Real identity: Newspaper editor