Thoughts with Prael 1: Fanfic Openings

So, uhhh, welcome to another instalment of Tavern Talk, where unfortunately, I am alone today. - Prael

This is the first in hopefully many chapters where we’re planning to open a little portal into our minds and talk about how we approach certain aspects of writing fanfic/smut.

Of course, there’s no objective answer on how to write. The intention here is to give an insight into how I approach things; it is not to be taken as gospel. I’m just a guy on the internet who writes things. I’m not qualified, but I hope you find it interesting.

So with that said…

Thomas Fuller said that “all things are difficult until they are easy,” and writing is no different. Sorry, that was pretentious. I’ll stop. But the point stands, the start is the most difficult part of any fic, in my experience.

How you start a fic is crucial, both to you and your audience. You have to set a tone and a pace, you have to build a scene and a world, and the characters in it. There’s no denying that it’s incredibly daunting. However, it’s a hurdle you have to jump over before things get easier.

You can achieve a lot of the heavy lifting for your fic in just the first few paragraphs, and hopefully, by offering my thoughts and example below, you too can get over that hurdle.

Opening a fic is an audition. You have probably noticed this yourself while reading, but often those first few paragraphs are important for deciding whether or not you are going to continue reading. Capturing the interest of a reader should be as much of a goal as setting up the story in those opening paragraphs.

So, what makes a “bad” opening?

It’s hard to say something is objectively bad, but there are some things I always try to avoid:

Cliches:

I’m talking about the “Your alarm clock blares, you open your eyes and see it is 9 am. The day is just starting and…” and the “It’s a rainy day in Seoul, and people are walking with umbrellas. The sky is grey and…” If you’re going to use something like this, without a specific reason, then it may fail to capture your audience, and in many cases, it’s an unimportant detail.

(If your story has rain or weather as a constant theme throughout, then you have a reason to open with that, in which case, it’s fine.)

Heavy exposition:

If you open a fic with a heavy wall of text and information, it can often be overwhelming. While it may be tempting to introduce the characters, the location and setting and the backstory/lore, in order to ‘set the scene’. An overload of information can often make a reader only soak in a small amount of what you tell them, leading to confusion as well as boredom.

So, what makes a “good” opening?

Make the reader curious:

Giving just enough exposition to contextualise a scene, while leaving questions in the mind of the reader. For example, if you’re going to introduce a character, then consider giving a few key details, but leave some parts a mystery; this makes a reader interested in learning more about the character and the situation. We don’t need a DnD fact sheet to open the story. You don’t need to tell me that your girlfriend Chaewon is a surgeon; maybe we can just point out her uniform in a later paragraph?

Consider giving the reader just enough to make sense of a situation, and then reward them later in the story with further context.

Opening at the right time:

A simple way to say this is ‘enter late, leave early.’

What this means is to think about starting the story at the most interesting part of a scene. If your main character is going to a bar and meeting Chaewon there. Don’t start the scene in the taxi, or outside the bar, or when you first walk in; start it right at the core of the scene. You don’t need to spend time walking into the bar and telling the reader all the details of the people in the room, and its exact layout. Don’t waste time focusing on describing the staircase or the security, unless it’s core to the plot.

Throw the reader right into the meeting with Chaewon. Trust the reader to fill in the smaller details in their headcanon; it helps to build immersion within the scene. It also saves you from running out of ways to describe the random tables, the columns, and the beams in the roof.

Set your tone, as the narrator:

One of the most important things about writing a story that will be remembered is to have a personality as the writer. You, the narrator, are as much a part of the story as the characters.

If a character is interacting with the world or another character, it can be easy to just tell the reader what is happening, but you, as a writer, can offer your own opinions, either bluntly or subtly. Readers can agree or disagree; it doesn’t matter, but it creates engagement with the story. Your personality shines through in the way you approach describing anything, which is why it’s better to propose a situation to the reader with some ambiguity, rather than explain it thoroughly. Doing this early can engage your reader. Just be yourself!

Conflict, actions, problems:

By introducing something that requires a character to overcome/navigate early, it allows you to introduce the setting or the characters through their actions and reactions to the incident. This can be an internal conflict, an introduction of another character, a conversation, or an action scene, to name a few. By having your characters interact with a situation, it’s an immersive, effective way to show off your character's key traits without just dumping the info outright.

Consider opening right into colliding with waitress Chaewon, or walking in on your colleague Kazuha arguing with her manager. These are situations where you can define a character’s personality in how they react. Does Chaewon snap at you? Does she apologise because she’s always doing this? Does Kazuha break down into tears? Does she storm out and quit her job? You’re telling me so much more than an info dump ever could.

The above list isn’t extensive, but it sets out some key principles I like to keep in mind when opening a story. I have some examples that I recommend checking out and thinking about the above. Checking out examples before writing something yourself is always good to get the creative mind thinking.

Examples of openings I really like:

https://fanprose.com/stories/triple-dog-dare/chapters/1

This story by Majorblinks is a perfect example of ‘opening late’ and introducing a conflict in just the first few lines, and therefore piquing curiosity.

Within just a few seconds of reading, the following traits, lore and intrigue are shown/created:

You have a history with Wonyoung, but we are left wondering what the history is.

Wonyoung speaks in a cold and concise manner, which gives us our first indication of her personality.

You bump into Wonyoung unexpectedly, which creates an incident and a problem for our characters to solve.

This story starts at the perfect time; it doesn’t use a long setup of you getting to the alleyway or describing the alleyway in depth, as it’s not important to the story being told.

https://fanprose.com/stories/seasons/chapters/1

At first look, this story by Gray may appear to break my advice of avoiding cliches like the weather. However, it’s a perfect example of how advice should be ignored when there is a reason. In this story, the weather is a strong theme throughout. The opening is still strong as it sets up a problem, the impending performance and the embarrassment of stepping on the stage. It creates a mystery around the girl who didn’t laugh. There is a lot of intrigue built into this opening scene.

https://fanprose.com/stories/days/chapters/6

This story by Valentine Drifter is an example where there is less action and conflict in the opening and more exposition than the two above. In just one line, however, the author brilliantly set up intrigue with the use of a single word: was. This immediately introduces a problem and gives you a reason to continue. The following paragraphs serve to enhance the opening line, creating an emotional weight to the situation and indirectly introducing two characters. The author introduces you, the reader, as someone kind, caring and considerate while introducing the interests of Sakura in order to build her character amidst the overhanging question: why was it going to plan, and what happened?

https://fanprose.com/stories/real-bad-business-2/chapters/1

This story by Xndrpndr is a great example of setting a tone as a narrator. It may not be the most obvious factor when looking at good openings, but having a strong narrative voice is important. The author here is setting the scene, introducing characters and opening right into action. But the thing I like the most about this opening is that the narrator’s voice is clear, and it has personality. It’s a little intangible and hard to specify down to a certain phrase or word. But Xndr adds a lot of lines that prompt you, the reader, to think, and it becomes a conversation between the writer and the reader that engages the reader.

The opening is purposefully vague. We learn that there is a history with Winter and that today is different to normal. We learn that Minju is “Today’s exhibit”, posing questions about the previous exhibits and what came before and what may be yet to come. And all this is done opening right into the smut? So much said with so little.