Writing Excuses 7.49: Beginnings Revisited

Published: Dec. 3, 2012, 2:53 a.m.

We haven't discussed beginnings this in a while, and when we did, we summed it up with "in late, out early." Now we're going to talk about what needs to be present when you're "in."\xa0We talk about tone, and how the tone you set in your beginning is a promise made to your reader, using examples from George R.R. Martin and David Brin. We also talk about how useful (and how dangerously trite) a labeled prologue can be, and how important it is to establish a setting, especially in genre fiction.
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