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Action

4 (40%)

Dialogue

4 (40%)

Setting

2 (20%)

Total Members Voted: 9

[RokofAges75]

So like I said in the thread I made yesterday, I'm taking this class on writer's workshop.  It's a class for teachers, on how to run writer's workshop in our classrooms, but in some ways it's also a writing class because we also participate in a model of writer's workshop to see how it works from the students' point of view.  So we have to write, as well as read and learn about how to teach it.

Today we worked on leads for the personal narrative we have to write, which is just how to start the whole thing.  We had to experiment with different leads - starting with action, starting with dialogue, and starting with setting.  Then we can choose whichever one we thought worked best to write our rough draft from for homework tonight.

I realized as I was working on this and looking back at what I wrote for the class yesterday, my first attempts at every scene I started always started with setting.  I realized that, lately, this is true in my real fanfic writing too.  Who knew, but apparently I am a setting person, at least for setting up a scene - makes sense.

So I thought this would make an interesting poll, just for fun, to see where everyone lies.  Think back - or even look back - at some of the scenes you've written recently, or over time.  You probably use a variety of all three types of leads, but which one do you tend to gravitate towards the most?

If you need examples, I'll put them in the next post.

[RokofAges75]

Here are examples of the three types of leads.  I was working on a piece about "firsts," and I chose the first time I slow-danced with a boy, who was my big crush at the time.  These are the three different leads I wrote for it, actually in reverse order of how I wrote them.


Action
My heart pounded like a jackhammer against my ribs, as I started across the gym floor.  My steps were timid, hesitant, yet I tried to move quickly, eyes wide and alert as I looked around for him.  All around me were bodies, pressed together in little clusters.  I squeezed past them as I made my way to the middle of the gym...


Dialogue
"Oh come on, Julie, let us ask him."
I shook my head.  I could feel myself already starting to blush.
"Come on!" my friends begged.  "What have you got to lose?"
I hesitated.  "What if he says no?"
"Well, then he's not worth dancing with, anyway.  Besides, he'll probably say yes," insisted Jenn, as if she had any more wisdom about the inner workings of a 12-year-old boy's mind than I did.
I shrugged helplessly.  Realizing I had no other defenses, they continued to push.  "Let us ask him," pressed Erin.  "C'mon, you know you want us to."
I sighed in defeat, but even as my face started to burn, a little smile tugged at the corners of my lips.  "All right."


Setting
The gym was stuffy with the bodies of a hundred some seventh and eighth graders, but the heat wasn't what was making me sweat.  The Christmas dance - only the second school dance I'd been old enough to attend - was winding down, and I still had not danced.


What I find funny is that I started with the last one, with the setting, then wrote the dialogue one, and then wrote the action one... but actually, if I were going to write a rough draft on this prompt (which I was going to, but I changed my mind and am gonna do a different one instead), I would probably just end up combining them, since they kind of go in order of what happened anyway.  Apparently that is why I'm so wordy, if I'm taking three short beginnings and combining them into one big one on every scene LOL.

Anyway, those are some examples of what the three types may look like for the same scene.

[mare]

I voted for action because I usually start things out that way. Sometimes I do with dialogue but I rarely use setting. lol Interesting.

[Rose]

With me, I usually start with action I think. Usually I have someone pacing or looking around or something lol. 

[cabybakes]

I mix it up, do a little bit of all of them, depending on what is going to happen in the chapter and what I am trying to get across. 

[Sakabelle]

Dialogue, definitely.  My character are always talking!

[Chaos]

I never really thought about it, but going back and spot checking some of my most recent fics, I guess I tend toward starting out with dialogue. However, that said, most of my dialogue is used to convey the setting and/or something major going on action-wise, so it was still hard to pick just one of those things. lol. But the first story I opened up of mine, 4 out of 5 chapters started out with dialogue, and the 5th would have if there'd been a 2nd character in the scene--and the first line was definitely a line that could have been spoken.

I do know that for me it's important to get all 3 of these things in as early in the chapter as possible--without it coming across as trying to get all of these things into a scene as early as posible. To me. it's easiest to do that using dialogue. Example from one of my most recent unposted chapters, the first line of the chapter starts with spoken words, but also establishes the action of the scene and the location:

“I’ll take this one,” I request as I select the best of the lavender roses.

Given, it's not a terribly action-packed scene, but yes, establishes the action(s) of buying flowers and preparing for a date (of sorts). It's also (I think) pretty obvious that the character has to be at a flower shop. From there I continue the dialogue between the character and the flower-shop girl to build the character (it's the first chapter from that character's POV) and to set up his "date" in what I think would be a more interesting way than using prose to describe what he's doing. So the scene does revovle around the dialogue, but it uses the dialogue to drive the action.

[Sinara]

Mostly, I open up my scenes with dialogue because through words, you can have them establish the scene. You can have them describe the setting or action they are about to do. You can introduce a new scene. You can do almost anything with dialogue. But I also do a fair bit of the other two, as well. A lot of it depends on the story. The general mood/tone of the story helps to delegate which type of intro I use. If the overall mood of the story is happy, I tend to use more dialogue. If the overall mood is horror or sad, I use more setting. If it's darker or dramatic, I use more setting. It all depends. But dialogue is the most used one for me.

[fracktrain]

I also do dialogue first