Am I the only one who starts writing , gets a nice plot straightened out , and has their characters already hatched out in personality. But you just see that white sheet of paper and your mind just goes blank. I just wanted to ask the COG community what great beginnings in they have encountered, or how they themselves would start out a story.
Because , the struggle is real.
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There’s lots of great ways to start a story. My personal rule is to start in the middle of something. A conversation, a fight scene, anything interesting. Just be sure not to make it too confusing for the reader.
Another pointer: If you just can’t write a beginning, skip it. I used to do this a lot. I would start writing what I imagine to be the next part after the intro and work it out from there. Personally, I find that it makes it much easier to get a feel for the story.
Yeah I try the skip it method, but then I have problems lining up an interesting starter like first suggested always first tried.
I once started out with an interesting beginning and some how it ended in a curse and someone dying… yeah I don’t try those anymore…
Funnily enough, I once tried too hard write an interesting beginning and it ended with the Protagonist losing their soul. 
I think it just takes some time to think about. You can probably try forcing out a mediocre beginning, and then improving it later.
Reading games with good beginnings couldn’t hurt either… Personally I like how Tin Star and Unnatural did it.
@seabean
I imagine if i had started unnatural like that, i would have ened up tearing apart the world at age 4 because my little brother woe me up, then died…
I rather like the beginning of gone with the wind. It was something to think about and gave you info on a character.
It really depends for each person. What sparks your interest and what motivates you to write. You can always make notes on what you want to write then mix match what you like about the notes then trash the bad notes.
I get my ideas from boredom which inspires me to write. The more bored I am the more creative my imagination gets, which I think is very weird. If you can’t think of a great way to start then read some stories, it could be literature, fiction, non-fiction, etc. That could spark something for you to write and hopefully until the end.
Also if you ever find yourself in a writers block then these topics are really good to read. The answers given by the community are all interesting and worth the time to read about. You can even get inspired on how they make their games interesting if they hit a wall or they think something is not really working.
Dreaded Writers Block
Not exactly writers block?
Writers BLOCK! - What do I do?
I usually have a ‘suddenly waking up’ moment. You wake up on the deck of a burning ship… You wake up from a strange dream… You wake up and someone is standing over you with a knife…
@honeymichie
Yeah I write down any interesting prompts and ideas I like . Its just getting them put together is like trying to sow a shirt without a knot in your thread. It all just comes apart.
Thanks I’ll check out.
@Crotale
Yeah it happenes a lot in cog. Its kinda like an over used cliche in COG at this point. It works if the next scene is interesting .
Yeah, ‘waking up’ is a big cliche in all fiction… no one really likes reading it, but it sure is easy to write (I do it all the time). I’d advise against it, unless you wake up somewhere particularly interesting…
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@SweetScarlet I that is the challenge. We can create ideas, but putting it all together is like a puzzle. The more you puzzle fits the more satisfied you’ll get. Just try to stick to your main idea then branch it out slowly so you won’t get overwhelmed.
@Crotale I usually dream waking up with me holding the knife not the other way around lols.
@seabean I agree that waking up is cliché and I also agree that it is the easy one to write. Probably an interesting thing to make is the MC waking up and find all the males/females disappear and you’re MC is the last male/female in a world full of males/females. Yay! Harem land forever!
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@SweetScarlet I completely understand your pain here. I definitely struggle with how to start things, and also how much information to drop and when. Like, I don’t want to info-dump on anyone because that’s boring, but I do want a reader to have a fairly general idea of what’s going on, or enough of one that they don’t get frustrated and leave. I almost stopped reading Game of Thrones the first time because, while I called some of the plot twists a mile out, there were just so many names and references to events and stuff with absolutely zero explanation, and I found it mildly infuriating.
Trying to write a good beginning is so much more than trying to pick a decently-interesting place in the plot (though that’s definitely important). I think all the things to consider can make it feel like a daunting task. The way I generally handle anything like that is to try and break it down into the smallest pieces possible. Those always feel a little more manageable.
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The struggle is real.
It’s just that I think begins should be one of the most important parts in a piece of writing, not just choice script.
Though a cog includes a strange advantage of interacting with the writing which can also be interesting.
@honeymichie That actually sounds like and extreme my writing would take me.
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I agree it might also turn out pretty well this way, they see the line ,
you wake up in a dark room… and then BAM, and a robot riding a t rex , riding a unicorn, riding a stunt plane, which is filled to the brim with butter scotch pudding and being drove by a women with a fabulous beard.
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Well that excalated quickly…
I feel you I run into the same struggles with getting started . I alway find it impossible uless a spark of insanity hits.
Choice of the Dragon has the best beginning out of any Choice game. It sets the scene and mood immediately, in very few words, and immediately thrusts you into the story letting you take control of theaction.
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I liked the beginning of Deathless, for the same reason. Personally, I think the most important thing about the very beginning of a CS game is that it match the tone and pace of the rest of the game. It’s perhaps less important in traditional fiction, but with interactive fiction, I think the experience is much smoother when the intro matches the game tone. Is it slow but steady and a little creepy? Is it full of action and people doing crazy things?
Of course, the flip-side is starting out with a certain tone and then flipping it on its head a while later without much warning for the surprise or drama factors. I can’t think of any CS games off-hand that use this sort of paradigm, though.
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I remeber hearing something. About nola is burning that once you get past the free trial everything changes completely. It still technically counts as a beginning.
Choice of dragon was the first cog I ever played. I just wish the mc could have gotten more personal with characters. Even if they were dinner… oh the good old days.
Sort of? I mean it introduces some fantasy elements, but it’s all still killing, burning, killing, burning, very similar tone unless I missed something somewhere.
If your dignified and choose to not burn everything to a crisp. There are a few characters who make appearances. Not just queen 1 king 2 peasant 457 , like the mage was a familiar face and I would have wished for a personal interaction with more characters like him.
Didn’t mean to derail conversation sorry.
Anyone have any wips with a good opening?
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