The Beginning Of A Story.

[DiaperFriend]

I need some help. Here is a beginning for a story my friend asked me to make for her (I'm not going to start writing it properly untill I have finished my other 2 stories). However, I'm not really sure if it's a good start. .__. So I'm going to ask for your opinion about it. =D

"

It started out as a normal day. A normal day, in a normal school, with normal people in normal schedule. And that's how he liked his days. John liked his days as normal as possible. Well, in a certain sence atleast. Johns life was simply described good. Or to be precise, there was nothing he could complain about. He had a good family, with both parents, older sister and a yonger sister, he had a part time job he enjoyed (and with good salary), he had lots of good friends, both men and women and school was going well. As such, he wished that everything would stay like that, as good as it was. That's why he liked normal days. And it started out as a normal day. But god had decided otherwise. God had decided to show him that life wasn't a well paved road. It had lots of bumps, both good and bad. It would be up to him to decide which one this bump would be.

It started out as a normal day.

But it would end in catastrophe.

"

I kinda like it, but to me it seems like it would better suited for some random sci-fi novel. @___@ So halp plzkthx. =D

[WBDaddy]

Bluntly, it's not a good start. It's a vague info dump, finishing with a ham-handed cliffhanger.

[DiaperFriend]

It's not suppoused to be infromative. I'm more worried about the wording. =D But I do agree that the cliff hanger thing is stupid. .__.

It's full of shit, and I guess I'll have to change it now. =D

[WBDaddy]

I didn't figure it was supposed to be informative - but that's how it read. I've read hundreds of low-grade fiction novels that lead off in exactly that form - "so and so was normal/average, normal/average family, friends, job, life, etc, but then one day it all went to shit." It's about as cliche an opening as there is in fiction stories.

My suggestion: Write a chapter or two worth of demonstrating how so and so's life is pretty normal/average, then dive into the plot you were trying to set up here without announcing it.

[NateSean]

It's not suppoused to be infromative. I'm more worried about the wording

When you're asking for help I'd highly recommend not getting defensive when someone actually offers it.

[RainbowDood]

What I like about it: You do have the foundation of an opening here, with lots of room to expand upon. What's the part time job? What do the parents do? How old are the sisters?

What could use improving: It's very very very compartmentalized as WB said- you could easily turn that paragraph into two chapters of a regular story. Just have to put the work into it. Also, the constant use of the word normal- generally when I write and want to get a point across by word repetition, I use the word no more than three times. That's it, end of story. Also, I try to put a sense of humor into the third use of the word. (Example: he had a normal house, with a normal white picket fence, with a normal dog name fluffy who, like every other dog, just had to use the neighbors lawn when he let Fluffy out to go).

How I would recommend you proceed: Keep all the details and expand upon them in your first draft- but don't start out with it as a normal day. Start the day with something not normal happening. For the first time ever, his alarm doesn't go off and he's late for work. Or his tire blows out during the morning commute. Or the coffee from the coffee machine burns his wrist as he's running out the door. You know, something that NORMALLY goes wrong. Because really, the perfect "normal" doesn't exist outside of I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver. The small calamities of "normal" life are what make it exciting!

Good luck and happy writing!