The Intergalactic Highway

I have this problem and I bet others do too.

How many of you hate it when you have this prologue or chapter all planned out but then you get stuck because you don't know how to start it?

I get this all the time usually especially the first chapter.

Right now, I'm having that problem. Grr

I have the opposite problem. I can start a story easily enough because there's enough freedom to create essentially any set up. But once the premise is established, I find myself having a hard time making the rest of the story folly logically from it.

For starting the story, if you have an idea in mind, consider who it is that you want to introduce to the reader, and what light you want to begin portraying them in. The first chapter can easily just be a narrative look at those characters, whether they're in situations that directly relate to your overall story arc, or unrelated situations. The first chapter, should you choose, is also an opportunity to present the main conflict, but that could be saved for later on.

A thriller, for example, might start out with the main characters in an everyday situation (they're all working at Best Buy) with something just slightly eerie running underneath it (Hey, Jen called in sick?) or even nothing amiss at all. Later chapters might build on the suspense until the conflict is fully revealed.

Even then, an author could choose to write a thriller with the frightening situation hitting the reader in the face from the first page (although this would require particularly inventive work to make the reader care about the characters).

So what you choose to write in each chapter will often have to do with how and what times you want the reader to react. Anyways, if you want to talk to someone about a specific story's opening, I could try to help.

I finally got a start on it and it is going well. YAY

Though because you have offered, I will consider you for advice if I have this trouble again in the next one. XDDDD I always take alot of time getting each chapter started.