[PREV - ARISTOTELIAN_LINES]    [TOP]

ARISTOTLE_BEGINS

                                         July 30 - October 9, 2018
From Section VIII:
                                                      ARISTOTLE_POETICS
   "A beginning is that which does not itself
   follow anything by causal necessity, but after          CHANCES_ARE
   which something naturally is or comes to be."


So the beginning *by definition* is something that has
to be at the begnning, it's the one move you're allowed
to make that is not probable or necessary-- it's a point
that woiuld be excluded from the main line of the story
by Aristotle's law of P&N.


The fiction writers I'm familiar with don't at all
approach beginnings this way.  The beginning is more
typically defined as "the latest place the story can
begin".  Before anyone is likely to care about
whatever extreme event you're basing the story on,
there's bound to be a need for a certain amount of
scene-setting, some character establishment-- but you
don't want to spend *too much* time on that stuff.

I've heard the "tiger-in-the-air-over-the-girl"           To my eye, the
beginning referred to dismissively as being an            opening for
approach that *editors* love... implying that *real*      "Raiders of the
writers insist on establishing some background first.     Lost Ark"--
                                                          plunging a
                                                          character you
  On the other hand, Dashiel Hammett                      know little about
  was well known for doing a good                         into an action   
  job of leading off his short                            sequence -- is   
  stories with a line of dialog,                          disconcerting,   
  again starting things relatively                        and not in a 
  late, dropping you in the middle                        good way.             
  of a scene.




--------
[NEXT - ARISTOLE_ENDS]