by Anne R. Allen
Let’s face it: first chapters are hard.
When you’re writing your first draft, you’re writing for yourself—getting to know your characters and their world. You should let everything spill out on the page free of your inner editor’s censorship.
But when you’re revising, it’s a different story. You’ll need to cut a whole lot of info you’ve put into the opening chapters. Don’t delete anything—save it for later to scatter through the book.
You’re going to end up with an opening chapter that’s way different from the one you started with. And that’s as it should be. In fact your entire original Chapter One may end up being one of those darlings you have to kill.
I usually write the final draft of my first chapter last. That’s because I won’t know exactly what needs to be in there until I’ve got the ending all polished up.
An ideal first chapter should do the following things:
1) Introduce the main character.
You want to open with a scene involving the protagonist. Yes, I know the standard opening of every cop show on TV involves random strangers discovering a body or getting killed. This is something that works great in drama but not in a novel.
Whoever we meet first in a book is the character we’ll bond with. If that person gets killed on page five, we feel cheated.
We don’t need to know a huge amount about the MC right away, but we need to know enough to care. You can be very sketchy about looks (all Jane Austen told us about Elizabeth Bennett is that she had “fine eyes”.)
We probably need to know gender, age and maybe social status/work/position in society, but most of all, we need to know the emotions the character is feeling in the scene—preferably something the reader can identify with.
Here’s how I open Ghostwriters in the Sky:
“The subway car was so crowded I couldn’t tell which one of the sweaty men pressing against me was attached to the hand now creeping up my thigh. I should have known better than to wear a dress on a day I had to take the subway, but in the middle of a New York heat wave, I couldn’t face another day in a pants suit.”
I haven’t used any description of the protagonist, but we can tell she’s
- female
- a worldly city dweller who takes things in stride
- not rich enough to take a taxi
- employed in some way that usually requires wearing a suit
- way too polite for her own good.
We can also identify with her distress at being groped. She’s in an uncomfortable situation and we hope for her to escape without harm.
2) Make us care enough to go on a journey with that character.
This is trickier than it sounds. What makes us care? There’s no formula and no one thing will work for every reader in every genre.
Agents and editors are always telling us they want a “sympathetic” protagonist, but that doesn’t necessarily mean somebody you’d like to like to have as a friend.
Scarlett O’Hara is shallow and narcissistic, but readers have found her fascinating for nearly a century. Dexter Morgan is a sociopathic serial killer—not exactly a guy you’d want for a BFF. And who’d actually like to spend time with Lisbeth Salander? Even Jane Austen’s Emma is something of a witch.
You don’t have to present us with a protagonist as flawed as those characters. But they do need to have weaknesses. My sleuth, Camilla Randall, is terminally polite, and always believes things are going to be perfectly fine, although the reader can see sure-fire trouble looming.
Some people like a kick-ass-first, ask-questions-later character, and some prefer a more thoughtful, honorable hero. It will depend on genre and tone.
What readers generally don’t find sympathetic is arrogance, whining, or a victim mentality. A hero needs to be brave in some way, so let us see the potential for that right away.
3) Set tone.
You don’t want to start out a romantic comedy with a gruesome murder scene, or open a thriller with light, flirtatious banter. You want to immerse your reader in the book’s world from the opening paragraph. Since novelists don’t have music and visuals to set the scene, we need to use words that convey tone.
Long descriptions of weather or setting aren’t in fashion these days, but broad descriptive strokes can offer a lot in terms of setting the mood of your story.
My above opener is light and humorous. The sticky weather echoes Camilla’s sticky situation. In another kind of book, this could be a situation of grave danger, or something that would cause the heroine extreme distress. Then describing the humid weather in terms of darkness or heaviness would convey a different mood.
But you don’t have to use weather or description to set tone. Sharp, staccato dialog can convey danger, or a self-deprecating narrative voice can show we’re going to be in for some laughs.
4) Let us know the theme.
If you’re going to be dealing with a particular theme, you don’t want to hit us over the head with it, but give us some foreshadowing. Great authors can do this in the first sentence.
Look at how William Gibson began Neuromancer, the novel that defined cyberpunk: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” Gibson lets us know from the get-go this is about the dark side of technology.
I start my mystery Sherwood, Ltd with this paragraph:
“Anybody can become an outlaw. For me, all it took was a little financial myopia, an inherited bad taste in spouses, a recession—and there I was, the great-granddaughter of newspaper baron H. P. Randall, edging around in alley-shadows, about to become a common thief.”
You know right away we’re dealing with a theme of poverty, outlaws and thieves—echoing the Robin-Hoody title.
5) Let us know where we are.
Don’t give us a ton of physical description, but we need to know what planet/historical time period we’re in.
In spite of everything you’ve heard about showing-not-telling, it’s perfectly all right to give the reader some basic information in a straightforward way, as Jeffrey Eugenidies does in Middlesex:
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”
In SciFi and Fantasy especially, you need to do some world-building, but limit it to the absolute necessities and fill in the details later. Most new writers tend to tell us way too much about their fantasy world up front. You want to tell us just enough to allow us to picture the scene that’s taking place, but not bog down the action.
6) Introduce the antagonist.
An antagonist is someone/something that keeps the protagonist from his goal.
The concept of an “antagonist” is probably the hardest thing for most new writers to grasp.
You may think that if you’re not writing a mystery about a sadistic serial killer, or a spy novel where the hero must thwart the evil genius plotting to take over the world, you don’t need an antagonist.
But there’s a difference between an antagonist and a villain.
An antagonist can be a whole society, an addiction, a judicial system, or anything that might thwart a hero from achieving his goal. But you absolutely need one. (I found that out the hard way. I wrote a novel for 10 years that had no antagonist and I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t end.) The wonderful Kristen Lamb writes some of the best stuff I’ve seen on the subject of the antagonist, which she calls the Big Boss Troublemaker. Here’s one of Kristen’s great posts on the BBT.
7) Ignite conflict.
We need conflict not only in the opening scene, but we need to see an over-arching tension that will drive your plot.
In the Hunger Games, the burning question in the opening scene is who will be chosen for the games. But the larger conflict is with the Hunger Games themselves. When the conflict of the opening scene is resolved, we still keep turning pages because of the underlying tension from a bigger story question—how will Katniss survive?
Conflict does not have to mean an actual battle. In fact, starting in the middle of a battle can be awfully confusing for a reader. It’s better to start with something like the heroine preparing for battle by stealing her brother’s armor after her father forbids her to fight.
8) Give us a goal: tell us what your protagonist wants.
We need to know what he wants right now, which might be for the troll who just killed his companions to stop swiping at him with that pointy sword.
But we also need to know pretty early in the story what your hero really, really wants (apologies to the Spice Girls)—his ultimate goal, like maybe taking a magical jewelry item to Mount Disaster to destroy it forever.
I realize this ultimate goal doesn’t always show up in chapter one. But we do need a goal in chapter one that will lead to the ultimate goal.
9) Present an exciting, life-changing inciting incident.
This incident has to cause something to happen that will propel us to the next scene—and the one after that—and through the entire book. Think of it as the explosion that launches the rocket of your story.
This one is easier for some genre writers. If you’re writing a mystery, you can find a dead body and the story is off and running.
Or in a romance, the lovely Griselda can meet Lord Puddlesbury when his horse accidentally knocks down her grandfather’s vegetable cart and she vows to hate him forever.
But in other genres, it may be tough to get the inciting incident close to the opener. Do work on it, though, because everything else will seem like throat-clearing to the reader. Most readers aren’t going to admire your lovely prose until you’ve got a story going.
10) Introduce the other major characters.
“Major” is the key here. Don’t let minor characters upstage the hero in the opener. In fact, you’re better off without any minor characters in the opening scene. We’ve got so much stuff to cram in there, we don’t have much room for the maid/sentinel/pizza delivery person character who opens so many dramas.
We need to be introduced to Lord Puddlesbury fairly early on—or at least let us hear about him. Ditto Griselda’s bratty sister whose loose morals threaten to disgrace the poor but honorable family of vegetable mongers, and maybe the stalwart plowboy Jack, who has loved Griselda since childhood. But we don’t need to know about his Lordship’s groom or his tailor unless the bratty sister is going to run off with them in a scandalous ménage a trois in chapter ten.
A lot of new writers tend to clutter up the opener with colorful characters who never appear in the story again. This can irritate a reader, who expects people in the opener to re-appear and play an important role.
***
Hold on there, sez you. I can think of half a dozen bestsellers off the top of my head that don’t do these things.
Yup, I can too. I didn’t say these are hard and fast rules. But they’re something to aim for. If your prose is so mesmerizing the reader doesn’t notice, then more power to you. But for most of us mortals, our readers are happiest when they get as much info as possible in the opener.
If your opener doesn’t do any of this stuff—and most first drafts don’t—try this trick: try cutting off the first two chapters. Does chapter three give you a better beginning? Start there. Then feed us the info from the first two chapters a little at a time later on in the book.
How about you, scriveners? Are there any other things you absolutely want to see in an opener? Do you have hard time cramming all this stuff into chapter one?
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) June 9, 2013
Thanks for pointing out the antagonist doesn't have to be a villain. I used to stress because I'd been told I needed a villain opposite my hero, but none of my books have a distinct villain. They do have antagonists though.
Anne—Super list! Doing the final polish on the first chapter when the book is finished is crucial. Only then, do you—I really mean I—really know what the book is about.
Great advice! It's given me a lot to think about for my first chapter. I've actually been pondering who or what the antagonist is in my WIP–still trying to figure it out.
Some excellent pointers to a great opening, and I'm happy to say the opening of my WIP Unspeakable Things ticks a lot more of these boxes than it did when I first wrote it. Then I had a very atmospheric purple passage that I thought was lovely, but which left my first test readers completely baffled. At least I'm learning!
Alex–An antagonist doesn't have to be a moustache-twirling villain. This is probably the hardest thing we have to learn as fiction writers. The more complex the story, the more elusive the "antagonist" may seem, but we definitely need one.
Ruth–That's so true! We usually only know what the book is really about when we're doing the final draft.
Sarah–I do recommend Kristen Lamb's post I linked too. She's really good on antagonists.
Sophie–Oh, those purple passages! We all have them in our early work. Thank goodness for good critique groups and beta readers.
DG–I agree those rewrites can be painful and tedious, but it's worthwhile so you don't baffle the reader. And these days, with the "peek inside" function you want that opener to jump into the story and not confuse.
This is good. I'll soon be moving on to draft #2 of my wip and these are the sort of things I need to be thinking about.
Anne, thank you! You've done it again – provided some lifesaving tips for my book. I have been mulling over the first chapter for months. I wasn't feeling it and couldn't figure out what to do with it. Today, I finally scratched it. The second chapter is far more powerful and a better intro. I can dribble a few bits and pieces from the first. Thanks for the insight and that push!
Good blog!
Phyllis–I know it can be painful to cut those chapters, but usually you can get some of the info into later ones. I hope you still ended up with 60K words. Although these days, a novella might sell just as well.
ms–This is a good time to be thinking about this stuff–not when you were writing that first draft.
Tonya–I'm so glad I could help. I've had to get rid of more first chapters than I can count. We have to think of it as part of the process.
JL–Thanks!
This is a terrific list. I was mentally checking items off a recently finished ms. I've put this in a special folder so I can refer to it with my WIP and future manuscripts. Thanks!
Great reminders, Anne. Thanks for a timely post.
Thanks for the tips. I like checklists.
I've had to rearrange my scifi as you mentioned, to make for a better beginning. It's not an easy thing to do, but it was worth it.
Thanks for a wonderful checklist; my beta-reader just mentioned my first chapter needs to be tightened up and so this is a Godsend.
Great post. I recently finished my woman-in-jeopardy mystery, all 63,000 words, and then went back and cut the first three chapters. Talk about backstory! But I didn't waste time sending out that first version. Thanks to people like you, I keep learning. Thanks.
Heather–I'm so glad I can help with your revisions!
Samantha–Glad to help. Chick Lit Plus is one of my favorite review sites!
Rosi–Glad to help.
Christine–It's harder than it sounds, though isn't it? Not messing with that mess of a first chapter of your first draft is tough.
Linda–I hope your beta-reader approves of the list.
Emily–:-) I'm kind of intrigued by Lord Puddlesbury myself…
Thank you for featuring Chick Lit + and you have such a great list there!
Wonderful list of musts. This is exactly what I expect as a reader and what I hope to achieve as a writer. I write my first chapter then leave it well alone until the book is completed. There is actually some comfort in that somehow. Hum…
This was a great post, but now I really want to read the story of Griselda and Lord Puddlesbury…
Hi, Anne,
Thanks for this checklist. We often need thing POINTED out to us when were are in our creative muse. We can sometimes get lost in our worlds and forget about the what the simplest of things.
And also thanks for the links of publishers looking for new stories.
Anne, I love coming here and seeing what great insights you have. I still haven't found a lock that will hold my inner editor til I need her. She thinks the first chapter of the first draft has to be perfect. (may use that in a story somehow.) As a new writer I am like a sponge soaking up all this good stuff.
Thanks again.
Debi
Claude–The reason there aren't any rules for prologues is the general rule for prologues is: don't write them. Agents hate prologues.(I have a long list of quotes from agents who hate prologues in my book How to be a Writer in the E-age) Plus a lot of readers skip them. They want to jump into the story. If you do write one, make sure it has the same tone and themes as the rest of the book and make it as short as possible. And realize about half the readers will only skim it. If it involves characters that don't appear in the rest of the book, your readers will probably be annoyed.
Michael–moving from creative mode to editing mode takes a whole attitude change. That's why a lot of creative writing teachers suggest you let a draft sit for a week or two before you attempt revisions.
Connecting–I used to do that too. But obsessing about chapter one instead of forging ahead with the story is a kind of writers block. Fight that urge and get on with the story!
jp–It's true this list does follow the rules of journalism: Basically it's give people the Who, What, When, Where and Why. So if you write "true life" stories, you may write more like a journalist.
Marinate.. the one so important word my very first English Professor taught us.
Always let the book sit, the chapters sit, however you prefer to edit…and then go back and start the fun of dissecting each bit to take out all the unimportant and the unnecessary.
Some wait till the whole book is done..some do it per chapter or per few chapters…I write 3-4 chapters, give it a good marinade and then go in for the dissection. You’d be surprised with all the nonsense you’ve written in the heat of the flow.
Anne, a great checklist as always, thanks for sharing!
You do assume that your first chapter doesn't have a prologue…This is where I'd love to get your rules: what do you think a prologue can do that a first chapter doesn't? How do the two relate, if at all?
Ahaha, this is just what I needed right now. First chapters are my least favourite things ever – thanks so much for this!
It was interesting going through your list. I never really thought about these things but I am relieved to say I fulfilled the criteria. My books although classified as fiction are based on life experiences.
Perhaps the items you have detailed are successful because they most mirror true-life. Perhaps I just got lucky. this is something I will considder in future.
Charley–They do get easier. Honest 🙂
Simon–So you're one of the Wattpad pioneers! I'd be interested to hear how that goes. I'm glad your chapter has most of these points covered.
I read your post with quite a bit of trepidation as the 1st chapter of my next book has just gone live at Wattpad (with the whole book being published in 6 weeks time). But I think I got most of your excellent points covered!
I always go back and rewrite the first chapter when the book is finished. This post is definitely a keeper for my reference files, Anne. Thanks!
I was just thinking today…what happened to my main character's friend's friend who made a significant appearance in the first chapter? He he! I love reading the advice you give and I appreciated this list that actually makes what I'm working on seem much less daunting!
Great points, thanks for sharing these. 🙂
Alicia–That's what I do too!
Hope–I'm so glad it helps. Breaking things down into a checklist helps me.
SBibb–Thanks!
Great checklist Anne. I have just completed my very first manuscript and this guide will be perfect to reference as I start revisions to make sure I have all the bases covered in that important first chapter. Thanks.
Good checklist and it's reassuring because I've ticked all the boxes in the opening chapter of my novel. Perhaps if your don't introduce the antagonist, you introduce something that represents the 'other side'. Some novels have one protagonist battling against a number of 'enemies.'
Rechelle–I'm so glad this post was timely for you. Happy editing!
Christine–the antagonist should be "the other side". Each enemy is a representative of the bigger antagonist (Kristen's Big Boss Troublemaker.) If you have different antagonists for every chapter, you have episodes, not a novel.
Yours is one of my favorite writing blogs to read. So helpful! And now Kristin's will be another favorite. Thanks for this post. It's great to find that my new first chapter covers all of these!
Donelle–Kristen Lamb's blog is full of fantastic advice, and she posts five days a week. I don't know how she does it.
Congrats on having a first chapter that hits all the right notes!
This post was fantastic. I've just finished character preparation and I've been scribbling down notes in preparation to create my outline. I had a personal goal of getting all of these points down within the first five pages, and after reading this article, I've figured out how to do that. My notebook and I thank you, but my carpal tunnel is extremely upset after this post inspired me to violently place my thoughts on paper before they crept out of one of the many holes in my brain. Thank you, and I'll definitely be coming back soon.
Nicholas–I'm so glad this post helped. Although I'm sorry about the carpal tunnels 🙂 Sounds like you're a great planner! But do finish your book before you let yourself think of chapter one as set in stone. I always write the first paragraph of a book last. Best of luck with the novel!
I was to thank you so much for all of this. I always had a difficult time making the first chapter. I would always rewrite it and then destroy it. I literally wrote all these points down and answered them. These points helped me create a small outline that I can follow. Thank you so much
Rafael–First chapters are hard for everybody. What’s important to remember is that it’s a process. First you write it for yourself. Then you revise. And revise some more. Then you write the rest of the book. Then you rewrite the first chapter again. You don’t need an outline as much as you need patience and an understanding of the process.
I’ve been writing my novel for some time now and just recently started breaking it down, and the thing i always struggled with was the first chapter. I followed your checklist and it helped me organize better, but when i got to the inciting event i just had one question. Would, for example, a training session before a big battle be a good inciting event leading to the key event?
Mike–The inciting incident needs to be action that causes the protagonist to act. It sets in motion the entire plot. So when Dorothy gets tornadoed to Oz, or Luke Skywalker gets Princess Leia’s message–those are inciting incidents. .
Your training session can be an inciting incident if there’s a cause and effect going on. If the hero loses his magic sword, or is bested by the antagonist, who steals his sword, or he receives a wound- those are all great inciting incidents if he’s about to lose the battle or get captured or whatever.
But the incident must affect the protagonist and thrust him into the story.
The inciting incident is called “the call to adventure” in the “hero’s journey” theory of storytelling.
It doesn’t have to be in the first chapter. It can come in chapter 2 or 3. But it needs to come close to the beginning of the story, because it’s what sets the story in motion.
I hope that helps.
Hello Anne, I’ve been seeing your comments and you give great advice so I’m hoping you can help me. I’m starting to write my own book and I have the story lined up but don’t know how to start it. I’m struggling with the table of contents or should I just start writing? Thanks for your feedback.
Kimberly–I assume you’re working on a nonfiction book, since a novel doesn’t usually have a table of contents. I do think it helps to have an outline for a nonfiction book, especially a how-to But it doesn’t have to be organized like the TOC, which should be the LAST thing you write. (Some authors even put it in the back of the book these days.)
As far as fiction goes, jump in wherever the story is calling to you. Whatever scene is most vivid in your mind, write that. Then your characters will tell you what to do next. I sometimes start with the final chapter.
You’ll find lots of helpful advice on how to get started in your writing career in the book I wrote with superstar novelist Catherine Ryan Hyde, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE. Only $4 for the ebook on Amazon. 🙂 Details on my book page on this blog.
Absolutely loved the article. I’m going to refer to it in my blog. I found you in a search for first chapter editors. Now I’m going to check out some other articles here.
I’m currently working on the third draft of my book called Fallen Angels. The first draft was written back in 2012, I scrapped everything but character names from that draft and rewrote it in 2014. Now that I like where it ends, it’s time to fix some major plots holes and scrap about 10 chapters to be completely redone. The first thing I’m going to do is change the fast pace and slow it down by developing the main character, Rachelle. I’ve never been so excited for this! I was rather… Disappointed in the outcome of the book the first two times I drafted it but I know this is something I can be proud of now, thanks to these wonderful tips! I write on Wattpad under an alias, ReneeSGrace for those who would like to know, but up until now I’ve only had 1 book I was proud of and wouldn’t mind people I know reading. Hopefully this new draft makes 2!
Cheyenne–Congrats on resurrecting the old ms! Sometimes it’s tougher than writing one from scratch, but I know how it feels to have a book in your files that you know could work if you just put the time in.
We learn by doing, so we get better and better at writing. As our skills improve, we realize we can tackle what may have been too much to handle when we started.
Best of luck on book #2!
Great list! I’ve been working on my WIP for so many years I almost can’t remember my very first draft… I think the first chapter can be the most difficult to finish. It’s hard to feel ‘done’ with it, but reading through your list, and checking off items, is very encouraging. Thanks for a great checklist!
Jessi–I’m glad to hear the checklist helps! I always write the final draft of the first chapter last. 🙂
Thanks for the pointers, this is really gonna help me with my fantasy novel.
Ash–I’m glad it helps!
I have had an idea for a particular book I’m going to write, although my plot needs some tweaks, Chapter 1 has never made it, the villain is in progress, although the characters and such have been decided upon. I’ve been stuck like this for half a year or so. Chapter One is supposed to captivate you, and make you want to read more, but how to simply put the first words on it I can’t seem to do. Do you have any personal advice?
Timothy–This is an old post, and I’ve written a lot about first chapters since then, so you might want to put “first chapter” in the search window and click around. My most important advice to all writers on first chapters is WRITE THE FIRST CHAPTER LAST.. You’re simply not ready to write it yet. Get your story on paper–sketch out what’s going to happen in the first chapter but then go on and write the story all the way to the end. Then go back and work chapter one. Good luck! For more on how to do that, check out this post. https://selfpublishingsites.com/2017/01/first-chapters-start-your-novel-with-your-reader-in-mind/
So basically, if you’re writing something in the scale of let us say Homer’s Odyssey–with a series of layers–. Your first chapter has to be creative, describing where you’re coming from and where your going, as appose to just being on a boat fighting monsters and going to strange places with the reader wondering what the heck is going on. This makes sense, easy on the reader to follow.
Carly–It doesn’t matter if you’re writing an epic like the Odyssey or a cozy mystery–let your reader know the basics up front: who, when, what, where, why. You want tension, but you also want the reader to know where they are, who they are reading about, and why they should care. Because otherwise, they won’t. 🙂
Anne’s blog is teaching the very basics to unblock writers’ doubts, and discomfort, to increase writer’s self-estime, to go ahead and write freely for a first draft including the 10 points which makeup a first chapter. Encouraging. Many thanks.
Cassiopeia–We do encourage authors to learn to write without the restrictions of petty rules. Get the idea on the page, then worry about editing. And always write the final draft of your first chapter last!
This post was truly worthwhile to read. I wanted to say thank you for the key points you have pointed out as they are enlightening.
Paul–Glad it helps!
An amazing post with great tips as always. Anyone will find your post useful. Keep up the good work.
Nelibeth–Many thanks!
Great advice on the first chapter. The first chapter I had in my head but also the last chapter in my head. I am on the 5th chapter, but I know I have go back to the first and re-write it, good opening dialogue, but needs more description of characters and European location. I have lived in Europe for a few years so know the feel of Holland and Germany, where the story takes place but it takes place in 1951 post war. I have been doing a lot of research on the time but really want to be accurate. Any advice on foreign locations and time periods?
Jeanne–Don’t go back and rewrite chapter one until you’ve finished the novel. Then you’ll have a whole book to review before you figure out what a reader needs to know from the get-go. As far as historical detail, I lived in Amsterdam in the heady, hippie days of the 1970s, but I don’t think that will help you. 🙂 For Historical details, Google around and see if you can find any memoirs of the post-war years in Europe. I know it took about a decade for economies to get back on their feet. And even in the 1970s, people with German sounding names were shunned and if they spoke German, they couldn’t get served in restaurants or bars. I met many Germans who pretended to be American.