by Anne R. Allen
First let me say you can start a novel any way you want in order to get words on a blank page. Anything goes when you’re writing your first draft.
I always say the first draft of a novel is for the writer and the final draft is for the reader.
In your first draft, you’re telling yourself the story and getting to know your characters. You may have many false starts and get carried away with backstory. That’s normal. Just don’t leave them in the final copy.
These are tips for that final draft, not the first one.
You probably won’t know where your story actually begins when you start a novel on that blank page. You may not know until you do your final edit. (Some writing teachers say the average student novel starts at chapter three.)
Also, when you first start a novel, you’ll probably dump a whole lot of backstory into your first chapter. Later on, you can cut it and sneak bits of backstory into several chapters so it doesn’t choke the flow of the final narrative.
Another thing to remember is that a novel needs a protagonist. (Or, if you’re writing a saga — a series of protagonists with a thread of family or some other link holding them together.)
When you’re writing your first draft, you may find a secondary character becomes dominant. There’s nothing wrong with that. You can either let that happen and make the book about character #2, or tone that character down and give them their own book later. That’s how many trilogies and series are born.
Here are some things to avoid in your final draft of that opening chapter. None are “wrong” but many are overdone or they’re too slow for the contemporary reader.
1) Dead Man Walking
Say you start a novel describing a pitiful homeless man who clutches his meager possessions stuffed into a Disney Princess pillowcase. That pillowcase is all he has left of his children and former middle-class life. We learn all about his tragic life as a shadowy figure stalks him.
Cut to the police detective serving breakfast to her squabbling kids when she gets the call about the dead homeless guy with the pillowcase.
This is a classic opener for TV cop shows, but it doesn’t work to start a novel, because readers will identify with the first character they meet in a book, and if you kill off that character immediately, readers will feel betrayed.
2) The Ancestry Recap
Or here’s another way readers will feel betrayed: say you start a novel when a mage is casting a deadly spell on an evil sorceress who has held the land in perpetual winter for 500 years. Just as he is about to speak the final word of the spell, a wraith wafts through the castle walls and pulverizes the mage in a shower of ice crystals.
In chapter two, the great, great granddaughter of the mage wakes up in her Disney Princess bedroom and hears Mom and Dad fighting about putting snow tires on the car.
This was a false start. You’ve set up the reader to expect one kind of story and given them another.
3) A Dream Sequence
Another false start opener is the dream. On page one, the princess fights the dragon in a fierce blood-and-guts battle. Then, just as the beast moves in for the kill — a 12 year old girl wakes up in her Disney Princess bedroom and we find out it was all a dream.
She then goes downstairs for breakfast with her squabbling siblings while her parents talk about snow tires.
You’ve left your readers feeling cheated and they’re not going to want to go on.
4) The MFA Nature Walk
New writers are taught in creative writing classes — especially in MFA programs — to bring all five senses into every single scene. They can fall into a habit of overwriting when they start a novel. Writing guru Larry Brooks, writing on Jane Friedman’s blog several years ago called this the “most common entry-level mistake in the writing game.”
What happens is the author puts so much energy into lovely words and lush images that the first page becomes a lyrical prose poem. We see every dewy leaf on the tree outside the window, hear every twittering bird song, smell the newly cut grass on the suburban lawn, taste the sweetness of the maple syrup and pancakes being served downstairs, feel the silky texture of the Disney Princess bedsheets.
But there’s no story. Nobody is doing anything. In fact, there may be no people involved at all. Maybe the reader is supposed to identify with those songbirds, because they’re the only sentient beings in the story so far.
There is a place for lush prose, but keep it to a minimum until you introduce a character or two and provide some source of tension.
5) The One-Man Show
This is sometimes called the “Robinson Crusoe” way to start a novel. Your protagonist is sitting in a dungeon, or driving a car, or lying in bed on Disney Princess sheets — and musing about stuff. She’s thinking about the dragon she just killed, or hoping her crush will meet her at the game, or wondering what has happened to Dad, and whether he’ll ever come home.
But nothing happens on the page. There’s no interaction with other characters, so nothing happens.
The classic example of this is the “alarm clock” opener where you see the protagonist waking up and getting dressed in the morning.
This is the chapter you cut when you’re editing. It’s throat clearing. Writing it helps you get to know your protagonist, but the reader wants a story. Stories usually require two or more people. If not, your main character has to be dealing with serious obstacles and maybe talking to a volleyball like Tom Hanks on that desert island.
6) A History Lesson
This is the classic trap lots of new writers fall into. I know I did. We get into storyteller mode: “once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there was a….”
Great for fairy tales. Not so much for modern novels. In a contemporary novel the reader wants to be in the story, not outside hearing about it.
If this is sci-fi or fantasy, your job is tougher, because you have major world-building to do, and there’s going to be a huge amount of history to get across. But you don’t have to do it on page one. Slip in the world-building on a “need-to-know” basis.
Do drop a few weighty markers, so we know if we’re on an alien planet or fantasy world or contemporary high school, but don’t give us more than absolutely necessary.
Details should come later, once we know more about the characters and the story that’s actually happening on the page.
If you’re deliberately going for an archaic tone, you can use the “once upon a time” type intro, but temper it for the modern audience. Have something happen in real time before the history lesson goes on too long.
7) A Cast of Thousands!
Lots of new writers are led astray by the rule that you should start a book “in medias res” (literally, “in the middle of things”.)
So they start the story in the middle of the battle between the Trolls and the Orcs and we see four different hand-to hand combats going on and gallons of spurting blood. But we have no idea who to root for because all these people are so frenzied, and awful things are happening to every one of them and…who is this story about, anyway?
As I said above, every story needs a protagonist. Yes, books can be about groups, but one of them has to be the hero. (Or in the case of a saga, a series of heroes.)
Let us know who the protagonist is on page one unless you have some really compelling reason to hold back.
8) Reader-Feeder Dialogue
Many writing teachers warn against starting a novel with dialogue. This isn’t because starting with dialogue is intrinsically wrong.
But newbies tend to use dialogue for “As-you-know, Bob” passages like this:
“It’s getting dark, Alice,” said Bob with a shiver. “You may be my big sister, but I don’t think you know where you’re going. We could get lost in this dark, scary forest if we don’t get back to our cozy suburban home before nightfall.”
“We can’t stop now, Bob,” Alice said boldly. “As you know, we are looking for the lair of the evil dragon, Bezos, and we must slay him before morning or he will destroy the entire Kingdom of Mall.”
Even Shakespeare did lots of reader-feeding in his dialogue. When Duncan arrives at MacBeth’s castle, the scene starts with Duncan’s line, “This castle hath a pleasant seat…” Banquo chimes in with seven more lines describing the setting. That was necessary because Shakespeare couldn’t put an actual castle on stage, so he had to describe it in the dialogue.
But novelists don’t have the same problem as playwrights. We can show our readers all the castles and dark, scary forests we want. We don’t need to convey character or setting via unrealistic conversations. So if you start with dialogue, make sure that what’s being said needs to be given in dialogue and not narration.
Don’t Kill Your Darlings! Save Them for Later
If you follow these guidelines, you may end up cutting a lot of stuff you love from your first chapter. But your writing doesn’t have to be wasted. Whenever I have to cut more than a sentence or two from a novel, I put it in an “outtakes” folder for use later in the series or maybe even a short story.
(Which I did for the story in the new anthology A Sampling of Sleuths–it’s a Camilla story I had to take out of one of my novels that ran too long. Available now for pre-order.)
It can also help you write your series “bible” if you turn the book into a series.
So How Should You Start a Novel?
I’ve got a whole other post on that: 10 Things Your Opening Chapter Should Do. And Ruth Harris has a wonderful post on Writing a Great First Sentence.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) June 11, 2023
What about you, scriveners? Have you used any of these 8 ways to start a novel? How do you feel when you run into them as a reader? What is the way not to start a novel that annoys you the most?
BOOKS OF THE WEEK
The new mystery anthology from Thalia Press, which includes a fun Camilla story called “Cozy Cottage for Rent,” now available for pre-order.
All the stories come from established authors of a mystery series, and gives you a glimpse of the main characters and setting of each series.
A perfect beach read!
Remember Amazon is raising prices on paper books on June 20th!
If you’re a diehard treeware book reader, take advantage of this low price on Sherwood Ltd.
SHERWOOD, LTD: Camilla Randall Mystery #2
Suddenly-homeless American manners expert Camilla Randall becomes a 21st century Maid Marian—living rough near the real Sherwood Forest with a band of outlaw English erotica publishers—led by a charming, self-styled Robin Hood who unfortunately may intend to kill her.
When Camilla is invited to publish a book of her columns with UK publisher Peter Sherwood, she lands in a gritty criminal world—far from the Merrie Olde England she envisions. The staff are ex-cons and the erotica is kinky. Hungry and penniless, she camps in a Wendy House built from pallets of porn while battling an epic flood, a mendacious American Renfaire wench, and the mysterious killer who may be Peter himself.
Here’s a great write-up of Sherwood, Ltd from Debra Eve at the Later Bloomer
Available in ebook from:
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Available in paper from:
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featured image: Wikicommons
HAHAHAAH!!! After more than two years without writing a word, I finally decided to crank up and get started on the next one not two weeks ago.
And it’s bullseye #7. Group of adventurers, starts mid-fight, nobody to seize on as the protag.
Like you said, a first draft. But at this point I’m thinking I’ll keep it. I’ve asked around and it has the advantage of surprise- doesn’t seem like many fantasy tales truly start that way. Might keep their interest for a few pages.
Great list overall, and I LOVE the advice never to delete! There’s always another tale, isn’t there.
Will–Congrats on getting back on the writing horse. Whatever you write to start that novel is fine, and you won’t know until it’s finished if that’s the way it should start. I wrote some of my favorite funny dialogue for an opening scene at a party that my entire writing group vetoed as too confusing and over-populated. I still have it in my files, but that book turned out to be a non-starter. Without that party scene, I couldn’t get the story going. So yeah, don’t touch it. At least for a while.
And yes, there’s always another tale. Someday I may be able to use that party scene.
Thanks, Anne.
Another opener I dislike begins with the protagonist standing in front of a mirror and describing hair, wrinkles, eye color, scars … So overdone and uninteresting.
Kathy–Oh, yes! An extremely bad way to start a novel. It’s become a cliche in Romance novels, and it’s a “Robinson Crusoe” opener as well. Nothing happens, and it’s highly unlikely. Most people don’t take that kind of inventory of their bodies unless they’re narcissists, and who wants a narcissist as a protagonist? (Yes, I know Margaret Mitchell pulled it off with Scarlett O’Hara, but not many writers can.)
A friend of mine who is particularly talented at dialogue and character development has a peculiar fascination for describing every article of clothing that his characters have on – different in each scene of course. I might not find that as curious if he were a woman, but he’s not, and he’s an attorney, general counsel for my state. I guess that’s what makes him unique!
Sally–Hmmm. I wonder if that comes from seeing a lot of missing person reports. They always describe clothing in great detail. Useful if it’s the day of the disappearance. Not so much if it’s a week later. Even kidnappers let people change clothes.
Safe to say I’ve never done the nature walk. I have started a story with one character doing things and it’s a page or two before another character interacts. But over-description with all the senses will never be an issue for me.
Alex–See, you were never going to make the “most common entry-level mistake” of beginning writers. Probably because you never took one of those courses. 🙂 That put you ahead of the game from the start.
Ha! I’m guessing perhaps I shouldn’t start my novel with anything having to do with Disney princesses! Thanks again for a fine post.
CS–It might be better to start with a Disney villain. Make Cruella Deville a sympathetic character, and you might have the next Wicked. 🙂
I’m voting for Snively Whiplash – completely non-Disney!
One of my favorite bad guys!
God as my witness Anne, I ever come to visit your house and see that it’s wall-to-wall Disney Princess and I will NEVER stop telling people about it.
Will–I think I can safely say I have never bought any Disney Princess merch, although my parents did buy me a Cinderella watch when I was in 3rd grade. I loved it.
Anne—Thanks for the excellent run down of how not to start a novel. I don’t know if my own phobia will help anyone else, but I live in almost-mortal dread of boring the reader. As you point out, the “mirror” opening, the history recap, the cast of thousands etc. are all terminally boring, and, to the reader, a major turn-off. As I often used to say to writers I worked with: “Get to the point!”
Ruth–That’s the key, isn’t it. If it’s not getting to the point, it doesn’t belong in the first chapter.
Anne, this is one of the best posts ever! You’ve said it so neatly: every book needs a protagonist, the person the reader should root for and care about. They expect the first person they read about to be the protagonist. Make sure the opening gives the reader a peek into the book, meaning reflects the type of book it will be. i.e. Don’t open with humour if it is a very serious book with no humour in it. Terrific post!
Melodie–I’ve had beginning writers fight me on this. “I don’t need a protagonist! It’s an ensemble.” Okay for movies, not books. And as far as the misplaced humor goes, it comes from film, too–those action movies where Bruce Willis makes wisecracks while saving the world from evildoers. Works in a movie, not in a novel–unless the novel is full of wisecracks all the way through.
I, too, needed this post today, along with the two other links for starting a novel. I am ready to begin my ninth book and I’ve been mulling over how to begin for weeks. This is very helpful, Anne.Thank you.
Patricia–Openers are the hardest. I say just put in a place-holder, write the story, and then go back and write the first chapter. That’s what I usually do. Sometimes the opener I wrote first works, but often it doesn’t.
Excellent advice! I once read a historical novel that had several characters relate the author’s research findings to each other in dialog. It was painful.
Liz–Only once? 🙂 I’ve seen this a lot. Even from well-known authors. I call it research-itis.
I violated #8 only once, when i had started off a book with a telephone call. Only lasted about a page if I remember correctly. Otherwise, for the last two (one I’m currently writing and the other I plan on publishing sometime this year), one I started off with my protagonist getting ready to kill an unnecessary nuisance of an interloper, while the other is getting ready to do his morning ritual. Both openings last less than a half page in length, as they serve as an immediate lift-off to the rest of the story.
Overall, I try to write my openings as humanly short as possible to keep someone’s interest, since I like reading stories like that as well.
Oh and, should I even have Disney Princess decor make a cameo in any story of mine, I shall force myself to saying something positive about a bad movie of your choice.
G. B.–I haven’t seen the new Barbie movie, but I suspect it will get a place in the bad movie hall of fame. 🙂 And it’s even pinker than Disney princesses.
The phone call opener is very common. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The protagonist planning a murder certainly provides some tension, so that might be an exception to the Robinson Crusoe rule.
At least one of my heavily plagiarized horse stories started in “alarm clock mode.” I wrote these between ages 8 and 12 years of age. One of those manuscripts still lives in the attic – reams and reams of hand-written loose-leaf paper. I decided to save one of them, for posterity and entertainment. Since then, my work has improved in quality and originality. (I am now 69.) 🙂
Sally–I wrote terrible horse stories too! Mostly cribbed from Walter Farley’s Black Stallion books. Alas, I didn’t save them. But I did save some of my youthful poetry. I’ll have to burn them before I kick the bucket or my family might read them! 🙂
Great post, Anne. I’m trying my hand at science fiction after 6 books of urban fantasy and thanks for the reminder to fit the world descriptions in as my main character goes about her business instead of an information dump. I don’t want to start with skimmable material.
I had to laugh at the Bezos comparison to a dragon who endangers the Kingdom of Mall. Truth in fiction.
All of your suggestions are especially important since most sites offer a preview and the last thing we want is to lose that potential sale from the get-go. I’ve done a hard pass on many books for the very reasons you mentioned.
Brenda–That “Look Inside” function at Amazon and other online retail sites ups the stakes for first chapters. Like you, I’ve rejected lots of books on the basis of that free peek. Misplaced apostrophes are a deal breaker for me.
Yeah, the Kingdom of Mall is falling to the Bezos dragon. 🙁
“Don’t start with skimmable material” kind of sums up this whole post.
Really enjoyed your sense of humor. As I read, I was mentally revisiting the openings of my last few novels and was relieved when I saw avoided your miscues.
Mark–I’m glad I made you laugh. Isn’t it nice to know you didn’t make any of these mistakes?
I swapped books with a fellow author at a book fair and ended up with a strange fantasy of sorts, which included all the different kinds of “fey” peoples – trolls, mer-people, water-horses (the ultimate in evil), pixies, vampires, demons, brownies, witches, you name it – all living among us regular humans. At first I found its snarkiness off-putting, until I realized that the snark was critical to offset the dark evil that the protagonist was fighting (in order to save the world, of course). Early on, the protagonist welcomes a demon into her office, where he tells her why he needs to hire her, but when he leaves, she has to remove the chair he sat in from her office, because you just can’t get the smell of brimstone out of upholstered furniture. I came to admire the story greatly!
Sally–Don’t you hate it when you can’t get that stink out of the upholstery after demons visit? I’ve heard holy water helps. 🙂 I did not know water horses are evil. I’ll have to watch out for them!
Thank you for a great post. But what I really want to see is the novel whose first chapter is a mash-up of your posts #1-#5. The not-so-subtext was hysterical. That aside, I’ve made every one of these errors on first, next-first, next-next first drafts, What remained was the guy in the dungeon, but with a second character showing up 250 words in.
Lorraine–A mash-up of 1 & 5 could be pretty tragic. Dad’s life began to go downhill when he got addicted to gambling on Candy Crush, and then moved on to online solitaire, which is when his boss fired him. When his wife kicked him out of the house with nothing but his clothes and some bed-linens, he ended up in a homeless camp where somebody stole everything he had, except for that one Disney Princess pillowcase…. 🙂
I think all of us have written at least some of these endings. Things become cliches because they were good ideas once.
Delightful post, Anne. You’ve definitely convinced me to *never* use Disney princess merchandise in my stories.
Kay–I didn’t mean to dis the Disney Princesses. I sure had a “thing” for Disney’s Cinderella when I was small. My mother was a strictly white-sheet mom (so they could be bleached and sanitized), but if there had been Cinderella sheets when I was 7, I’m sure I would have adored them.
I’d seen it before, but never to this extent. I’d say the book was 90% dialog/research findings.
Liz–90% Oh, yeah. That would be unreadable. Good for you for slogging through it. I’m sure the history was authentic. I’m not sure I’d make it all the way through. 🙂
As almost-always which means I always identify with your blogs either because I’ve done it, I’ve learned or skilled enough not to have done it and then there is the almost of the almost-aways when bingo that’s it!!! That’s what I’ve been waiting for to figure out why I’m stuck. I need to save my darlings and use them appropriately in another chapter or chapters not in Chapter 1. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Judy–I’m so glad I helped. Yes, your darlings are worth saving. They’re still darling, but they need a time-out. 🙂
“Readers will identify with the first character they meet in a book.” I learned this first hand with my first novel when I opened with a secondary character who was intended to introduce my main character. My wife picked up on this and tuned me in to the disconnect. Quick comment on SSSTF (Sight Sound Smell Taste Feel). I think using the entire five senses in one scene is one of those writing rules to know so when you break it you know what you’re doing. And I was going to make a third point,but I forgot what it was. Happy Sunday evening, Anne & Ruth!
Garry–A reader who’s not a writer can usually be the best beta-reader. Glad to hear your wife explained the “disconnect” to you. Yes, we need to learn the writing rules so we know we’re breaking them. It’s so much more fun that way.
Another entertaining post, Anne. I started my second (fantasy) novel with something akin to #1. It was like crime shows often open: An older woman discovers the horrible double murder of her son and daughter-in-law, then does not appear in the novel again. But her musings prior to the discovery help establish place, culture, and a bit of the past. It also brings in sight, sound, smell, and touch.
I tried at least a half-dozen different openings before I settled on that one, and it was the last thing written. (I’m kinda proud of it.)
Fred–The rules for Fantasy are a little different from other genres, so maybe your readers don’t expect to meet the protagonist right away. If the book is selling, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. 🙂
Or they’ve just walked into the wrong apartment …
The team of beta readers for each of my two novels numbered eight, about evenly divided between writers and non-writers. Writes give me great technical feedback, and non-writers (readers) give me great feedback on what works and what doesn’t, even though they sometimes can’t quite articulate it. Knowing that a certain section just isn’t quite right makes me know I need to dig into it deeper. Their red flags are just as valuable as those of the writers. (After all, who’s your larger audience: writers or non-writers?)
Sally–Non-writers can be so refreshing. They don’t say “you have a POV problem here” or “what’s this character’s motivation?” They just say “I was so confused here. Who’s talking?” or “I don’t like Mary Sue. What’s she doing in this story?” That kind of stuff can be very helpful.
Your point about Larry’s wise advice cracked me up, Anne! “Dewy leaf” LOL I save the senses till after the drafting stage. Much easier to enhance the tension rather than destroy it.
Sue–That’s a great piece of advice! Save the sensory stuff until after you’ve got the basic story down. Then make it echo the mood. Thanks!
Excellent points Anne. I loved all your examples. Shared around. <3
Debby–Many thanks for all the shares!
Anne,
Thanks for your always excellent and just-at-the-right-time advice.
Point #1 in your article raises a question for me.
I understand that readers identify with or at least their attention is captured by the first character they meet, but here’s my dilemma:
I’m working on the 3rd book in my traditional mystery series, and at the moment, the first chapter [3 pages long] is a tense scene in which a character I want the reader to care about is clearly in jeopardy.
Later, her body is found. I don’t know whether this structure will have the effect you describe or not. The death of that character is central to the main and sub-plots.
I guess I’m struggling with understanding why this works in a TV mystery but not in a novel.
Ann–I’ve been thinking about why some things work in a film and not in a novel. I read one recently where the protagonist turned out to be the murderer, but that information has been withheld from the reader for the whole book. It made me furious. But I realized it would have been fine in a film. So what’s the difference?
My first thought was: actors. Then, directors, and lighting designers, and sound engineers, and film editors, etc.–all those people who create the way we feel about characters in film. A film is a group endeavor–something a viewer sees from outside the creative process. But a novel is an intimate experience between two people: the writer and the reader. The reader’s imagination does a lot of creative work in experiencing a novel. With a film, you’re a passive viewer. (That’s why they say watching TV is much worse for depression than reading books.) And because that relationship is so intimate with a novel, the reader hates being tricked. It feels like a betrayal by a friend who’s been lying to you. But when we’re a viewer, on the outside looking in, we have lots of signs and signals that this situation is about to change, and you’re not on solid ground, and things are not to be taken at face value. There’s not that element of trust between screenwriter and viewer that there is between novelist and reader because there are so many other people in between.
I hope that helps.
Aaah! So you’re the one I learned the first draft/final draft gem from. That advice has been a cornerstone of my writing for years. I think it’s something pantsters, in particular, should always keep in mind because we really don’t know where the story is going until it gets there. There’s a lot to be said for pantsting, but the flip side is that writers have to re-structure and re-write once that first draft is done, or what the Reader gets is often an almighty mess.
I wish we could start writing in the middle somewhere and write the beginning only after we’ve written the end. Would save a lot of false starts.
acflory–How great to hear that! I’m a pantser myself, so that’s how I work. Just put a place holder in the opening, dive into the middle, write to the end, then write the first chapter last. I think it’s Nathan Bransford who always says 90% of writing is rewriting.
Anne,
I’m truly grateful for your reply. Even after being a reader and writer forever and teaching writing for 20 years, I hadn’t looked at the differences between viewer/reader expectations or intimacy with character in the ways you suggest.
At this point, I’m going to finish the first draft and then try to see the whole story from that perspective.
Many thanks for your time and help.
Ann
Ann–It just may work, so don’t do any drastic changes. I always say–write your first chapter last.
Your question made me think about the reader/writer relationship, so I’ll be blogging about it next week. Thanks for a thought-provoking comment.