First chapters are the hardest. So write them last.
by Anne R. Allen
Happy New Year!
And many thanks to Frances Caballo, who this week named this one of the Best 15 Blogs for Indie Authors to Follow.
I hope you had lots of fun over the holidays. Now it’s resolution time. Time to get that WIP polished and out into the marketplace.
I always finish my novels by writing the first chapter. That’s right. I write the beginning last.
Am I nuts?
Well, you might think that. After all, here I am on New Year’s Day, when most people are nursing hangovers, enjoying lovely brunches, watching the Rose Bowl parade, or all of the above, and I’m here blogging. 🙂
So why do I write the first chapters last? Look at it this way: when you’re writing your first draft, you’re writing for you. You’re getting to know your characters and their world. You need let everything spill out on the page free of your inner editor’s censorship.
But when you’re revising, you 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.
That means you’re going to end up with an opening chapter that’s very different from the one you started with. Your entire original Chapter One may end up being one of those darlings you have to kill. (Or at least move to another spot in the book.)
We usually pack way too much information into our first chapters in the rough draft. So you’ll need to cut a lot, but not too much.
The ideal first chapter should do the following things (note I say “ideal”– not all books do this in all first chapters. It’s something to aim for.)
1) First Chapters Should Introduce the Protagonist
It’s best to open a novel with a scene involving the main character. 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 readers meet first in a book is the character they’ll bond with. If that person gets killed on page five, people feel cheated.
They don’t need to know a huge amount about the protagonist right away, but they 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”.)
They usually need to know gender, age and maybe social status/work/position in society, but most of all, they need to know about the emotions the character is feeling in the scene—preferably emotions 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 pantsuit.”
I haven’t used any description of the protagonist, but we can tell she’s 1) female 2) a worldly city dweller who takes things in stride 3) not rich enough to take a taxi 4) employed in some way that usually requires wearing a suit 5) 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) Entice the Reader to Spend Time 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’s Dexter Morgan is a sociopathic serial killer—not exactly a guy you’d want for a BFF. And who’d actually like to hang out with Jay Gatsby, Hercule Poirot or Lisbeth Salander? Even Jane Austen’s Emma is something of a witch. And as for Sherlock Holmes…
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. And a comic hero has to be lovable so we’ll forgive the faults that carry the comedy. Everything depends 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 you want to let us see the potential for that right away.
3) Set the 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 Ghostwriters 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.
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) Introduce the Theme
If you’re dealing with a particular theme, don’t hit us over the head with it, but give us some foreshadowing in the first chapters 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
You don’t need to give a ton of physical description, but readers need to know what planet/historical time period they’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 it’s best to limit the descriptions to the absolute necessities and fill in the details later. Most new writers tend to tell way too much about their fantasy world up front. You want to tell just enough to allow the reader to picture the scene that’s taking place, but not bog down the action.
6) Tell us What your MC Wants
We need to know what your protagonist wants in the present scene, 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) The reader needs to know the protagonist’s ultimate goal, like maybe taking a magical jewelry item to Mount Disaster to destroy it forever.
This overarching goal doesn’t always show up in chapter one, but readers do need to see a goal in chapter one that will lead to that ultimate goal to be reached in the climax.
7) Ignite Conflict
We need conflict not only in the opening scene, but we need to see an overarching 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 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 be 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) 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.)
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.
You don’t have to have Snidely Whiplash stomp onto page one twirling his moustache, but you need to give us an idea of what is keeping your protagonist from his goals.
9) Give us The Inciting Incident
Okay, sometimes THE inciting incident doesn’t happen until chapter two or three, but ideally, it’s best to start the book off with spark that gets the story going right there in chapter one.
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 genres than others. If you’re writing a mystery, somebody can find a dead body and boom! your story is launched.
Or in a romance, the lovely Lisette can meet Lord Malheureux when his horse accidentally knocks down her grandfather’s vegetable cart and she vows to hate him forever.
In the classic hero’s journey tale, the inciting incident is the “call to adventure” when the hero hears he must capture the golden fleece, magical jewelry item, Holy Grail or whatever.
In some genres it may be tough to get the inciting incident into the opener. Do work on it, though, because everything else can seem like throat-clearing to the reader.
Most readers aren’t going to admire your lovely prose until after you’ve launched them into a story.
10) Introduce 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 minor characters in the opening scene. You can mention them, but don’t bring them onstage unless they are absolutely necessary.
There’s so much stuff to cram into the opener, you don’t have much room for the maid/sentinel/pizza-delivery-person who open so many films and plays.
Readers need to be introduced to Lord Malheureux fairly early on—or at least hear about him. Ditto Lisette’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 Lisette since childhood.
But they don’t need to know about his Lordship’s groom or his tailor unless the bratty sister is going to run off with them both 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. (I certainly did.) And your critique group is sure to insist on meaty characterizations of everybody you bring on early, so keep that tailor and groom offstage and don’t give them names, at least in the first chapters.
Remember that irrelevant details will irritate readers, who expect people in the opener to re-appear and play important roles.
***
Hold on there, sez you. I can think of dozens of bestsellers that don’t do any of these things.
Yup, I can too.
Remember these are just guidelines and something to aim for. And if your prose is so mesmerizing the reader doesn’t notice they aren’t getting this information, then you don’t need help from me.
But with most novels, readers are happiest when they get the relevant info in the opener.
If your present opener doesn’t do any of this stuff—and most first drafts don’t—try this trick: cut 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.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) January 1, 2017
How about you, scriveners? What do you absolutely want to see in an opener? Do you find you put too much or too little in your first draft of chapter one?
This week I have my monthly post on my book blog. I put forward the suggestion that those of us in the Northern Hemisphere consider having our travel/retail frenzy holiday on the Summer Solstice instead of the Winter one, so that travel and shopping will be safer and more enjoyable. Why Not Have Our Big Holiday on the Summer Solstice?
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Happy New Year! 🙂 Remember: The delete button is the writer’s best friend. That includes the first chapter. Sometimes it means deleting all the extraneous info the writer needs to get started, but gets between the reader and turning the page. Your first chapter is the hook. Think Marie Kondo and cut the clutter! Sometimes, as Anne points out, using your friendly delete button even means deleting the whole chapter. *And* the next one! Chapter One is all about grabbing the reader.
Ruth–As I say, all that hard work doesn’t actually have to disappear forever. Save those chapters and use them later in the book!
Sometimes I feel like you’re looking over my shoulder as I write, going “Ahem” and I look up see that I just did what you maybe said not to do or didn’t do what you suggested I definitely do. Today I waited for the nudge but instead I felt a smile. I’ve worked the buhjeebus out of the first chapter of my WIP to grab the reader and ended up carving it down to the bone. I think I’m there. Or almost there. Pretty close anyway. AND…I realized my MC’s antagonist was not a person but an entire community. Thank you once again for all the great writing advice. Happy New Year Anne!
PS: I like to write the LAST chapter first then work my way there. Go figure.
Eldonna–When I start my first draft, I often start with an idea for the last scene, so I relate to writing the last chapter first. 🙂 That’s not true with my current WIP, and that may be why I’m having so much trouble finishing it.
Happy New Year to you too!
This one is not starting out so well for the blog. The MailChimp notice did not go out to subscribers for some reason. Sigh.
I start with a character with a problem–not necessarily the big problem of the story–and the setting. That’s it. It is really easy to ignore setting as being unimportant (which I’ve done), but it’s part of the characterization of the main character and how he or she sees the world.
As a reader, I passed on a story that someone else highly recommended because the main character was working their way through a mine–and the writer never described it beyond “It’s a mine.” As a friend of mine says, if you don’t describe your spaceship, the reader is going to imagine Star Trek’s Enterprise. The same thing goes for a beach, a barn, or a store.
Linda–I think it all depends on whether the opening setting is important to the story. In my story that opens on a NYC subway car, the reader doesn’t need a description of the subway because Camilla gets off on page 2 and never rides a subway again in the whole series.
But if the whole book was about riding subways, then we’d want to know about the ads and the smells and the other passengers, etc.
In some novels, the setting is as important as the characters–or even more so. I often choose mysteries on the basis of setting alone. I think a lot of mystery readers do. Then we really want to *be* there.
I think that’s hilarious that everybody pictures the Starship Enterprise when you say “spaceship”! I probably would. 🙂
So your character rides the subway–a scene important enough to be in the story, but isn’t important enough to bring the reader down into her characterization? It doesn’t have to be more than a few sentences. People tend to think adding the setting would mean describing the seats and the car, but from the character’s perspective, the rocking of the car could give her a headache and put her in a bad mood (which is how I feel when I ride the DC metro).
Linda–I’m talking about the scene I quote in #1 above. The fact she’s getting groped is more important than describing the car in this situation
I’ve just finished my last draft–until I get a publisher. (and the doubts have crept in). But I was very relieved when I read your article. Thank you, Anne.
Leanne-Best of luck with the new book! I’m glad my “check list” erased your doubts. 🙂
Great advice, as always. I also tend to write a new first chapter after the last. Mostly because when I start I don’t know where the story is going or who, exactly, my protagonist is. Once I find out I can introduce them. Seems my biggest sticking point is about 3/4 through. I find that happening in books I read, also. Got any advice for that dilemma?
Happy New Year!!
Christine-Haha! I used to think I knew all about that 3/4 mark, but right now I’m stuck right there on my own WIP. I have the final scene, but I don’t know how to get from where I am now to that final place. I’m afraid the book will be too long. Sigh. I guess no matter how many books you’ve written you always get to that “hump.”
Another fine post. I’m especially with you on needing to finish a draft before being able to pull together the first chapter.
CS–I sure do change my first chapters a lot when I revise. Usually on the advice of my editor. I’ve had editors cut my first chapter and others have insisted I add one. Both of them have been right.
Although it wasn’t planned, before finishing the first frat I went back to the beginning and started over.
I saw the two most important parts of my outline as the beginning and the end. I always wanted to know where I was going and the major points in between. As I get closer to writing a scene I start drilling down to the details and visualizing the action. It wasn’t until recently that I did that for the ending and found one I was quite satisfied with. That helped set some themes.
But back at the beginning – I found myself with all telling and no showing. I jotted down not only facts I wanted to convey right away, but also how the major characters treat each other as well as their personalities and attitudes on life.
Notes in hand, I closed my eyes and pictured the scene in my mind, writing down what everyone said to each other. No more telling and I think it matches your guidelines quite well. 300 words in a flash forward preface, 300 to meet the protagonist and his parents in media res as they find out his aunt and cousins are coming over, and then into the inciting moment when they arrive.
Joe–We always do a lot more “telling” in our first drafts. That’s because we’re telling ourselves the stuff we need to know about writing the story. In the later drafts, we can do more showing.
I won’t get into the prologue debate here, but you may find you don’t need it. Agents do not like prologues, so unless you’re writing epic fantasy or a big-picture space opera, where prologues are standard, you want to make sure the reader really needs the prologue. Often you can get the info in later in the story. .
Hey Anne,
Happy New Year to you. Let’s hope 2017 ‘trumps’ 2016 in spades (sorry, couldn’t help myself 😉 )
I think there is a lot wisdom in saving the first chapter for last. And to just sort of assume the current first chapter is a placeholder of sorts.
In my case, I tend to write pretty lean – not big on superfluous description and dumping a lot of back story into things – especially the first chapter. That being said, I tend to rewrite/revise the first chapter several times before I’m happy with it. What’s interesting though is that for me, it’s not so much about changing what actually happens in the chapter as it is in getting the sequence of events, introduction of characters, etc etc, right. For example in my current WIP, the sheriff goes to a dump site to see the latest dead body on her highway. That part doesn’t change, but how she gets there, what she does when she’s there and her exchange with the other characters has/does. LOL. Maybe this is just potato patado and I’m just blubbering, but it seems different to me.
Other than that, I’m afraid I have no wisdom to offer on this subject, you covered it all and quite nicely.
Aside from your MailChimp woes (been there, done that) I hope the new year is starting out well for you.
Thanks for this. Good way to kick off the new year.
Annie
Annie–It depends on where you are in your career. I like to think I get better at this over the decades. 🙂 My first novel has been published by three different publishers and each had an editor that changed the first chapter a lot. In fact the last one cut the first chapter altogether. Now my first chapters only need a few tweaks like yours.
Mysteries are easier, because they have an outline kind of built in. You gotta have that body. Romance has a built in storyline too. But stuff like women’s fiction and family dramas can get really bogged down in the first chapters. That’s when an editor can really help.
Barb Drozdowich of Bakerview Consulting solved the MailChimp problem. We decided the chimps partied too hard last night. 🙂
Hi Anne and Happy New Year! I have the first draft of a mystery/suspense novel written, but I seem to be stuck on how to fix up my first chapter. Thanks for these tips – this is great advice to start the year with.
Debbie–I figured “first chapters” was a good topic as we start a first chapter of a new year. 🙂 I hope these tips help you with your revisions!
I’m pretty sure I used a prologue only once to start off one my stories. Everything else that I’ve written in the novel/novella vein has started with Chapter 1. I’m also a big linear kind of guy when it comes to writing, so to jump back and forth like that would really confuse me and cause me to lose sight of the bigger picture (in school, used to write essays, only to find out afterwards that one key paragraph was missing, which affected the entire tone/topic of the essay).
Anyways, the adventure I’m having right now is that I’m at the very end of my latest project, a re-write/gut job of an old slushie novel. The issue now is making sure that my ending segues into what I’ve already written for the next book (I wrote the original of the rewrite at roughly the same time as the next book, but self-pubbed the next book a few years ago. Was in the process of re-writing that book when I suddenly remembered this slushie novel).
Ahh, the joys of opening a can worms.
G.B.–I didn’t want to get into the prologue debate here, because people can get so heated about prologues For a standard (non epic) novel, beginning at the beginning in chapter one is generally the best plan. The reader likes to know where they are in time as well as place. I agree that jumping around in time is confusing, so you’d better have a good reason for it.
Rewriting an old novel to be part of a series is tough, but it can be done. I did it with one of mine. Best of luck with it!
Is it possible that the antagonist can be the protagonist’s own character flaws, partly. I’m writing about a man who is beleaguered by the women in his life, but partly, that is because he will not stand up, at first. Later he overcomes his fear, takes control of much more of his life, and arrives at his goal, which he did not at first realize needed to be his goal, and which is really the resolving of the story, I think.
If so, then do we introduce his flaws in the first chapter? And how much? Can he get obviously worse and worse until he decides to stop it and be a man? I’m thinking all the answers are “yes”, and I think I’m doing that, in my first chapter, but not really giving a complete view but only hints.
Hoping this even makes sense…
Home’s Cool–Many literary novels use the “he’s his own worst enemy” kind of antagonist.
Kristen Lamb warns against relying the self-as-enemy for your plotting, but I do think that addiction or a personal wound can effectively be the “antagonist”.
You might also need an exterior force to thwart your MC’s goals, but you wouldn’t have to introduce it in chapter one, but build to it. You might want to click through and read Kristen on the subject.
The rules are different for literary fiction, and it sounds as if your novel falls in that category
Yes, probably literary. I hope literary fiction is easy to sell….
I’m so glad you get me and you know the terms for all these ideas. I’m just having a ball capturing the crazy. 🙂 And I read you with a dictionary at hand.
His mother-in-law will be a main antagonist, and his counselor will persistently show him his mistakes, draw him out, and point him to sanity. Then he has choices to make.
The mother-in-law will be somewhat constant and does ever-so-briefly appear in the first chapter, in a mildly sinister way that foreshadows her role; the counselor will appear mostly by appointment, and occasionally in MC’s self-talk.
One other big “thwart” element is: Reality. What he thinks is his main goal is actually a mixed up notion that is impossible. But, as I said, there will be redirection. It’ll be sorta tornadic.
I’m enjoying this, if only I can make it go and make others enjoy it, too.
“Tornadic” is a great word! Literary fiction isn’t an easy sell, but “book club fiction” is, and you might just fit into that category. Unfortunately it’s not an official genre, but you can use it when querying agents. It also sounds as if you’ve got some humor in there.
And “the first modern novel”–Don Quixote–is about a guy whose delusions are the story’s antagonist, so I’d say you’re in good company.
Happy New Year to all! Anne, as usual, you’ve come up with a winner, this is a tremendously useful tip and I think I will apply it to my latest book, a sci-fi novel that to my surprise (!) didn’t take off and now I think I know why: I opened up with a chapter that did not present the MC, but the MC’s aunt killing herself, obviously a very bad idea, ha ha!
Well, I’ll do that when I have a minute (too busy with Impakter magazine, right now) but I shall certainly go back to my novel and do it (particularly as I mean to write a sequel and will in fact do it all under my real name), thanks Anne for the advice!
Claude–I read your latest Impaktor piece and it was so hopeful and original. I hope you’re right that Europe will lead the way to a more positive path!
You may find you can really improve that sci-fi book by changing that first chapter. I know a lot of books start that way, but I think you’re more likely to keep your reader interested if you start with your MC. I recently read that 57 % of books purchased are never finished.
Best of luck with the rewrite and Happy New Year to you too!
I don’t write my first chapter last but I usually totally rewrite parts of it. I do include all you mentioned though my current work needs a bit of tweeking about the big bad.
Susan–I don’t rewrite the whole first chapter anymore. But I do leave it as the last task in the rewrite.
Antagonists are the toughest part of writing for many genres. For mystery writers like me, there’s no problem. Ditto thrillers. But in family dramas and romance and especially literary novels, writers can lose track, and try to invent new antagonists half way through, and that doesn’t work.
Wonderful suggestions for the first chapter. I know my first chapters are what I work on the most and they never look like the first draft. I learned (with a lot of help) not to do all that “info dumping” I tended to do. Not necessary. Just a little bit of basics – as stated in your guidelines – and the reader will be pulled in – hopefully – and want to read more.
Thanks, Anne.
Patti
Patti–I think we all start out with info-dumping in the first chapter. It’s natural to want to get all that stuff on the page as it comes into our heads. But we need to weed it out when we rewrite. Most of it is stuff the reader doesn’t need to know until later–if at all. They want emotion and tension, not backstory and description.
Hey, Anne, and Ruth, Happy New Year! This is such good advice on writing first chapters. I also agree with many of the views expressed by your readers. I began writing, lo those many years ago, for educational journals (yawn), but one thing I learned quickly, whether it was an informational article or research-based, was to write the introduction last. I also loved what one of your readers said about writing the last chapter first. Then you definitely have a goal and a direction for your story. I think that’s why in high school and even in college, I always wrote my bibliography first. Then I knew exactly which books I would use in framing my paper. Right now I’m reading a book that does so many of the things you mentioned in the first chapter–A Kiss Before Dying. Ira Levin wrote this, his first book, when he was 23. (I probably couldn’t have written a postcard at that age.) I saw the film in the 1950s and the remake in the 1990s, but halfway thru the book I realized the book could never be filmed the way it was written. (Won’t spoil the story for those who might want to read Levin’s classic mystery, but I gotta tell you if I were teaching writing this would be the book I’d use as a perfect example of doing all those first chapter musts and then some. Great post as always. Paul
Paul–I often write the last scene first as well. Or at least I have a clear picture of it in my head.
I’ve never read A Kiss Before Dying. It’s one of those books I’ve heard of all my life, but never picked up. I might have to take a look. I was writing at 23, but I sure didn’t write anything publishable. (Although of course I thought it was genius.) What an accomplishment!
Paul,
I often try to write the last scene first, or at least while the book is still being written, but it usually ends up pointless by the time the story is finished because my story has changed so much while I was writing it that my old ending no longer makes sense.
Oh, well. Time to break out the red pen. Or, font color, in my case.
I think I already wished you a Happy New Year on the last post, but I’ll do it again. Happy New Year. I’m probably gonna catch myself writing “2016” for a while still. It always takes some time for me to switch over.
Openings are the bane of my existence. I hope I do them well, I do them as best as I can for the book I’m writing, but you never really know. That’s why I think beta readers (and an editor, but not necessarily for this specific situation) are crucial. They can read it, and let you know exactly what they think. I had an opening chapter a while back that my beta told me was too long and bored her, and I was shocked. I’d thought it was a good opening, but I had to cut most of it to keep my beta’s interest. It was difficult, but I think the book was better for it, in the long run.
I also can’t tell you how many times I’ve just been stuck trying to start a new book because I know where I want to go, but I don’t know how to get there. Grr. That’s almost enough to make me tear my hair out. It becomes a game of write-delete-write-delete-write until I get it just right (no pun intended).
Sarah–That’s exactly why I say it’s best to write the first chapter last. You can get stuck rewriting that first chapter for months–even years. Just jot down some placeholder stuff, then jump into chapter 2. When you’re done, go back and write chapter 1. It will be so much easier. And you won’t have to do all that writing and deleting!
Happy 2017 to you, too. I just wrote my first check of the year and yup–I wrote 2016. Haha.
Happy New Year, Anne, and what an interesting post! I can’t imagine ever having the last chapter in my head when I start a book, but I know plenty of folks do. Of course, as you mentioned in one of your responses, my “genre” (literary) does tend to have different rules, or a lack thereof. I’ve started two of my novels with the protagonist and antagonist, and an inciting incident, but one of them actually introduced the antagonist in chapter one and the protagonist in chapter two. I guess a lot of these things happen organically. I’ll have more to say in my upcoming guest post, of course. Looking forward to it.
My main writing is of software code. Everything has to be logically correct and in the proper order – but now as time has passed I go back to some of my early code and have problems decyphering it. I’m so much better now.
The same thing for fiction. My first chapter was written in August 2014, and then deleted and completely rewritten in September 2015. Another year has passed, and reading this post I went back to take a look and paragraphs jumped out at me. “Too wordy!” etc etc. I started cutting and rephrasing.
Simple fact is,l for most of us, we’re better writer now that when we wrote the first chapter.
Joe–It’s true for any type of skill. They say it takes ten years to become really proficient at something. You’re going to be a better piano player after two years, or a better golfer, or a better skier. I look at my early work from 30 years ago that’s moldering in my files and realize that it needs to stay there. 🙂
There is some great information here and a checklist for new and experienced authors both. I was going thorough the first chapter of my WIP going “yep”, “yep”, “oops, might need to work on that.” Thanks.
Lira–I’m glad i t helps. I’m not saying every first chapter has to do all these things. But it helps when you’re editing. Thanks for stopping by!
I realised very quickly that I’ve got no knack for introductions, so I created a workaround: I give myself one chapter to completely mess around in, with no intention of including it in the final work, before I get into the real meat. That way, I’ve got the starting block to push off of and I can get my overworked descriptions out of the way where they won’t cause any trouble. Then, once I’m done the first draft, I can go back and figure out where and how the story should actually begin.
Anyway, the point of a first chapter is to set the tone for the rest of the novel, and most of the time I don’t really know exactly where I’m going to end up until I get there.
Katherine–It sounds as if you already figured out what I’m telling people in this post and you found a brilliant way of dealing with it. Great idea!