The first lines of a novel are more crucial now than they’ve ever been. With editors and agents feeling overworked and harried, they often don’t get past the query letter before relegating your manuscript to the trash can. And even if they find your query letter intriguing enough to glance at your writing, they often won’t read past the first page.
Does that mean you have to resort to flash techniques to grab their attention? Not necessarily.
But it does mean you need to choose the right way to open your particular story, bearing in mind that the opening is a promise to the reader of the kind of story, voice, theme, and central question or journey that the main character will explore during the course of the novel.
It’s also satisfying for the reader if the opening question or theme is answered by the ending. Something to bear in mind if you’re struggling with how to begin the story. If you know how you want the story to end, you can mine that ending for the most appropriate introduction to your novel.
A story is only as interesting as the person telling it.
Does your main character have real attitudes and opinions? Are they someone we’ll want to get to know better, be happy to spend time with for the duration of the novel and even miss after the story’s ended?
Then make the most of their entrance to the story!
Risk everything
Don’t hold back, dilly-dally, indulge in backstory, prolonged set ups or explanations. Be bold. Introduce us to the main character, and take us straight to the first problem, in an opening scene full of conflict or tension or intrigue.
And remember, even the worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn’t write.
Tonight’s #ScribeChat:
Follow what’s sure to be a lively discussion of the best and worst ways to open your novel during tonight’s chat by using this link: ScribeChat at 6 pm PT / 9 pm ET.
Further reading:
- 12 Ways to Start a Novel, by Darcy Pattison (a dated table of some of the most memorable opening lines in the history of the novel
- The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman
- Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers At Page One & Never Lets Them Go, by Les Edgerton
- Finding Your Voice: How To Put Personality in Your Writing, by Les Edgerton
- Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time, by Jordan Rosenfeld
Related posts:
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article Lia! I really found it very informative and helpful. Would love to make it to the Scribechat but unfortunately it happens when I am still at work…However I will definitely be at the weekly Sunday Scribblerati chat.
I would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you and well done for setting up the Scribblerati ning and creating such a supportive social site for writers. It can be a lonely addiction…writing. So it feels fantastic to now belong to a community of people who talk “my language”…the wonderful and surreal world of being a writer…
Kim Koning´s last blog ..The Blank Page…a challenge or a bane
Twitter: liakeyes
July 15, 2010 at 5:24 am
Kim, meeting you online in various ways has certainly given me a fun reason to take a break from writing to hang at the virtual watercooler for writers which Scribblerati.com has become! Thanks for commenting!
Great post. Eloquently said. I was unaware–yup, I reside under a rock–about your chat. I will start following and check it out. Thank you. I’ll be linking this post to my blog next week.
Enjoy your weekend.
Sheri Larsen´s last blog ..Treat Your Writer Like A Parent- DONT LISTEN
Twitter: liakeyes
July 15, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Sheri, I’m so glad you found the blog and thank you for your lovely comment. One of the things I love most about being a writer is the generosity and enthusiasm of fellow writers. I can’t think of another line of work where peers support and help each other quite so much, but it definitely makes up for the rejections and disappointments that are also part of the journey!
Lia, I just wanted to thank you for recommending my two writer’s books, Hooked and Finding Your Voice. Even more, I’m just delighted that you found them helpful in your own writing. I’d like to invite you to visit my blog at: http://www.lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/
Again, thank you.
Blue skies,
Les Edgerton
Twitter: liakeyes
July 15, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Les! How nice of you to comment. I’m now following your blog and just found you on Facebook, too. If you ever feel like doing a guest post, do let me know!