Previous posts in this series:
An Overview of Beginning to End
Last week, I shared an overview of my process, and since I have pretty recently talked about developing a core sentence and blurb from my story spark, I’m going to jump straight to writing chapter one.
In my years of writing stories, I’ve found I struggle to get going until I have an impression of what kind of person my main character is.
Even when my initial story spark comes as a plot, there are always character traits nestled in there. Your plot and your character should be so entwined that you can’t separate one from the other.
For example, my story spark for Within These Lines was: What if during WWII, an Italian American teenage girl was in love with a Japanese American teenage boy, and his family was taken away to a concentration camp while hers got to stay?
From the beginning, I knew things about those characters and what shape the story would take.
When I sit down with that blank page and plans to write, I need to have an impression about who my main character is and what this story is really about. I won’t nail it on the first attempt, but if I know those two things, I have a chance of creating something useful.
So, how do we make these kinds of decisions? Let’s start with character.
What about this character is interesting to me?
You are your novel’s first reader, and you liking your main character is critical to writing the whole book. Even though you don’t know them very well yet, think about what you find intriguing about this character. Is it her gentle nature? Is it his tendency to put others before himself? Is it the way she disregards social conventions?
Whatever the answer is, you want to show that early on. If you find that trait intriguing, chances are your future audience will too.
But what if the trait you find interesting isn’t particularly endearing?
If your character falls into that troublesome category of “they don’t make a good first impression, but once you get to know them you love them” then you will likely want to pair your interesting trait with something universally likable. We tend to like characters who are funny, competent, self-aware, or care for others.
A great example of this is Katniss of The Hunger Games. She’s a bristley character, but Collins shows us from page one that Katniss’s concern is for her sister, and we’re endeared enough to keep reading. (Later on in the book, Katniss’s self-awareness and competence help too.)
Where does this story really begin?
Nailing down the answer to this question is often a murky journey for me.
This is one way that writing my core sentence before I begin writing the story has helped me, because I’ve done some work to identify what the story is really about. But that doesn’t make it obvious where the story needs to start. Instead it feels more like having some arrows pointing in a general direction.
If you’ve studied the hero’s journey and story structure, “glimpse of the home world” is often the first plot point. This is what it sounds like, a peek at the main character’s life before everything goes haywire so that we have context for what they’re leaving behind. Think of Frodo in the Shire, Luke Skywalker with his aunt and uncle, or Katniss hunting in the woods outside of District 12.
But in all of these stories, it’s actually “Glimpse of home world with a twist.” Everything is normal for a page or two, but we already see those hints that the world is about to blow up. For example, the reaping is mentioned in sentence four of The Hunger Games.
So, you could start brainstorming your beginning by thinking, “What does a normal day look like for my character? And how will this seemingly normal day take a turn?”
Who and what need to be introduced early?
As you consider what setting to use first, try and put your character in a situation where you can show (or at least talk about) important characters. Page time communicates importance to the reader, so you probably don’t want to start in a setting we’ll never see or reference again with characters who aren’t important to the central plot.
What tone do I need to set?
It’s critical to understand the idea of making promises to your reader. Shannon has talked about that pretty recently in this post, 5 Promises You Make To The Reader.
You don’t want to start a light-hearted novel with an emotional death. Or a cozy mystery with a disturbing torture scene. Or a young adult novel with the POV of an 80-year-old. Starting with those scenes promises the wrong story.
So, you want to consider the “feel” of your story. Funny? Edgy? Moody? Insightful? Whatever mood you begin with is a promise to the reader about what kind of book they’re reading.
If you know your theme, how could you set it up in this first scene?
When I’m working on a first draft, I don’t yet know my theme, though I may have some idea. I discover my theme over the course of writing the novel, but if you think you know your theme, definitely try to work it in!
One thing to NOT do: Spend your first pages info dumping
I don’t use the word “always” very often, but it’s always the wrong choice to begin with pages of backstory. This is a common mistake for fantasy writers who sometimes like to write prologues full of storyworld history.
Prologues have their place, but dumping all your world building, historical research, or character backstory into a prologue or chapter one is NOT where your book should start.
Lastly, just write.
Your character, plot, theme, and setting are not yet fully developed, and there will be changes you have to come back and make. You might need to write that info dumpy prologue to figure out where your story begins. You might write three chapters before realizing, “Oh, this is actually where the story should start.”
But we can’t perfect what we don’t write, so that’s where to start. Just write.
Writing exercise:
Sit down with a pile of your favorite novels and read only chapter one or the prologue, if there is one. You’ll get a good feel for why those work for you (or why they don’t work. Not every published novel starts well!)
I promise you that the novels you love, that you feel begin perfectly, didn’t start that way. What looks effortless and obvious to us now was not effortless or obvious to the author.
Do you have ideas for how your story will start? Do story beginnings feel difficult or easy for you?
For me finding where my story should start is always hard. In my story right now, I just chose a place to start and started to write the story. I still don’t know if it’s the right place to start. Where I started was with my protagonist when she woke up in the fairy-tale world with amnesia. I don’t really know if I should start before she got amnesia when she was in what you would call her homeworld. Like I said, I don’t know if it’s the best place to start but it is something.
Thanks for the post!
I think writing the story is the best way to figure out where it really begins. That’s great, Ariel!
Maybe that’s why I can start an audiobook & be convinced I won’t like it in 5 mins! I always wonder if i make up my mind too soon ?
Occasionally, I muscle through a novel opening that doesn’t grab me, but not that often!
I really struggled when writing the second chapter of my WIP. Chapter One was fairly easy, because it took place eleven years before the rest of the story, and its main purpose was to set the tone, create an intriguing scenario, spark questions, and generate suspense. The second chapter was where I introduced a majority of my main cast, established my setting, and went deeper with the plot, so it took me a while to decide on the proper POV to use, what events to include, and how to get information across without info dumping, subplots, etc. I did sort most of it out, though, and I’ll probably revise it even more in the future.
This post will definitely be something to keep in mind with future projects. It sums up everything quite nicely, and that last sentence is something that I think we all need to hear.
My situation exactly! I have a prologue that takes place 4 years before the real story, that sets tone, characters, questions, and a snippet of plot, but the real chapter one is… still a work in progress. (Well, I don’t have chapter breaks, but I doubt I’m past chapter 2 at most.)
Chapter one is deceptively difficult because you’re setting so many things in motion. But sounds like you’ve been smart to press on and know that you’ll come back to it later!
Great tips!
Great post! Beginnings are such a daunting task for me! It’s hard to decide what way the plot should turn, especially since I just introduced my characters. I’m thinking of starting my story differently now, (At first, I was thinking starting with how my main character got his power, and meeting his “mentor”, but I’m thinking introducing my story with my main characters having a run-in with my antagonists, then going back.)
For me, I like to brainstorm, and write everything I could add to this story in my notebook, then write out my favorite scene ideas. I don’t really have a theme for my story yet though, I’m terrible with that!
There are some books where I have a really clear idea where the story starts, but other times my process looks a lot more like what you described Riley. Lots of trial and error to figure out what makes for the best opening!