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The first page is your make-or-break moment. The 250 words in which your reader – be it a literary agent or bookstore browser – decides to either turn the page or close the book forever.
If you don’t emotionally engage your reader by page one, it’s over. This is the D in AIDA.
The D in AIDA
To find out how to hook and keep my readers (and your readers), I scoured the Internet for the best advice on first pages and first chapters.
Here’s a comprehensive overview of the best advice I found. (If confused, click the source link for a more detailed explanation.)
First of All
From “Moonrat,” a recovering editorial assistant:
- Assume your reader is in a terrible mood when they look at page one. This prospective agent has an endless stack of submissions to sift through, not to mention actual clients to attend to. You don’t have until page two.
The Do Nots
From Hilari Bell:
- Don’t open with scenery
- Don’t open with back story (aka “the data dump”)
- Don’t open in the middle of too much action
- Don’t open with more than three characters (three is already pushing it)
From various agents
- Don’t open with a dream or a flashback
- Don’t be flowery – minimize adjectives and adverbs
- Don’t open with a cliché – (see examples in the post)
From Livia Blackburne:
- Don’t start with weather unless it’s about meteorologists
- Avoid having the character think about something just so you can tell the reader about it (that’s telling, not showing).
From Hallie Ephron:
- Don’t start with a stolen prologue – you know, when your first page is boring, so you take the most exciting scene from the middle of the book, slap it at the beginning and call it the prologue
The Dos
From Anica Mrose Rissi:
- Start with conflict and tension – something going wrong (in love or in trouble on page one)
- Start with the story you’re telling, not the back story
From Nancy Kress:
- Introduce the protagonist – focus on the individual, not just a type: what is different about this person?
From Tara Lazar:
- Briefly set the scene, but be specific versus generic – what’s unique about this place?
From Hilari Bell:
- Set the tone of the story – is it sarcastic, dark, whimsical, suspenseful?
From Elizabeth Sims:
- Give it a mini plot – a first chapter so layered, concise, and complete that it feels like it could stand alone will make an awesome first chapter
From Nancy Kress:
- Understand the promises you are making your readers – both emotional and intellectual – and be prepared to follow through (will the ending meet the expectations you encouraged your readers to have in the beginning?)
Deciding Where to Begin
From Elizabeth Sims:
- Pick a scene you know you’re going to put in—even if you don’t know where. You might discover your Chapter One right there.
- Ask “what will the protagonist be doing when we first meet him?”
From James Scott Bell:
- Try cutting your current first scene and starting with the next one instead
Feeling overwhelmed?
Here’s a more structured look at how to compose your first pages, from Les Edgerton’s book, Hooked:
The Components of an Opening Scene
Primary (absolutely necessary):
- The inciting incident – event that creates the surface problem, setting the stage for the story-worthy problem
- The story-worthy problem – thing the character must solve by the end of the story
- The initial surface problem – result of the inciting incident, appears to be what the story is about, but isn’t
- The setup – a snapshot that will help the reader understand the next scene
Secondary (may not be necessary):
- Back story – include only what is absolutely necessary
- A stellar opening sentence – spend more time on this line than any other
- Language – use your best prose in the beginning
- Character – reveal a telling detail about your protagonist using action, not exposition
- Setting – ground your readers but don’t go overboard
- Foreshadowing – hint at action or obstacles to come
Test Your First Page
At Flogging the Quill, people submit their first pages to a “Flogometer,” where people read the page and vote to turn the page or not. Ray, who runs the site, also gives valuable feedback. It may take awhile to be featured if you submit, so I advise looking at the examples already posted there to see if any are similar to yours – and whether they made the cut.
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This blogger scoured the web for the best advice on writing an opening scene.
Very useful. Thanks. 🙂
You’re very welcome!
Great advice, thank you. And thanks for the link to the Flogging blog. Looks really interesting.
Some great sample first pages over there! Thanks for reading. : )
Well, the good news is, this didn’t set me back any.
Actually, I have mostly good news for this post. It made me smile, and offered some useful ideas. The “pick a scene you know you’re going to put in” was an interesting thought, though it didn’t solve my particular problem. I’m more in the “how much to I cut?” struggle. On the whole, yet another thought-provoking and useful post. It doesn’t make things EASIER, but at this point I am not sure what could make things easier. 🙂
I’ve found that chopping words, paragraphs, scenes can be fun, once I force my way past the “I can’t hurt my baby!” stage (which I keep reverting back into). I get into a “shortening” mindset, and then every cut feels like a victory. What was “I wrote 1000 words today!” in the writing stage becomes “I cut 1000 words today!” Though it strikes me that this could become dangerous and I could cut TOO much and the story won’t make sense.
…Yeah. Never easier.
It is possible to cut too much. I waver between having too much and cutting too much. The problem about where to start this story, though, has ceased to be pain in cutting, and has become a consideration of what a reader needs to know, and what sets the story up and moving, and what doesn’t. I am too close to the whole thing to have any idea!
*gets out bullhorn* ATTENTION! STEP AWAY FROM THE STORY. STEP AWAY.
This post is so simple and easy to read through yet filled with practical info. Thanks heaps,
Glad you found it useful!
I nominated you for a Liebster Award! Eek!
http://journeyofjordannaeast.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/jerks-irks-vi-awards-yay-twitter-boo/
Reblogged this on amberdover and commented:
Happy Hear the Writer Roar! Tuesday 🙂 Enjoy this reblog! God bless and Remember The High King Lives!
~Amber Dover
Yay! Thanks for the linkback!
I’ve always opened with someone or some people getting killed. Usually from the POV of he killer as he’s stalking, and hunting the victim, right down to the kill. Seems to work pretty well.
Yes, murder can be a very good opener. Gets right to the good stuff.
Cool to see you mention FtQ. I’ve been reading it for years, and I wouldn’t be where I am now without it and Query Shark.
The whole stolen prologue thing, though, has me baffled, because I hear over and over how wrong that is, yet I see it in published books ALL THE TIME. And not just bad books. Good books.
I think the objection is not that it doesn’t work, but that it’s overdone. I’ve seen it done well, but it can also be a lazy solution to a deeper problem. I suppose agents see it done poorly too often, so they’ve developed a bad taste in their mouth towards it.
GAH! Stepping away! Stepping away! Hands up and off the keyboard!
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Thanks for info on Flogging the Quill. I’m pretty confident about the first page of my first attempt at writing a book. Knowing if I’m on the right track is worth gold to me right now.
Thanks for info on Flogging the Quill. I’m pretty confident about the first page of my first attempt at writing a book. Knowing if I’m on the right track is worth chocolate gold to me right now. 🙂
Haha, that’s worth a lot! I could go for some chocolate gold.
“Don’t open with scenery” like Of Mice and Men?
“Don’t open with back story” like The Great Gatsby?
“Don’t open in the middle of too much action” like Fahrenheit 451?
“Don’t open with a dream or a flashback” like The Road?
“Don’t be flowery” like Oliver Twist?
“Don’t start with weather unless it’s about meteorologists” like the entire first chapter of The Grapes of Wrath?
Tex, a lot of these rules exist, not because the type of beginning is bad in itself, but because it’s been done too many times before and has become banal, like a landscape painting in a hotel room.
These endings had not necessarily been overdone yet when these examples were written. But now it isn’t enough to be able to write prettily about scenery or weather; thousands of writers can do that without breaking a sweat. Fewer can hook us with a unique story or a character from the first sentence.
I take particular issue with your example of Fahrenheit 451, however. The rule is “don’t open in the middle of TOO MUCH action.” “Action” here refers to violence. Like a book that plunges you into a fight scene between two characters whom you don’t yet know and therefore don’t care about. Fahrenheit is not at all like that; it opens with a man who is very much enjoying burning a bunch of books. This instantly hooks us. Why burn books? Is he an arsonist (interesting), or does society demand he burn them (even more interesting)? Plus, we all love and fear how much we relate to the dark, catharsis-heavy language with which the passage is written.
Does that clear things up for you?
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Great article. Thanks!
One tip confused me- it said not to start with a memory, but I always do and some of my favorite books (e.g. A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass) do as well. Why are us writers advised not to? Any ideas?
Also, this was a FANTASTIC article. I will be coming back to this website!!!!
Meow
Hi Sophie,
The danger is in disorienting your reader. You begin telling a story and they are just getting their bearings regarding where and when the story takes place when, boom, you reveal it was a flashback and the real story is taking place in another time, another location.
Of course, rules are meant to be broken, and there are good ways of starting with a memory. Consider making it clear from the beginning that it is a memory. “Sometimes the scent of the lavender soap in the hotel bathrooms reminded her of the summer she turned twelve, when she fell in the lake…” Something like that grounds the reader in the present while providing a sense of depth and history.
Stephanie, Re: the above blog, “21 . . . ” you state the Inciting Incident (II)is a must have for the Opening Scene. I also see other blogs (CS Lakin, KM Weiland, etc) who say the II should occur at the 10% mark. Hard to reconcile an opening scene II with a 10% II for a 100,000 word fantasy. Any comments will be greatly appreciated since I am a novice.
I haven’t written in a while, so I was sort of struggling with trying to start something new. I have other works that I can jump back into because those who read it already are familiar with it, so beginning a new project felt a bit daunting.
After struggling on my own, and pages upon pages of the same beginning, I decided to search out some help. This article certainly exceeded my expectations. I was reminded of things I had forgotten and learned some new tips for the future.
Thank you so much.