I slammed down the book in utter frustration, feeling as if I wanted to tear out the writer side of my brain to take away the pain. How… how on earth could such a book be published? How could any agent read the beginning and agree to represent it?
Thus was my reaction to On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, by Andrew Peterson. You may know him as the guy who wrote the Wingfeather saga.
I have never been in more pain as I was when I read the beginning of the book. I suffered through five pages of introductions into the backstory of the world, ridiculous footnotes into different aspects of the world that I didn’t need to know, and four chapters of head-hopping, third person omniscient. The author gave me no reason to care about the characters, and I found myself staring at it wondering why I should even be reading it.
The beginning of your book is arguably the most important part of your entire novel. It hooks a potential reader into the story, introduces your characters, and sets the stage for the entire saga.
But beginnings are also one of the hardest parts of a book. You’re staring at that blank page, wondering how on earth you can begin.
Never fear, writer! These five tips have helped me write dozens of beginnings for novels, novelettes, and even the short stories on this site. They’ll help you push past the “beginning block” and continue on to the story that you want to write.
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#1 Use Your End to Figure Out Your Beginning
Sounds messed up, doesn’t it? You’re not supposed to write the end first! That’s not how it works!
I disagree. While you don’t have to write out your entire third act before you start on chapter one, I do think that your climax should at least be summarized, even in a sentence as simple as “hero kills villain”. You need to know how your characters goals will be carried out in the end so you can set it up in the beginning. This was the problem I kept running into as a former pantser. I could never figure out how to begin because I didn’t really know where my book was going to end up.
For my 2022 NaNoWriMo novella The Wild Side of the Mountain, I summarized what would happen in the final act. Now as I am rewriting it, I’m also tweaking the beginning to better set up the ending.
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#2 Find a Good Hook
The hook of your story is what reels readers in like a fish to your novel: it’s that first line, the first thing they see when they crack open the book. It’s the most important sentence in the entire story– what sets everything up for the very first time.
A smashing first line is essential, especially since it should lead right into the characteristic moment when your readers meet your main character for the first time.
- It was a quiet night in the Eatery District, and for Jackie Wolf, that meant the difference between life and death.– Protectors, Allie Lynn
- There was nothing that Cassie Eldwin hated more than going into town on a perfectly lovely Wednesday morning.– The Wild Side of the Mountain, Allie Lynn
- There was blood everywhere.— Hidden Ashes, Allie Lynn
- “Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be… ‘normal’?”– City Ablaze, Lori Scharf
- Heather had invented the game, but Picket made it magic.– The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
The hook leads right into the characteristic moment: the hermit Cassie going into town to get supplies, watching as everyone stares. Jackie struggling to find food for her starving little brother in a world where everything is supposed to be perfect. Mapleberry dreaming of the traumatizing battle she was just injured in and the death of her sister. Fin, watching their city burn, asks Thor why Wyverns (mythical humanoids with dragon wings, of which Fin and Thor are a part of) have to be so hated. Heather and Picket play a game in their field that leads to unexpected danger.
The hook drags your reader along into the story. A good hook starts out a good book. Read plenty of novels, and you’ll soon be able to see how their hooks lead right to their ends. The Green Ember is an excellent example of this; the hook line is the same as the ending line of the series, bringing all of the story full circle.
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#3 Introduce the Characteristic Moment
The characteristic moment, mentioned briefly above, introduces your readers to your main characters, and it’s your one shot to convince readers that this is a character worth reading about.
The characteristic moment gives a bit of description about your character and at least hints into his morals and ideals. I think this is where Andrew Peterson flopped in On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. We’re already put off by the long introduction into a bunch of details we didn’t need to know, and then we’re slammed into the life of a kid named Janner who spends an entire chapter worrying about a Black Carriage and children being taken by the Fangs without any insight as to what makes him relatable to us or why we should even care he’s there.
Readers need to feel like they can relate to the character. The characteristic moment should have at least one thing that will show why the reader should continue to read. Will Jackie get the food back to her brother without being attacked by gangs? Why are Fin and Thor talking about Wyverns– and who is screaming at the end of their conversation? Why is Mapleberry so scarred by this battle she’s dreaming of? Why is Cassie considered such an oddball by the citizens of Spring Creek?
The only example I showed who doesn’t quite ask a question is The Green Ember. But, S.D. Smith charms you with this light and peaceful scene of a brother and sister playing together, and even though everything seems great, there is this underlying feeling that things will not always be this way, that this childhood innocence will soon be gone.
That’s the difference between Andrew Peterson and S.D. Smith. While Heather and Picket’s game isn’t very suspenseful, we immediately relate to them because we know that warm feeling of making childhood memories. Meanwhile we are dropped into Janner’s thoughts about the Black Carriage and since it’s in third person omniscient we don’t really dive into his thoughts. We are given no reason to care.
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#4 Set Up For Action
And no, this doesn’t mean that you start your novel with an explosion. After you bring up the reasons the reader should care about your character, then you can get into the action. But you can’t randomly slap some bad guys in there. You’ve got to foreshadow the danger, set up the scene.
In The Green Ember, throughout the first chapter there is a hint that things will not always be this way. Indeed, when the brother and sister go for another round of Star-Seek, their toy gets caught high up in a tree– a tree bordering the wood that they have been forbidden to go into. Worse, a storm is coming, and the chapter ends with lightning striking the tree and a fiery branch falling toward them.
In On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, things begin to get interesting when Leeli is attacked by the Fangs of Dang. However, that’s almost ten chapters into the book. I think if Andrew Peterson had cut the first few chapters and chose to focus on a single POV, it could have strengthened his opening a lot more.
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#5 Use REAL Suspense
Suspense woven into your first chapter helps the story keep going– so long as it’s real suspense.
What’s the difference between real and false suspense?
False suspense is like what you see in the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books– at the end of every chapter, they’re in life-threatening danger, but by the next 2 paragraphs they’re out of the danger. By four chapters, it gets old. There’s no real suspense because the readers know that they won’t actually get hurt. Or, in Andrew Peterson’s case, he had Janner thinking about the Black Carriage and the legend of the Black carriage for four paragraphs until he suddenly realized that the noise was gone and there was really nothing to worry about in the first place.
But real suspense intrigues and keeps the readers guessing. In The Green Ember, S.D. Smith heightens the tension as Heather and Picket try to brainstorm how to get their toy down. Picket is afraid of heights, but Heather is too big. But, just as they are about to find a solution, lightning strikes the tree and a branch on fire careens toward them. They manage to get out of the way in time by chapter 2, but the raging storm has made everything so pitch black they can’t find their way home.
Real suspense has tension in the plot level and internal level. Heather worries about getting her brother home, and as older sister she feels responsible for his safety. And Picket feels embarrassed and ashamed over his fears.
It’s okay to have your characters fail a couple times before they figure out how to get out. You’ll heighten the tension and make the characters seem more real.
And yes, you can have suspense in a contemporary work. Contemporary suspense will probably be more on an internal scale than an external scale, such as Black Beauty at the horse fair in Black Beauty, waiting to see what sort of a master he will go home to.
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So there you have it! Five ways to make the beginning and first chapter of your book more suspenseful. There’s still one question we haven’t covered.
What about prologues?
Prologues are quite controversial. Some people love them, others hate them.
I’m in the middle. Some prologues are done really well… others just confuse things more.
In The Green Ember, I found that the prologue did more harm than good. It was set years before the story, and it served only to confuse the reader with the sudden time jump.
However, in Of Fire and Ash by Gillian Bronte Adams, the prologue served as a backstory that is quite essential for the rest of the book, and saved an infodump or a flashback. It tastefully described the main character Ceridwen’s internal “ghost” that drives her arc without being a nuisance.
Some prologues are needed, and others aren’t. Often it’s better to do without them, unless it really serves the story
And thus we have come to the end of this article. What are your greatest struggles with your beginnings and first chapters?