How NOT to Start a Novel

When you sit down to write a novel, the beginning seems to offer limitless possibilities and that can be a problem for some writers. It is for me. If you can start in one of a thousand ways, how do you choose? Knowing how not to start a novel can be as helpful as how to start one.

Don’t start with your main character’s ordinary day.

Like a lot of new writers, I began my stories with two misconceptions: (1) my characters were fascinating to everybody, and (2) I should start my story by showing my characters following their normal routines. Once readers got to know my characters, I’d bring in the problem or event that changed their ordinary lives and kick off the plot. I didn’t think I needed to start with the main problem.

Now I know better. My characters will never fascinate readers in the same way they do me, just like my kids will never fascinate other people the way they do my husband and me. Also most daily routines are boring. Boring readers for a couple of chapters, if they last that long, should not be the goal of any writer.

Looking back, I see why I started like that. It was easier to introduce characters and backstory without having a pesky plot to deal with. Dribble in characters and description and backstory while the plot is under way? That’s hard!

But don’t start with dramatic action.

If you start with car chases and brawls before readers get to know your characters, (1) they won’t care about the danger your characters are in because they don’t know them and (2) you’ll have to increase the action throughout the book because the climax must be more intense than the opening.

And don’t use false starts.

What are false starts? The riveting scene that turns out to be a dream of the main character or a scene in a movie or book he or she is enjoying. I also don’t like beginnings that grab part of the climax and put it up front. Then the rest of the book is about how the characters reach that scene. Usually, by the time I get to the climax, I’ve forgotten the part that started the story.

Since I’ve never written a prologue, I can’t say whether they’re effective or not. Many authors do use them. I think the decision to use a prologue depends upon the story your’e writing.

So how to begin? Start with tension.

If you’re opening has tension, it will entice the reader to keep reading.

Here’s the opening for A Shadow on the Snow:

I’M NOT FOOLED, RAE. YOU’RE JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER.

I stared at the sheet of copier paper in my hand as the note fluttered in a gust of January wind.

Really? It had only taken three weeks for someone to hate me and my mom enough to leave an anonymous insult?

The book opens with my main character Rae receiving an anonymous note. The questions in her mind are transferred to the reader. Why is she receiving this note? What has happened in the last three weeks to her and her mom? Now I have Rae go through her ordinary day. But it isn’t ordinary anymore because as she works at the library as a check-out clerk, she wonders who could have sent the note.

Here’s the opening for A Storm of Doubts:

“Just stop it!”

The shout made me jerk and get poked by a dead branch of a honeysuckle bush.

Wasn’t that a woman’s voice? Not a girl’s, not my cousin Coral’s.

Swiveling on my hips, I sat higher and caught strands of my dark gold hair on the bush. The fox cubs or kits or whatevers I’d been photographing leaped and rolled over each other between muted beams of sunlight, undisturbed.

Two voices, one higher, one lower, slipped through the budding understory shrubs and bushes .

Who would be out in the woods on the morning of Memorial Day between my cousin’s farm and my dad’s?

Rae’s tension is tension for readers. Who has Rae overheard? Has something happened to her cousin? Those questions keep readers turning the page.

Your turn. What are some of your favorite openings to a story? What are some examples of how not to start a novel?