Last week, I discussed 2 secrets for creating a hook for your novel–those attention-grabbing first few lines in chapter 1. Today, I’m offering 3 steps to mastering your novel’s beginning. But before I get to those steps, I need to explain what the beginning of your novel does.
What is the purpose of the beginning of your novel?
The beginning of a novel has 2 jobs: introducing and establishing the characters, plots, and settings. It doesn’t matter which genre you’re writing. All beginnings must do this. The beginning should orient readers in the world of the novel and answer questions of who, what, when, and where. Readers should find out quickly who the protagonist is, basic facts about this character’s personality and motives, where the novel is taking place, the timeframe for it, and what problem the protagonist faces. The how and the why of the novel should unfold over the course of the book.
Now that we know the purpose of the beginning of a novel, how do we write accomplish the jobs of introducing and establishing while still maintaining tension? As I’ve stated in previous posts, tension is the engine that keeps readers turning the pages of your novel. Although readers have just opened a novel, there should still be tension on the first page. But beginnings are the best place to kill tension because we have to work at introducing and establishing readers in the world of our novel. A compelling beginning balances tension with getting readers settled in the story world.
Space how many characters you introduce in a chapter.
The novels in my Rae Riley Mysteries have a lot of characters, so I’m very conscious of not introducing too many characters in a chapter or scene at the beginning. I only bring in the characters that are absolutely necessary to carry the action or dialogue. Introducing numerous characters in a few pages will kill tension. Too much space is taken up with adequately explaining all these characters are.
Use only the settings you need.
If your beginning comes to eight chapters, and each chapter has a new setting, describing each of those settings will weigh down the tension. See if some of the settings can be used again.
Especially in the first chapters and scenes, we should bring readers into major settings. In my Halloween mystery, A Riddle in the Lonesome October, the first chapter is set at an outdoor Halloween experience–customers walk through the woods where scenes created from Edgar Allan Poe stories are enacted. This location is the major setting for the novel. Most of the action and plot points happen here. So I introduced and established it as soon as possible in the first chapter.
Introduce a problem in the first chapter.
It doesn’t have to be the main problem that the protagonist will tackle throughout the story, but the problem must be important and tied to the main one. In Riddle, my amateur sleuth Rae Riley is riding home from work with her dad, Sheriff Malinowski. Her Aunt Carrie, who is head of security at the Halloween event, calls them, saying a trespasser has been caught the day before it opens, and the man wants to talk to the sheriff. So Rae and her dad drive to the event. Trespassing becomes a major plot point in the mystery, and I establish it early. The trespasser also gives me the chance to introduce the main mystery in the first chapter: a weird will with a lost inheritance.
What’s the best beginning you’ve read?
