Novel Openings
Go beyond the landscape when setting the scene with these three essential considerations for starting your novel.
Wish you had a guide to help your work-in-progress come to life? Our expert editors will make sure your project is polished and targeted to your specific audience, from outline to submission package.
Video Transcript: Novel Openings
Hi, this is Mary Kole and I want to talk about novel openings today. So, this is where the rubber meets the road.
There are so many things that you need to ideally hit with your novel opening in order to not only draw in readers but draw in literary agents, publishers, whoever you're submitting to. One of those things is the character. Ideally, you start with your character. They're the first person we meet. If we're in first-person, we're in their head. We don't start with, you know, Mom coming home and opening the door to their adorable kid. And it turns out the kid is the main character, for example. Or if we start in a prologue, we meet completely different characters who are not as it turns out going to be instrumental to your story. They're just there to give some backstory.
No, no, no. Ideally, unless you have some completely extenuating circumstance, a good, good reason for starting with somebody that is either not important to the story or somebody who we only meet later who's not the main character. You really want to spotlight your main character and depending on your narrative choice of point of view, whether it's first-person, close third, omniscient third, ideally, we meet the protagonist and get into their head sooner rather than later.
You also want to start an action. So, this idea of starting in scene, starting with something going on, there's a little bit of trajectory going on, a little bit of action. Two characters are either talking but if they're talking, they're also doing something else. A character is attempting something and then failing. A little bit of dynamic opening will go a long way. Rather than a character just sitting there and thinking about their lives or sitting there and giving backstory. "You know, I remember when I first met my best friend Katie in the fifth grade." Absolutely not. We want to get right into the action in the present moment, if at all possible. There's time for flashbacks. There's time to bulk up all of the backstory later, not in the first scene, not in the first chapter ideally. In fact, if you find yourself jumping times within the first, let's say two or three pages, I challenge you to wonder if you have started in the right place with your story to begin with. And one of the underpinnings of action, of course, is conflict or tension.
So, instead of having two best friends just talking about, "You know, this muffin is really delicious." "Hmm, this coffee is so creamy." So that has scene, right? We are in scene. We are meeting the main character. Hopefully, one of them is one of the people having coffee. But there's no tension. So, yes character, yes scene. But that component that a lot of people forget is tension and conflict. And the way that you get that is if the best friends have just had a falling out, for example, and they're at coffee trying to reconcile. And so the big question right away is ooh, I don't know what happened. Ting! This makes the reader wonder and it makes them want to learn what happened, and I'm sure we'll get it in flashback, just not in the first chapter.
"I wonder what happened and I wonder, wow, it seems like they were really, really good friends up until whatever mysterious thing happened. And I wonder if they will be able to rebuild their friendship or if this is a last-ditch effort that's not gonna pan out." And so, if we see them in action trying to reconcile over this coffee, that tension is there, that question is there, that mystery, A, what happened, and B, will they be able to mend fences. Those are the things that are going to creep into the readers' consciousness and lay eggs there, that's kind of gross but, and motivate them to want to know more.
So, we have character. Ideally, your point of view or focal character is right in there. We have action. They're doing something rather than just a character sitting and musing. And we have tension. We have something, a question, a mystery, something that hangs in the balance. It can be a small opening conflict. Donald Maass calls it the bridging conflict. So, maybe, it's irrelevant after the first few scenes get going whether or not they patch up their friendship. Ideally not. Ideally, it builds into something if the story is about their friendship, but it can be either a small, kind of low-stakes conflict or the opening of a much bigger conflict.
But you don't have to start at a 10 out of 10 with your conflict either. It can be a little bit difficult to relate to if you start suddenly, you know. "I'm running for my life." Nobody knows who I am yet but I expect you to be able to relate to me and care about what happens to me. That might be a little too difficult to relate to, but it's also difficult, on the other hand, to relate to a character who's just sitting there and thinking like, "Gosh, I'm so ordinary. I wish my life was more exciting. Nothing is going on."
So somewhere in the two extremes, leaning toward character, leaning toward a little bit of action, leaning toward tension, that is what I would love to see for a novel opening. And if you don't currently hit those three points, maybe there's a different opening floating around somewhere for you. A lot of writers go back to their openings once they have written their entire manuscript. So maybe it will be a placeholder that you put in the first couple of pages of your word document. Maybe you'll revisit it with these things in mind. But do know that, a lot of the time, you are gonna end up going back to where you are going to end up doing quite a bit of revision there. So, you don't have to nail it on the first try when you are drafting, but ideally, you hit these points when you go back.
And those are your novel opening tips. I am Mary Kole with the Good Story Company, and here's to a good story.
Wherever you are in your writing journey—from an initial outline to a draft to pitching your project—the experienced team at Good Story Editing can take your work to the next level.
