The Line Forms Where? Knowing Where to Start Your Novel

By Janice Hardy

If your first pages don’t grab readers, your problem might not be the writing—it might be where you started.

Openings are hard, especially if you're not sure if you're starting in the right place. The sheer amount of "is this opening working?" submissions I get in Real Life Diagnostics is testament to that.

The old "start with the action" has frustrated many a writer due to its ambiguity, and even when we think we've done it all correctly, beta readers can still feel the opening isn't grabbing them.

I've talked about first lines and first pages before, so today, let's focus on figuring out where to start your story, and how to diagnose it if you're worried you're starting in the wrong place.

First, analyze your current opening, either the first scene or the first chapter if it's only one scene:

Open Up! Writing the Opening Scene

By Janice Hardy

The primary goal of an opening scene is to make readers want to read the next scene. 

You’d be surprised how often writers forget the whole point of an opening scene, because their focus is on establishing the setting, introducing the protagonist, and telling readers all about the cool story waiting for them. 

Don't get me wrong, these are all important things, but on their own they’re not going to do what an opening scene needs to do—grab readers and keep them reading.

And the best way to grab readers is to give them a puzzle they’ll want to know the answer to. 

An intriguing first line that poses a question (literal or metaphorical), an unusual situation, a mystery, a contradiction that doesn’t quite make sense. A great voice and character they want to get to know better is another way to hook readers. As long as it’s something or someone that makes them think, “I want to know more about X.”

You Get One Page to Hook a Reader. Yes, Really.

By Janice Hardy

Many readers decide before the end of the first page if they’re going to keep reading.

A lot of pressure is put on the opening page of a novel, and for good reason. It’s the first impression the reader gets, and if that reader isn’t hooked in some way, they won’t move on to the second page. 

As unfair as it seems, 250 words (roughly one page) are often all you get to convince readers to stay with your story and read your book. It might be tempting to pack the entire story into that first page, but that's absolutely the wrong approach.  

All you have to do is give readers something that promises them that your novel will be worth reading. 

Which is much easier to do than you might think.

Are You Missing Opportunities to Make Your Writing Stronger?

By Janice Hardy

Little tweaks can make a big difference in our novels.

It always amazes me how many decisions go into writing a strong novel. There's the big stuff, like the plot and characters, but something as simple as your title, or where you break your scenes can be the difference between a good book and great book.

Use too many clichés? The novel feels familiar and unoriginal. Throw in a ton of adverbs? Your readers don't feel the full weight of the story's emotional layer. 

You have so many opportunities to write a strong novel, and more writers should take advantage of that fact. 

Why "Start With the Action" Messes Up So Many Writers

By Janice Hardy

Sometimes really great advice is anything but helpful.

If I took a poll for the most common writing advice, “start with the action” would make the list. 

Which it should, as it’s great advice. But it’s also like saying, “show, don’t tell.” You know you ought to do it, but you don’t always know how, and those four words don’t really help you write the beginning of your novel.

This can be especially hard on new writers, because they might think they’re doing everything right, but still get negative feedback or even rejections on their manuscripts. “I do start with action,” they cry. “Can’t you see that car barreling off that cliff there? What do I have to do, blow up a planet?”

Well, no. And that's where the problem lies.

If you don’t know what “action” means in fiction, you can easily misunderstand how to use it.

4 Signs You Might Be Confusing, Not Intriguing, in Your Opening Scene

By Janice Hardy

The opening scene of a novel walks a fine line between piquing curiosity and confusing the reader. 

Opening scenes are under a lot of pressure. They need to pique reader interest, set the scene, introduce characters, and give just enough information to intrigue, but not overload or confuse the reader. 

That’s a lot to ask of 250 words.

While trying to hook readers and not give everything away, it’s common for an opening scene to be less than forthcoming with information. We hold back details to sound mysterious, we hide clues we think will reveal too much, and sometimes, we even bend over backward not to provide the exact details readers need to get sucked into the story.

The fastest way to lose a reader isn’t boredom—it’s confusion.

5 Common Problems With Beginnings

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

If your beginning isn't working, no one will get to the ending.

A novel’s beginning is under a lot of pressure. It has to introduce the protagonist and characters, setup the world and story, and get the plot moving, all while hooking our readers and making them want to turn the page. 

With all that setup and introduction, it’s no wonder a first draft often has the wrong opening scene, or takes too much time to get going.

The only thing tougher than writing a beginning is writing the ending. Except for writing the middle.

If a beginning isn’t working, it’s usually due to not grabbing the reader’s interest, either by lack of a compelling problem, nothing happening, or taking too long to get to the actual story.

In the Beginning: Which Type of Opening Works Best in a Novel?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Opening lines are your novel's first impression on a reader. As long as it's a good impression, how you get there doesn't matter. 

The opening line of your novel is probably the most important line you'll write (no pressure). How you start your novel determines how many readers (or agents and editors) will keep reading it. And there are a lot of opinions about what that opening line should be.

Do you start with dialogue, description, or internalization?

Each one has a horror story associated with it about the dangers of using that type to start your novel. "Don't open a story with dialogue," or "Never start with description," or "Opening with internalization is just navel gazing."

Truth is, the type of opening line doesn't matter. It's how you start the story that's important. 

The Problem With Flash Forwards as an Opening Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

If you have to flash forward to hook a reader, you’re not starting in the right place.

I admit, flash forwards are a big pet peeve of mine. I find them awkward and pointless, because they’re trying to get me interested in “an exciting part” of the story without doing any work to actually create that emotional connection. Obviously, taste vary, but for me, they’re a trick, a bait and switch, and they fail more times than work.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a flash forward is a device that starts with a scene from later in the story, then jumps back in time to show how the characters ended up in that situation. On TV shows, it’s the “twenty-four hours earlier” text that shows up after the opening scene where we see the hero in dire straits.

Why No One Is Reading Past Your First Chapter

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A lackluster first chapter can turn readers off and make them abandon the book before they've given it a fair chance.

I’m a brutal reader. If the first page of a novel doesn’t pique my interest, I rarely give it a try unless the premise is one I’m super interested in. Even when I do keep reading, the book has until the end of the first chapter to hook me or not. If it doesn’t, I don’t buy that book—even if I love the premise.

I can’t tell you how many book samples I’ve downloaded that never won my dollar vote. Some of them just “weren’t for me” books, but often, they aren’t doing enough to make me want to keep reading. I make it to the end of the sample in about half the books I read, and probably buy about half of those. That’s a lot of books that don’t make the cut.

You might think those poor rejected books were just badly written, but most of them were “good books.” The writing was strong, the characters were well-drawn, and the text flowed smoothly. 

But each made a fatal mistake.

4 Mistakes that Doom the First Page of Your Manuscript

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Your novel’s first page is the last chance you get to hook your reader.

Writing your first page might be one of the scariest moments in writing a novel. So much is riding on it, and that’s a lot of pressure to deal with while you’re trying to craft the perfect opening line, or find the right voice for the story.

First off, relax.

Yes, the first page is important, but you don’t have to get it right on a first draft, or any draft until the final draft. You have plenty of time to craft a first page that will wow readers, agents, and editors. Many writers don’t even know what the right first page is until they’re written the end of the book.

But don’t ignore it either, because first pages really are as critical as everyone says. No matter how awesome the idea for a novel sounds, if you read that first page and it’s a total dud—you don’t read on. And if a reader is peeking into your novel to see if it hooks them, and it doesn’t, bye-bye sale.

Story Structure: How the Opening Scene Works in a Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The opening scene is the preview for your entire novel.

I find opening scenes both easy and hard to write. Once I’m ready to write them they’re easy, but it might take me a month or more to figure out the right opening line. And I can’t write the novel until I have the right opening line and scene. I need to start off from the right point or I tend to wander into the weeds.

Other writers don’t have this issue, and write whatever comes to them, knowing they’re going to revise it later. They don’t know what the right opening scene is until they write the final scene.

Both (and everything in between), are perfectly acceptable ways to write opening scenes.

Which is good, because opening scenes need to do a lot. They need to introduce the protagonist, the setting, the hook, the problem, show conflict, create voice, craft intriguing story questions, ground readers, make readers like your characters, and the list goes on and on.

3 Steps to Ground Readers in Your Story World

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Losing readers in the opening scene is a problem many novels face.

Opening scenes lead really stressful lives (metaphorically speaking). They have to hook readers, offer a compelling problem, introduce characters, show voice, and establish the world and setting by the end of the scene. No pressure, right?

I’ve been doing weekly critiques on this site since 2010, and the most common submission I get is the first page. So I’ve seen a lot of openings in a variety of genres and markets. And there’s one mistake I see writers make over and over.

Not grounding readers in the story world.

Grounded readers have the tools they need to embrace—and enjoy—the story.

Ungrounded readers feel lost and confused, and the longer that confusion lasts, the more likely it is they’ll stop reading the book. They’re too busy trying to make sense of what they’re reading to lose themselves in the story. Quite often, they can’t connect to the characters because they can’t get a bead on who they are and what they want.

Why Your Novel Isn’t Hooking Your Reader

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy 

How to tell the difference between good setup, and bad setup, in your novel.

I’ve always written fantasy and science fiction, so I learned right away how perilous setup is to a novel. I wrote dozens of terrible beginnings and first acts that were barely more than a dramatized version of my notes. Characters gave lectures, they didn’t have conversations. And I’d stick my authorial nose into the story to explain the things my characters didn’t know.

I even wrote the dreaded, history-ladened “fantasy world building prologue” a time or two. [shudders]

On the bright side, facing this extra challenge early on helped me figure out how show, don’t tell and point of view worked, which made writing in general a lot easier. It also taught me a very good lesson I still use today.

5 Ways You’re Smothering Your Reader in Your Opening Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Let’s look at how much is too much in an opening scene.

I’ve had weekly critiques on the site since 2010, and a large number of those have been opening pages. Between that, my critique groups, clients, random critiques, and of course, my own reading habits, I’ve read a lot of opening pages. And, of course, written them.

Not all have been good. Not all have been bad. Which is fine for most of those pages, as they were works in progress and that’s normal. Opening scenes are tough to get right.

One of the things I see a lot of, is trying to put too much into the story too soon. 

And instead of drawing readers in, we smother them in information.

Do E-Readers Put Unfair Pressure on First Chapters?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

How important is it for readers to know what the book is about before they start reading? 

Years ago, I'd started a novel on my e-reader that my husband had recommended. I'd read other books by this author and enjoyed them, and this was a different series with new characters and world. I knew the basic premise going in, but nothing more. After several chapters I found myself getting bored, but probably not for the reasons you'd expect.

Since I'd never read the cover copy, I had no idea what the novel was about.

Since I had no clue what the novel was about, I needed the first few chapters to establish that for me to keep me hooked.

And this novel didn't do that. It focused on things that--as far as I could see--were going nowhere. I mentioned it to my husband, who gave me a quick two-sentence core conflict update. Suddenly I saw those "going nowhere" chapters in a whole new light. The tiniest bit of information made a huge difference.

10 Things That Will Sink Your Novel’s Opening Pages

By Aly Brown, @AlyConnerBrown

Part of the How They Do It Series 

JH: The opening pages of a novel are probably the most important pages you'll write in that novel. Aly Brown shares ten things you might be doing wrong.

Aly Brown is a newspaper editor and author represented by BookEnds LLC. She recently inked a deal with Feiwel & Friends / Macmillan for a nonfiction middle grade book on Alvin Submersible called The Last Unexplored Place on Earth. Release date 2023.

Website | Twitter | Grammar Chicken

Take it away Aly...

The Problem With "Revealing" Information That's Already in the Cover Copy

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A novel's beginning is under a lot of pressure to hook readers and pull them into the story. But what happens when that hook is something we reveal on the back cover?

Opening scenes are hard enough to write already, but there's something writers need to be wary about, particularly if they indie publish.

An opening scene that "reveals" information stated in the cover copy as if it's a big secret.

For example, let's say your novel is about a town that's been hit by toxic nerve gas that's killed everyone under the age of twenty. Now the characters have to deal with this problem and the repercussions of it. Your cover copy might say something like...

When a tragic accident poisons a small town a kills everyone under the age of twenty, local doctor Jessica Halloway must find the cause before more fall ill and die. But as she searches for the cure, she uncovers a far more deadly source.

Every single person who reads this cover copy is going to know before they open the book what the problem is. 

How to Ground (and Hook) Readers in Your Opening Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

If readers get lost in your first scene, they’ll never get to the second.

The opening scene of my novel, The Shifter, features a girl getting caught stealing eggs out from under a sleeping chicken. It’s a fun scene, I enjoyed writing it, and most of all—it helped sell the novel.

Somewhere along the lines, my critique partners and I started referring to strong opening scenes as “chicken scenes.”

As in:

“I’m still working on my chicken scene.”

“I thought of the perfect chicken scene yesterday.”

“I can’t get this book written until I find my chicken scene.”

4 Steps to Establish the Beginning of Your Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Setting up a novel baffles many writers, but it’s easier when you focus on what a beginning needs to do.

On Wednesday, I talked about what the word setup actually meant in fiction and why so many writers had trouble with it. Today, I’m going to focus specifically on ways to establish (good setup) your novel’s beginning without falling prey to bad setup.

When you’re setting up a story, what you’re really doing is establishing the premise of the story and where the plot is going to go. It’s part of the story, not something done before readers get to the story. It’s not dumping backstory, though there might be a little backstory in there.

A good beginning contains and conveys all the critical elements required to understand the premise, the story, the plot, and why the protagonist is willing to get involved. But it also needs to do it in such a way that piques readers curiosity and makes them interested to know more.