"Greg got a lemonade."

Jan Valentine in Brotherhood

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The opening scene is the most important piece of your novel. This scene determines whether your reader is pulled in or puts the book down. Here are some important do’s and don’ts.

DO write it as a scene, not a data dump. You may have a fantastic premise, a marvelous alternate history or post-apocalyptic world or magical realism to die for, but if you don’t engage your reader in an actual scene, you will bore them.

DO write a scene that immediately introduces a character that the reader can root for. Yes, I know Stephen King has had great success introducing victims that are then shortly afterward killed off. That’s a horror trope and we expect it. But if you are caught up in world-building and haven’t dreamed your way into a character who is worth following through 100,000 words of writing, your story is pointless. I have read many pieces of fiction by would-be writers who can’t grasp this essential concept, and without exception, they fail to engage the reader.

DO introduce the stakes right away. In case that’s a challenge that needs some exposition to develop, create some immediate stakes (a life threat works) that keep the tension high and the reader engaged until you can lay out the larger stakes.

DO begin in medias res, which means “in the middle of things.” Most beginning fiction writers make the mistake of starting too early in the plot. Meet the monster on page 1. 

DON’T include a flashback in the first chapter. Work on a scene, which means time is NOT compressed. It should include dialog, action, description, setting, and interior monolog. Keep everything happening within that scene for at least the first chapter. You can bring in a flashback in Chapter Three.

DON’T shift points of view within a single chapter. Let the reader establish a strong bond of interest (even if it’s with a POV villain) over the course of a whole chapter.

DON’T open the story with your character waking up unless it’s because she’s got a gun in her face (or a knife to her throat – you get what I mean). We don’t need to follow a character through their mundane daily routine. 

Funny, that’s the part I remember from this too. 

You can.

You don’t have to.

The monster can be figurative and not yet full-grown.

@tygermine I like starting my stories in the middle of a conversation

Do it, bruh. Just make sure it’s the right “middle” of the right conversation.

Tbh, these “dos and don’ts” are little more than good suggestions because many good books don’t start out with all of these. Some good books follow some of these suggestions very well! Some genres practically require them! But “not all books” (man, that phrase is ruined) need to follow every writing “rule” perfectly. It’s impossible.

Just, when you pick up a “bad” book with a lame beginning, it probably needed to follow a few of these and would’ve turned out much better.

If your beginning needs help consider these suggestions. If your beginning is doing just fine, you feel, keep these good suggestions around for the next book.

Not following these suggestions does not make it a bad scene/book.

Not following these suggestions does not ensure readers drop your book.

Not following these suggestions does not mean you’re a bad/lazy writer.

1. Feverishly calculating the body mass of your dragon species, spent 5 hours last night researching the origins of steel, losing sleep over horseshoes, 20 tabs open, should a cockatrice be warm-blooded?, will die if they don’t immediately figure out when honeybees were first domesticated

2.

How to Diversify Your Sentence Structure

This is a really common problem that I think a lot of writers have! Having a repetitive sentence structure without variation can make your prose really choppy, boring and difficult to read, while overall weakening your voice.

Here are some techniques to help you change things up a bit!

Switch around your subject

Very basic grammar: Every sentence has a subject and a predicate. I think when we think of subject in a sentence, we often think of person. This might be especially true in creative writing because we deal with characters.

For example:

Amelia opened her front door and walked outside. She felt a cold breeze blow through her. She realized that she wasn’t dressed appropriately for the weather. Amelia turned around and went back inside to grab a jacket.

In this example, Amelia is the subject of every single sentence, and a verb is followed immediately afterward. Because every sentence begins with ‘Amelia’ or ‘she’, there’s no variety and it’s a little bit boring to read. 

Here’s what it could look like if I switched the subject around somewhere.

She felt a cold breeze blow through her.

A cold breeze blew through her.

The difference is subtle, but now the subject of the sentence is the breeze, not Amelia. The sentence structure is still the same: The subject is followed by a verb. However, because the subject is different from Amelia, it still brings variety to how your sentences read. 

Here’s what it looks like now:

Amelia opened her front door and walked outside. A cold breeze blew through her. She realized that she wasn’t dressed appropriately for the weather. Amelia turned around and went back inside to grab a jacket.

Now that every sentence doesn’t begin with “Amelia” or “she” it seems a little bit more interesting.

Put dependent clause before subject 

So we changed one subject in a sentence, but we still have multiple sentences that have Amelia as the subject. It still doesn’t have too much variety in sentence structure, and as a result, it can be stilted.

So let’s try bringing a dependent clause before the subject.

She realized that she wasn’t dressed appropriately for the weather. Amelia turned around and went back inside to grab a jacket.

Realizing that she wasn’t dressed appropriately for the weather, Amelia turned around and went back inside to grab a jacket.

By bringing ‘realizing’ before the subject, I created a dependent clause and succeeded making the first word something other than the subject. 

However, because it’s a dependent clause, ‘realizing that she wasn’t dressed appropriately’ is a sentence fragment — it’s an incomplete thought. So I combined it with the last sentence to make it complete.

So after those two techniques, let’s compare the original with the rewrite.

Original

Amelia opened her front door and walked outside. She felt a cold breeze blow through her. She realized that she wasn’t dressed appropriately for the weather. Amelia turned around and went back inside to grab a jacket. 

Rewrite

Amelia opened her front door and walked outside. A cold breeze blew through her. Realizing that she wasn’t dressed appropriately for the weather, Amelia turned around and went back inside to grab a jacket.

Now because there’s a variety in sentence structure and subject, the paragraph  is not only more interesting to read, it also flows better and more smoothly. It also has the added bonus of diverse sentence lengths which was lacking before, and it helps make the writing more engaging.

I just wanted to note: there is nothing bad about having your subject as the first word in a sentence. I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to change every single sentence they ever wrote. Like in my example, the first sentence starts with Amelia. That’s fine.

The problem is that when every single sentence starts that way, it becomes repetitive. You can still have some sentences that start with your character, just make sure to throw in some other sentence structures, and your writing will be more engaging!

Outside of this specific example, you can also try playing around with dependent clauses in your existing sentences as well.

Jamie walked into the haunted house, despite her reluctance.

Despite her reluctance, Jamie walked into the haunted house.

The sentence is the exact same, but I just switched around where the dependent clause ‘despite her reluctance’ is placed. Even though it has the same meaning, it can provide a different feel or at the very least, switch up having your subject as the first word of every sentence.

I also talk about this in my guide about how to make your writing flow better. Sentence structure has a lot to do with making your writing sound cohesive and eloquent, so I would definitely recommend checking that out as well!

Here you can find the link to the official TF2 Comics. They are simply great; Amazing plot, extremely hilarious, great sound effects and wonderful characters!

Here is a playlist with all the Meet the videos. Each video quickly shows you how the character is like, so I’d really recommend for you to check it out!

And here are two more videos, Expiration Date, and End of The Line. If you plan on joining the fandom, you definitely should watch those two videos!

If you decide to read the comics / watch the videos, welcome to the TF2 fandom!