#opening chapters

A reader’s perspective.

I’ve taken up doing a review booktube for indie SFF books, and have decided only to do 4 or 5 star reviews due to some social pressures being an indie author and also being a reviewer. This means I’ve been SLUSH reading. (You can get lots of indie books free if you trawl twitter and start an amazon wishlist and wait.)

My follow up to 8 Reasons Why Prologues Don’t Work. Kidnapping, as an opening to a story, is the 2nd most common thing I’ve come across. They don’t work as an opening for a debut book or series in my opinion, so here are 6 reasons why in author terms b/c I also happen to be an author.

1) It’s not where the story begins

Figuring out where your story begins as an author is one of the trickiest parts of writing a book. This goes double for a first book in a series or your first book as an author. The common advice is to open up in media res, in the middle of things.

The problem being with a kidnapping is the kidnapping is not the middle of things. It is usually the end result of something else. And the story really begins long before the kidnapping ever happened. (Why are they being kidnapped is not a question you want to open your story with really.) Or the story begins after the kidnapping has taken place and they’re wherever the kidnapper wanted them to be.

So, either the author needs to write the book(s) before the kidnapping. Or, the author needs to frame the kidnapping as a flashback from the past to explain later in the story when it relevant why they are where they are. Because the kidnapping might be irrelevant to the story you’re trying to tell.

2) The Reader Doesn’t Care about the Character (Yet.)

First impressions about a character mean a lot. A character being kidnapped isn’t really a great first impression because there aren’t a lot of things a kidnapped character can do in that situation. Kidnapping someone puts them in mortal peril the first thing. And the thing about putting someone in mortal peril, for us to want them to get out of it, we have to care about them as a person. We have to know them as a character. And we don’t if it’s the opening chapter of the book.

We don’t care. We don’t know this person. We don’t know how they react to normal stimuli. We don’t know about their lives. We don’t know, well, anything about them to care about why they’re being pulled into a black van.

There’s a reason why most, say television shows, leave kidnappings to several seasons into the show’s running time. Or if the show is really dark, uses flashbacks throughout the series to show their kidnapping as they struggle in the aftermath. (I’m looking at you Handmaid’s Tale.) By the time the entire story comes out, the viewer/reader is invested into the character and wants them to get out of their situation. The reader cares about the character’s well-being. It provides tension.

Putting a kidnapping first thing doesn’t give us any tension at all. Stories thrive off tension. Tension is what keeps us turning the page. So, leave the kidnapping for once we care about the character.

From here on out I’m talking about what happens after a person is kidnapped so CW for talk rape/sexual assault, physical violence.

I think that [THIS POST] about introducing details via action is going to be a big help to you.

Now, I do want to take a moment to talk about why exposition dumps are generally discouraged, because I think that when you understand the reasoning behind a lot of generalised creative advice, you’ll be able to see how and why it might be useful to you and also when and where it might be good for you to disregard that advice if you want to or if you think it will have good effect.

Most of the time, we avoid exposition dumping because, while it might seem like it’s a good way to quickly get the setting and premise on the table and understood, it usually does the opposite. A lot of times exposition dumps (the Bog of Exposition, if you will), make the description and scene setting feel much slower to the reader, as there’s no action to propel them through it.

Rather than having a character experiencing the setting, and interacting with it, the reader is presented with a static scene, or a list of descriptive elements for something that they aren’t yet invested in caring about. Starting off with an exposition dump can mean that you’re not getting out of the gate with a lot of readers because it means that you’re requiring them to invest time to get through something that they’re not yet sure they even want.

By giving setting and descriptive information through action packed passages feels slower when you’re writing it because it takes longer. It’s more difficult to get the balance between description and action, to manage to hash out how the character observes the world and how it changes around them as they experience it, but for the reader it means that absorbing that worldbuilding and setting and description is much more natural and seamless, because it’s being delivered via an active agent that they can become invested in.

As well, when exposition is delivered via action, it is easier to remember. If something important happens and the reader learns a new fact about the world of the story through that event, it’s going to be a lot more memorable than if they read one fact among many in an exposition dump. When you pair action and exposition, you’re less likely to have readers having to flick back to the beginning fifteen chapters in when something you’ve established becomes relevant again.

Nathaniel Hawthorne said “Easy reading is damned hard writing” and to my experience this can be very true. 

It’s easier to write your exposition all in one big neat package, but especially at the beginning of the story, the reader often isn’t committed enough to work through it. I’m sure you’ve often read that the beginning of the story should ‘hook’ the reader, which is a difficult thing to manage as well, and which is rarely explained.

Essentially you want to make the beginning of the story do a few things: Introduce characters that the reader will be interested in seeing more about, set up a world that makes sense, and raise questions that the reader will want to find out the answer to.

Now, the opening action of the story doesn’t need to be on a level with the main action of the narrative. You can have an ‘entry’ conflict to introduce things, and to establish the world, etc. Let’s look at a couple of examples of an initial conflict that illustrates much about the world of the story, but which is connected tangentially to the main body of the narrative.

The opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone introduces the Dursleys, and uses them as a vehicle to emphasise the strangeness of the elements of the wizarding world that are then introduced. The story of how Harry gets to the Dursley’s house and the events of that night certainly are connected with the main plot of the series, but they also provide a very small-scale conflict that contains enough action and raises enough questions to lead the reader into the rest of it.

The opening of The Fellowship of the Ring begins with the preparations for Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday. Obviously the One Ring being part of his possessions and it being passed on as a part of the celebration is connected to the events of the rest of the series, but the birthday party preparations also give the reader the time and action to become familiar with the Shire as a setting, with the habits of hobbits, and with the idea of wizards, dwarfs, elves, and all the rest of it. 

So, generally, exposition dumps slow down the pace of the action, and can discourage readers who just want to move on to the juicy bits. By eliminating the Bog of Exposition, in favour of a action-with-exposition approach, we can break down worldbuilding and set-up into easily absorbed bites. It’s like grating vegetables into a spaghetti sauce so that fussy eaters won’t notice they’re there -- still get the vitamins, but don’t have to worry about the taste or texture of the big chunks!

I hope that helps!

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The first chapter of a book is one of the most important things that a writer will ever write, especially if it is their first book. This along with your summary/query letter are the things that prospective readers including agents, editors and publishers are going to see first to decide whether or not they’re going to read/represent/buy/sell your book.

So, it’d better be attention grabbing and good right?

Those words have to represent your voice, your style and everything your brand is about right off the bat so if the readers and agents and editors can decide if they’re into your type of motorcycle rumbles. Or not.

A slush reader on tumblr revealed in a post that the writer has four pages to hook the reader. The agent usually at least asks for five when you submit a query. Four pages in double pace, 12 pt font is about 1000 words (give or take, five pages is about 1200.) That means the writer has 1000 words to grab the reader and keep them reading more to hope they get to the end of the chapter and want to continue on to the next one.

So, what needs to be included in a first good chapter? What needs to hook the reader?

Prologue

I was told that they kill innocent humans for fun. That they will steal our valuables, kidnap our young and burn down our homes. This is what we’ve been taught. We’ve been told these stories all our lives to ensure we grew up hating them. It worked. Practically everyone I knew was afraid of them. All they saw were disgusting monsters with unnatural eyes, strange markings and weird features. Something that needed to be oppressed.

I was different. I found them fascinating. Imagine having ink flowing through your veins instead of blood. Imagine having a talent that you could do perfectly since you were born. Just imagine being so unique. As a child I wished to be like them, or at least to be able to befriend one of them. Unfortunately, the way I saw things changed my friends and family in the worst way imaginable. Only now do I realise my mistakes.

  Chapter 1

 The city is alight. I do not know how I got here nor do I know why it is burning; all I know is the people are suffering. Their screams echo throughout the city. The fire is consuming everything they have. And there’s no way to stop it. What should I do? Should I run while I still have a chance? Or should I try and help the poor souls who still have a chance?

A sudden shriek rips me out of my thoughts. I guess that makes it easier to decide. I frantically look around, trying to figure out where it came from. Another shriek erupts from the building to the right of me. Amber flames blaze from the shattered windows. I take in a few deep breaths and slam my shoulder into the door. Smoke engulfs me, stinging my eyes and lungs. Tears blur my vision as I try and blink them back. Damn fire.

I try to yell, ignoring the panic rising in my throat.

“Hello!? I’m here to help!” I manage to shout.

“Make some sound; any sound so I can find you!”

A small groan responds. I cautiously manoeuvre around burning timber towards the source. There is debris everywhere; some charred by the fire, others still in the process. Walking through an archway into a back room, I notice a twisted figure sprawled on the ground. A knot forms in my stomach as I see their legs are crushed by a fallen beam. The beam is no ablaze, but it is still glowing a vibrant orange. As I draw close, the smell of burning flesh tells me to act fast.

I scramble over to crouch by the figure. Here we go. I take a few breaths in and out to prepare myself. As I place my hands on the beam everything shifts around me. The walls, the furniture, the fire merge together, swirling around as if they were ink. It all becomes distorted. I no longer hear the crackling of the fire nor the screams of others just a high pitched ringing. Then I notice my hands are on the beam yet I feel...nothing. Not an ounce of pain. I remove my hands and study them. The skin is scorched red and should be agonizingly painful but it feels as if nothing has happened to them. This is impossible. The ringing gets louder, my heart thunders in my chest. What’s going on? I don’t understand. The building swirls around me making me feel queasy. I stare at the figure on the ground and... everything falls silent.