How do you write the first few paragraphs of a story so the reader doesn’t stop reading immediately? Any way you like, but I’ll tell you my way.
I’m going to to assume you already know what happens in your first scene, and it’s a matter of opening it to best effect.
You need two things:
- Workmanlike construction.
- Something, anything, that makes them want to keep reading (a hook).
Today I’ll talk about workmanlike construction. All I’m going to say about hooking the reader is that, for many readers, it’s like speed dating. They won’t give you the benefit of the doubt for a whole chapter; not even close.
Stories Start with a Blank Screen
Before we read the first word of a story, the screen is blank. We know nothing. There’s nothing to visualize, nothing to experience. As writers, we need to bring something into focus right away, so the reader has something to experience. Until then, the scene can’t happen.
The three basic approaches are:
- Start by filling in the setting with a few broad brushstrokes, then zoom in on the viewpoint character. When I say “setting,” it might be the scenery or a description of the situation.
- Start zoomed in on the viewpoint character, then pull back to show the setting.
- Start inside the viewpoint character’s head and stay there, leaving the rest of the universe hazy. (Don’t do that unless you really know what you’re doing.)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and The Hobbit are examples of technique #1. “In a hole in the ground lived a Hobbit …”
Technique #1 starts like a Western that shows you a piece of beautiful rugged scenery until the protagonist rides into view, or a stage play where the curtain opens, and you take in the set and the protagonist simultaneously.
Technique #2 starts like a play where the only light is a spotlight on the characters. We see the rest of the set after a brief delay, once we have a feel for the characters.
But trying to cram the whole universe into the start of the opening scene doesn’t work. Too big. No focus.
There’s the Story, and Then There’s Everything Else
One key to the opening is to focus on the actual story and not the backstory or other non-story or story-adjacent content. In addition, stay grounded on the current moment, not other times and places, except as needed to minimally orient the reader to the here and now.
Sadly, many writers can’t go for more than a sentence without talking about the past, the future, or things that could have happened, but didn’t. It’s like Grand Central station in there, with all kinds of other times and places hurrying past and the current moment lost in the crowd. Don’t do that.
What I mostly do in an opening scene is to tell what happens: first this thing happens, then the next thing happens, with the viewpoint character reacting to events in turn. I frame this with just enough context for it to make sense and to set any mood that isn’t set by the action. Starting partway through the scene I start tantalizing the reader with hints and snippets about the larger story.
Example from Silver Buckshot
Let’s take a look at the opening of my novel Silver Buckshot. It starts with a one-sentence hook and then plunges into the action:
I met Frank just minutes before the first attempt upon my life.
It was a beautiful June day in 1972. I was sitting at my favorite table in the palace library, reading. As usual, I had the library to myself. My servants were supposed to be with me, but they knew I never tattled and took full advantage.
The hush was shattered when a boy walked in, whistling. He caught sight of me and approached, revealing that he could whistle and smirk at the same time. When he reached my table, he fell silent and stood smiling at me. It was a good smile, much better than the smirk. It invited me to smile back, which I didn’t, of course.
Other than the explanation of why Flavia is alone, it’s focused on events as they unfold and Flavia’s reaction to them.
He was a handsome boy of about fourteen, a year older than myself. He was tall for his age, with a haircut from the California side of the gateway. This being the palace, he wore a good suit, a fashionable brown one, also from the California side. He had loosened his tie and undone the top button of his shirt, which would earn him a scolding from any adults who noticed.
I contented myself with mentioning “the California side of the gateway” as the reader’s sole reminder that this is a fantasy book until the very end of the chapter. I’m in no hurry. At live readings, readers responded positively to such hints. They’re in no hurry, either.
One last excerpt:
I liked him at once, which annoyed me. I don’t get along with my fellow children. His likability made me self-conscious in spite of my beautiful blue dress, for I was pale and thin where he was tan and fit. I envied his dark blond hair and light green eyes. Mine are dark brown and dark brown, respectively.
I gave him a cold stare. “This is a library, you know.”
He looked around in pretended astonishment, so I added, “You can tell by the books? At least, I hope you can.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Hey, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a sweet little girl named Flavia.”
I placed a bookmark and closed my book. “Are you being aggravating on purpose?”
“Of course I am. How about you?”
(You can read the rest of Chapter 1 here.)
This takes care of physical descriptions, the opening salvo of banter, and the first hint that Flavia isn’t as healthy as she might be.
You’ll notice that I’m framing this story as a first-person memoir, where Flavia is telling the reader things because they ought to know; that’s what storytellers do. For example, “I don’t get along with my fellow children.” It’s not stream-of-consciousness-y. That would be a different narrative frame.
I don’t describe the library at all. I never get around to describing it in general because whatever the reader envisions for a 1970s palace library is probably okay.
This opening consists of two things: events and Flavia’s reactions to them on the one hand, and a small amount of explanatory context and commentary on the other, some of which serves as tantalizing hints.
Plenty of backstory will eventually appear, generally in dribs and drabs and often in the form of anecdotes. But not yet. Chapters two and three were plenty soon enough for the most urgent backstory. Try this yourself: it’s magical.
An Opening is a Promise
Readers will assume that, with some exceptions, an opening is a promise that the rest of the story is more of the same. This is not true if the opening is a prolog or when, for example, it’s from the viewpoint of the corpse-to-be in a murder mystery. But usually the reader will assume the opening scene is a sample, a teaser reel, and the rest of the story is kinda-sorta the same in some loosey-goosey way.
So if your opening isn’t like that and isn’t one of the usual exceptions, either, you should do something to reset the reader’s expectations, such as calling it a prolog, making it really short (like the first half of page one), or reconsidering.
Don’t Make the Reader Backtrack
The start of a scene is a race between you and the reader. If you don’t give important details at the right time, the reader will fill in the blanks by guessing, often unconsciously. When they realize they guessed wrong, they backtrack to find out where they went wrong, or reject your interpretation and stick with their wrong one because by now they’re attached to it, or give up on the story altogether.
So the trick is to specify any detail that both matters and that the reader is likely to get wrong if you don’t clue them in.
Suppose you’re writing a romance about two elderly people but forget to mention their age on the first page. Most romances are about young people, so that’s what the readers will imagine unless you tell them otherwise. If you don’t tell them until page 12, they have to rewind to the beginning and reimagine it with their new understanding. They might do this by literally by going back to page one, or they might mentally PhotoShop a few images and proceed. Both are painful.
Mind you, I’m not talking about shoveling in tons of detail (which doesn’t work anyway) but giving the bare bones the reader needs to move forward, especially for things they won’t guess on their own. Often this is done with little more than hints. You don’t need to dwell on any details that the reader is sure to assume correctly anyway, though confirmation now and then is reassuring.
For example, in any story set in a developed country after, say, 1900, the reader will assume that any city or large town has electricity and paved roads. You don’t have to mention these things at all; the reader takes them for granted. But if Main Street is a dirt road, you need to mention it. But in a Western set in the 1870s, though, everyone will assume a dirt Main Street unless the town is quite large. Expectations matter.
Confidence
I’ve noticed that, from their very first word, my favorite stories are told with confidence, relish, gusto, panache, and even a swagger. They lack the slightest hint of apology, hesitancy, cringing, or a desire to over-explain.
Here are some examples off the top of my head:
“You see, I had this space suit. How it happened was this way:” —Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit, Will Travel.
“Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.” —John Green, The Fault in Our Stars.
“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.” —Charles Portis, True Grit.
One thing these all have in common is that the author is implicitly telling you what kind of story you’re in for: Have Space Suit, Will Travel promises to be a rather light and informal personal reminiscence. The Fault in Our Stars is also a personal reminiscence, but with the viewpoint character using a deliberately literary tone and an inescapable somberness. True Grit is a straightforward telling of Mattie Ross’ story with no attempt at either lightness nor heaviness, formality nor informality. Her abundant attitude makes all the difference in the world, both in the events in the story and in their telling, but Mattie doesn’t realize this.
What all three have in common, in addition to being framed as first-person memoirs written down by their viewpoint characters, is that the authors write with palpable confidence. No telling their stories as if they’re holding them at arm’s length like a dead rat.
The second two also reveal quite a lot about their protagonists, more than enough to convince you that you’ll be happy to read their whole story.
Existing Fans
Of course, your loyal fans and people who’ve had your story strongly recommended to them will cut you plenty of slack. But when you’re fishing for new readers like I am, it’s worth using quality bait.