I've Been Thinking About....Where the Magic Begins

Writing the First Chapter of Your Novel

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What happens if you master your first chapter: your book gets published. Hopefully. Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash

I’m currently writing the first chapter of my WIP for the fifth time. I have a complete rough draft that somehow I have managed to finish despite the fact that I hate the way I started the story. I say somehow managed to complete because I have a terrible time moving forward in a novel (and, really, any kind of writing, be it a short story or essay or post here) unless the beginning feels right.

And so now I am on the fifth start of the story. I really, really, really, hesitate to say this, but I think I like the most recent version. (I thought I liked the other versions, too, until I went back and read them and groaned and cringed.) And it has gotten me thinking, what exactly does a first chapter need?

There are experts galore all over the internet who will tell you what to do in your first chapter to attract an agent or an editor. No doubt they are right. But I want to attract readers first and foremost and I work from that goal. Because I may not know what an agent or editor wants, but I do know what I, as a reader wants. I know what pulls me in and what I thus try to get into my first chapters. So that’s the bias I am writing this from.

One of the best things you can when do writing (or rewriting) a first chapter is to look at novels you love and see what elements they include. I did this when I went back to revise my first chapter yet again. Something I noticed was a lack of detail in my writing. The novels that pulled me in had enough sensory imagery to capture my imagination and make me want to see more. So I spent time on Pinterest coming up with images for my settings and the people who populated them, which was an enormous help.

What I hope with this post is that some of the questions I pose can help you to write a reader-grabbing first chapter, whether you are working on a first draft or revisiting the chapter for the nth time, like me. Sometimes certain questions or suggestions land in such a way that something clicks when it didn’t before—and off you scurry to the page. And maybe, just maybe, one or two of these suggestion will save you from the five thousand rewrites.

A brief list of first chapter necessities

—The protagonist and her problem

—An inciting incident

—Some sense of the setting

—Establishment of tone and voice

—Some velcro to hook me into the story

Let’s look at these one at a time:

The protagonist and her problem

Who is your main character? What’s her external goal? What’s his internal goal? What is the misbelief by which they lead their life? And more, who is she really? What does she want? Give us some clue as to her personality.

An inciting incident

So, um, yeah, something has to happen to begin the story. Usually connected to the protagonist’s problem, this something sets the plot in motion. Why does this day diverge from any other day in your character’s life? He’s going along, living his life, and suddenly something happens to make that life look very, very different. If it’s a mystery, who dies? If it’s a romance, how does the proto meet the love interest? It it’s a thriller, what danger lurks? And if it’s literary fiction, what thematic trope are you setting up?

Some sense of the setting

In most novels, the world is built through details that accrue as the story moves forward, especially in the first few chapters. So you don’t have to give us every single aspect of the setting upfront. But we do need to know, at the very least, broad strokes. Is it a city or the country? By the ocean, in the mountains, or in the flatlands? You get the gist. Also included in this is time period. Because setting is temporal, too.

Establishment of tone and voice

Is the tone breezy and light? Or does it contain hints of depth and darkness? Is there fun, light dialogue, banter between the characters? Does the novel start with long, lush description, indicating this will be a key feature of the story? Is it dark, serious, a thriller or horror story? I’m lumping point of view in here, too, because that makes an enormous difference. I’ve been known to change an entire novel from third to first in search of a lighter tone. And it worked!

Some velcro to captivate me

What I mean by this is some sizzle. Something extra or snazzy or new. It can be a character trait, some special feature of the location, a different style or tone to the writing. A grabby hook. What will appeal, of course, will be personal to every reader. We all have our likes and dislikes. But successful novels dare to go someplace different. Case in point: The Spell Shop, one of my favorite cozy fantasy novels, introduces Caz, a sentient spider plant in chapter one. She reeled me right in with that one, and Caz is one of the best parts of the book.

I think sometimes we writers seek too much safety in conformity. Yes, of course you need to pay attention to the tropes of the genre you’re writing, but the big books do that and add a little something more. That’s the velcro.

And even if you have no desire to write a big book, why not challenge yourself to go a bit beyond? Take a look at recent bestsellers lists. At the moment, they are dominated by fantasy titles. (Who would have thunk that a year or two ago?) But there are also some ringers. Like Wintering, by Katherine May a book about rest and retreat. (Of course that was helped by the pandemic and it’s probably a bad comp because it’s non-fiction. And don’t tell anybody but I thought it was boring.) Or Emily’s Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales, a book about fairies? (And also one I just got my hot little hands on and can’t wait to read. Case closed.)

Where the magic happens

And here is where all of this wraps into the most important aspect of the first chapter: what feeling do you want to evoke in your reader? As Michael Hauge says, “Great stories must elicit emotion. The ONLY way your story can entertain, enlighten, persuade and inspire your readers or audiences is if it makes them feel.”

Several of my novels are set in small towns, so I seek a feeling of coziness for my readers. A “where everbody knows your name” kind of place. I want to evoke a sense of setting where people are friendly and there’s a coffeeshop that’s got a black and white tiled floor with touches of red everywhere, including the plastic roses the eccentric owner who wears cat’s eye glasses insists on putting in the planters outside and where you can hang out all morning with friends and neighbors. And the old guy always brings a flask of whisky to spike his coffee—and maybe yours, too.But when I reread my first chapter, there was none of that. Only a main character trying very, very hard and very, very earnestly to explain herself. (Enter the Pinterest obsession mentioned above.)

Here’s the rub

This is hard. You have to do all of the above while still writing a scene in which people characters act out their lives in an interesting manner. And sometimes you can do all that and it still doesn’t feel right. I was relieved recently to read that Salman Rushdie had said it sometimes took him multiple passes (maybe seven?) before nailing the first chapter, that sometime you just have to look at it from different angles. And that’s the truth, so keep at it.

Readers (and I’m sorry but you can’t call yourself a writer if you’re not a reader), what pulls you into a story? Have you struggled with writing first chapters?

See you all on Sunday for my Love Letter!