Starting a Novel

An aspiring writer asked me this morning:
I have this story in my head that I've been thinking about for a week now, but the problem that I've come across is that I simply don't know where and how to begin the book. . . . But how does one effectively start, and grab someone's attention, without making it seem obvious? Does it not seem cliche'd to start a book with dialogue ("Work, you piece of junk!"), or some sort of subjective statement from a first person point of view, which almost evokes an image of the smoky narration of a film noir ("Blood looks strange in zero gravity"). Or is it equally cliche'd to come up with something profound to say like the very first line of Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities?

Are those the only three ways of starting the novel?

This is a subject I think about constantly, and as I progress on a novel I often go back to the beginning to "retrofit" it in preparation for some development I hadn't anticipated. See my post on That First-Chapter Problem for some details.

But there are some basic principles that writers should know and respect. (Geniuses like John LeCarré and Gabriel García Márquez can ignore these principles, but not the rest of us.)

First, a novel (or a short story for that matter) should begin at the moment when the story itself becomes inevitable. Maybe that's the day the hero is born, or two hours before the gunmen arrive on the noon train. But something happens that sets events in motion. Ideally, the opening is as close to the climax as possible. We can fill in the backstory through flashbacks or exposition later on. The events in The Lord of the Rings, for example, occur in the last few weeks of a story extending over thousands of years, with Tolkien explaining the historical context only when he has to explain someone's motives or behaviour.

Second, the opening should show a character (maybe the hero, maybe someone else) experiencing some kind of appropriate stress. This stress serves a couple of purposes: It gives us an immediate glimpse into the character's personality and values, and it sets the theme of the story.

Suppose you're writing a story about a middle-aged nun's crisis of faith. This won't be a tale of blazing sixguns and hairsbreadth escapes, but the nun should encounter some kind of stress at the outset. If the story is about her faith in God, then the initial stress might be her discovery that she's been lied to by someone she trusts.

If your story is about your hero's need to be physically and morally courageous, then putting him under gunfire on page 1 may be entirely appropriate...especially if we see him wet his pants in terror. That will give him a reason to redeem himself later in the story.

What's at Stake?
Early in the story we should also learn what is at stake in this story: a nun's peace of mind, or the fate of the Galactic Empire, or a happy marriage, or a test of manhood. We don't have to come out flat-footedly with someone saying, "Omigod, the Roman Catholic Church may collapse in ruins!" But if we already feel we know and care about the character, that character's concerns become important to us.

Editors, by the way, always want to know what's at stake in your story, so it's a good idea when pitching the idea in a query letter to explain why the outcome matters.

We want to know where and when we are, so some indication of the setting is helpful: New York City on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941; a gully opening into Valles Marineris on Mars, sometime in the 23rd century.

We also want to know the arena of conflict—where the real struggle is going to take place. Maybe it's a geographical region that someone will end up owning; maybe it's the hero's own conflicted mind.

Hooking the Reader
We've all picked up books on the strength of the back-cover blurb (which essentially sets out what's at stake), and even more so on the strength of the opening page or two. And yes, some openings are indeed overdone: the bizarre statement, the scrap of dialogue, and especially the waking of the hero at dawn.

Nonetheless, I confess that I've started at least a couple of my novels with the waking-hero gimmick, and I'm using dialogue to start chapter 1 of Henderson's Tenants. The early-morning start reflects a common narrative principle: natural cycles like days and seasons are also part of stories. In my novel Eyas, I began with the line "Out of darkness came dawn." That's a summary of the whole novel, not just an inverted way of saying "The sun came up."

In Henderson, the first line is a sentence of death: Mike Henderson's doctor tells him he has advanced pancreatic cancer, against which even the advanced medicine of 2030 is helpless. This is when Mike's real story begins, and what's at stake is his very life.

Sometimes a beginning just forces itself on the writer. When I got the basic idea for Rogue Emperor, a time-travel story, I knew it had to begin in the Colosseum during a gladiatorial combat, when the emperor of Rome is assassinated with a wire-guided anti-tank missile. Why? Ask my subconscious writer. It was up to me to develop a story from that point.

Think about this also: In the western tradition, almost every fiction is a retelling of the expulsion from Eden, the journey through the desert of this world, and the attempt either to go back to Eden or to go on to the City of Heaven...in either case, a great good place. So the start of the novel should show the hero (or someone relevant to the story) losing some reasonably tranquil situation in life, with the story chronicling his/her efforts to regain that tranquility.

Foreshadowing
The start of the novel should also foreshadow the ending. Rogue Emperor ends with my time-traveling spy, Jerry Pierce, back in the Colosseum fighting gladiators. But the foreshadowing may also be of a state of mind, or a symbolic image that we now interpret quite differently from the first time we see it—like the sled in Citizen Kane.

This all may seem to imply that you need to know your story in painful detail before you ever type "Chapter 1." But you don't. The "Rosebud" sled was a scriptwriter's afterthought. Henderson started as an exercise in "periscope writing," just jumping into Henderson's world to see what it looked like and what kind of guy he was. I'm still learning, a year and a half later. As I learn, I go back to revise Chapter 1 in various small ways, because I can now see more or less where the story is going to end up. It won't be with Mike Henderson back in his doctor's office, that's for sure.

It's also worth considering that in general, the hero doesn't want to do what the story demands. Frodo doesn't want to go to Mordor. Luke Skywalker doesn't want to go off with Obi-Wan. Adam and Eve don't want to leave Eden. Some awful event, early in the story, literally kick-starts the narrative. The hero goes because the alternatives are all even worse.

I discuss the start of the novel in more detail in my book Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (International Self-Counsel Press), but the above comments cover, I hope, the key points.

Comments

[John Everyman]

I am an aspiring fantasy writer, and I must say my idol is Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time series). I am always willing to take in advice from succesful writers, but some ideas in this article seem to conflict with his. I write like Jordan in the way that the first few chapters have small conflicts, leading up to the main conflict, and are mostly used to get a feel of the characters and the world itself. Is this an acceptable way to begin?

[Crawford Kilian]

Thanks for your comment. Of course the initial conflicts and challenges will be relatively minor, especially in the context of later conflicts. The first conflicts are, as you say, to establish character and to give us a sense of the story's world.

It's also important not to be in a hurry. A novel is a very roomy place, and you don't have to cram everything into the first chapter—or even, as some novices do, into the first thousand words. Just give us some interesting characters in an intriguing situation that's appropriate to the theme and direction of the story, and let the background seep in a little at a time.

[Joel]

I'm always amazed on the amount of good tidbits I find in your blog when I'm gone for a while. Thanks again!

[mike delosreyes]

i'm in the process of writing a fantasy novel - going on five years now - and i also find myself going back to the beginning to modify it to make it bleed into the rest of the novel. What i like to do is have the first line be something of a paradox; "when he closed his eyes, he woke." i follow this with a short sketch (nothing more than 2-3 lines) of what's around the character. i begin a new paragraph, repeat the opening line and then write another sentence that not only firmly sets the first line but also creates a new terror; "when he closed his eyes, he woke. he wanted to scream, but could not open his mouth." or something like that.

i also try and give a brief personality description of the main character - after all, the reader needs to be invested in him/her. i try to avoid "telling" the reader what the character's personality is; it's better to "show" through some kind of action or through some thought; "Vanity is my virtue."

once you have the reader hooked with the first line, give them a glimpse of the main character (through virtue or vice), and present the character with a problem (hopefully one that relates to the character's flaw), then you may be off to a good start.

good luck to all aspiring writers. and may your days be wonderful.

[angel]

crawford: thank you so very much. this is wonderful. i'm heading off to cape cod this summer for a revision workshop and this is just the kind of insight i'm hoping we'll get into during the class. personally, when i sit down to work on my novel i remind myself of the importance of that first chapter by reflecting on my own rule for every book. i call it the ten page rule. if in the first ten pages i'm bored stiff, disengaged, uncaring about the charachters and their conflicts or just plain sick from stilted dialogue, i put it down. i don't feel obligated to keep reading and struggling through any story. i know most people feel the same way, whether it's film or narrative. kind of keeps me on my toes.

cheers,
angel

[Naba Barkakati]

Crawford, Your blog is so helpful! I have written some computer books, but never any fiction. Just recently I started my own blog and then stumbled upon your excellent fiction writing blog while searching for writing tips. I subscribe to your blog now, so I'd be sure to keep up. Thank you for sharing your experience with us!

[deb]

I've just discovered your blog, and I must say, I'm learning a lot. I worry that my initial conflict is not enough to carry the work.

[Crawford Kilian]

Think of your initial conflict as "the expulsion from Eden"--something goes horribly wrong with the status quo of your main characters, and the story that follows is about how they deal with that expulsion--whether by regaining the garden or going on to "the Holy City": some different but acceptable state of affairs.

The expulsion should also reveal some deep insecurity in your protagonist, something that will provide an intense motivation to do something besides sit and mope.

Of course, the characters may fail to get back to the garden or to create a new heaven; the uncertainty about the outcome is what keeps us reading.

[Valenska]

I have been writing and working on my novel for the past one and half years now. What is the time limit one decides... or keeps in mind to say okay, now my novel or idea is complete? Is there any?

When does one decide, no more changes.. lets get to wrok and finish the thing, instead of dilly dallying around and working about it... you know coming to a conclusion. hen does one decide that the manuscript is complete? What determines that.

Cos I'm still not sure where to stop right now and am also well aware that you can't just go on and on, you need to come to a desicion and write a "The End" to it.

[Crawford Kilian]

Every novel takes the time it takes. Some novelists finish in weeks or even days (in Vancouver we have a Labour Day Weekend Novel Contest, and lots of people finish with a book). Others take years.

Setting a deadline (or having a publisher who sets one for you) can focus your mind. You still make changes, but you make them on the fly; they're not the kind that require a complete new draft with a brand-new hero. I was nearing the last chapter of Greenmagic when an idea occurred to me that changed the whole mood of the story. It required some very minor tweaking in chapter 1, and gave the ending a real kicker.

Once you've dealt with the climax of the story, when we learn how your main characters meet their greatest challenge, you have the denouement to finish: tying up the loose ends, creating a new vision of the novel's world post-climax. Ideally, this ought to bring out some image or theme from the very early part of the story—something that now, in the light of the novel's events, we see very differently. The denouement of The Lord of the Rings is a superb example, with the postwar melancholy tempering the desperation and triumph of Sauron's fall.