Top 4 Tips for Writing Great Beginnings
Let’s be honest, in this social-media-driven world where our collective attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, grabbing a reader’s attention is getting harder. Or maybe, it’s more like not losing their attention is getting harder.
Without a beginning that hooks them right away, they might not read the rest. So, if we’re all agreed that beginnings are very important, the next natural question is how to make beginnings great.
Twelve years, 50 books, and countless workshops and craft lessons in, I’ve gathered a list of tips over time that I hope you’ll find useful. Here are my top 4 tips for writing great beginnings.
TIP #1: FIGURE OUT WHERE TO START
Figuring out where to start a book is sometimes the hardest part. Starting too soon in the story you’re confusing the reader and not ground them. Starting too late and you’re giving large info dumps and backstory. Your opening scene is perhaps your most important, so let’s look at a few ways to approach it.
Show the “Before Picture”
Open with where the character/world is starting from but be deliberate about the snapshot you are showing. What does this moment say about the character or world they are in? Why does the reader care? What impact does this moment have on the character, the conflict, or the inciting incident? How will it be different from the “end picture”?
Avoid the “Before Picture” Cliches (or Use them with Purpose)
Writer’s Digest has a great list of common cliched and overused openings to books. Unless you can break the rule well by putting a unique twist on it, try to avoid these.
Make the “Before Picture” Not Boring
The reader isn’t going to care about a random character sitting around having coffee with their best friend. Not yet. So try one of these tricks to up the interest level:
Surprise the Reader: Do start with what looks to be a boring, day-in-the life moment, and then surprise the reader with unusual dialogue or characterization.The Best Day Ever: The character is having a great day. Show the reader what the character is about to lose with the inciting incident, so it makes that moment more emotionally impactful.A Very Bad Day: The character is having an “everything that can go wrong does” kind of day. Bonus: Make the worst day count by having it feed into the inciting incident in some way.Drop Into Action: I’m not saying start with a battle, unless it works for the genre or story (look at every Mission Impossible movie ever). But give the character action. They aren’t just sitting and talking or thinking.
TIP #2: CONNECT TO THE MAIN CHARACTER
Many readers will put a book down if they don’t like the main character immediately. Even if your character is going to start from an unlikable place and grow, readers aren’t patient enough to read that far. Some things to try include:
Give the MC a Compelling Voice
Give your character a voice right off the bat. Show their personality through action, through dialogue, through short bursts of internal monologue, and through reaction.
Create Complex Motivation
Motivations, such as love, power, revenge, or self-discovery should be strong enough to drive the MC to action. Even better if their motivation conflicts directly with their own personal desires or needs or is tied to their conflict or to the inciting incident.
Give Them a Fatal Flaw
If a character is perfect, they have nowhere to grow. Also, perfect tends to stir up feelings of resentment in readers, rather than interest. Give the MC a relatable flaw which you can then tie to their character arc and even to the conflict.
Make Them Sympathetic
Give the reader a reason to take the character’s side. For example, we are naturally more sympathetic to a person who gets knocked down, and even more when they get back up.
“Save the Cat”
The well-known Blake Snyder technique. Give the character an action that shows them doing something “nice.” If they show even one tiny moment of empathy, kindness, thoughtfulness, or even astuteness, they immediately become more relatable and likable.
Show What They Love Most / What They Might Lose
Show the character with the person or doing the thing they love most. Even better, make it the thing they could lose when the inciting incident hits.
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TIP #3: MAKE THE SCENES DYNAMIC
The biggest mistake I see in beginnings is paragraphs or pages of the same thing. Just internal monologue, or just exposition, or even just action, which can be disorienting. Even worse if all that same doesn’t drive the story forward. Here are a few ways to make sure you are keeping your writing as dynamic as your plot and characters:
Focus Beyond the First Line
A first line can be used to shock, to draw in, to set tone, to establish a compelling voice, and more. But often writers end up focusing so much on the first line, what comes after isn’t as good. Fine tune the entire beginning first, then go back and create that amazing first line.
Limited & Purposeful Backstory
James Scott Bell, gives this tip: Highlight any lines about the backstory a bright color. This will give you a visual clue where you’re spending too much time on it. Then whittle. Decide what’s most important for the reader to know right then to either ground them in the story so they aren’t lost, or to move the story forward. Trim the rest.
Every Scene Gets More Than One Purpose
Every scene should have a purpose that drives the story forward—establishing character, plot, conflict, tone, theme, setting, and so forth. But it’s even better if there’s more than one purpose to a given scene. Add layers of purpose!
Mix Up Your Narrative Modes
Use a quick hitting mix of exposition, description, internal reflection, internal monologue, dialogue, and action. Think of it as a playing a piano. If you hit the same note over and over, listeners will tune you out quickly. The goal is to play lots of different notes in a way that makes music.
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TIP #4: MAKE THE INCITING INCIDENT HURT
This tip I got from a fantastic Pandemonium on Beginnings. The inciting incident is the moment that the character has the tables flipped on them, their world turns upside down, they are given an impossible decision, or what they love most is ripped away. It’s what sets that character on their journey and starts the conflict. Already this is an important moment. But you can punch it up by taking advantage of all the ways it impacts the MC.
Make It the Worst Possible Thing
By now you’ve established who your character is and what’s important to them. If the inciting incident can be the worst possible thing to happen, based on that characterization, it will hurt more.
Changes to Future, World, and Sense of Self
That fatal flaw you established earlier, was it involved? Does the inciting incident directly impact who they see themselves to be? What about their motivations or their internal conflict? Does it tie to their backstory? What is going to change about all those things?
Add Insult to Injury
Now make it worse. Find a way to add insult to injury and rub salt in that wound. What if the inciting incident is their fault? Or it’s served up by their worst enemy? Or it takes away the thing they care about the most?
If you didn’t know before, now you know that I’m a fan of lists. LOL. I hope a few of those were good arrows to add to your arsenal as a quiver. Now go out there and write your own great beginnings!