Opening Pages

Hi everyone,

First pages are tricky. They’ve a lot of work to do.

Since I’m sending off mine off to a new set of agents, I’ve the opportunity to re-assess mine. I’m mostly doing this because I attended a webinar on opening pages with lots of good a advice. I want to see if the advice works for me, if it makes my opening pages better. If not, I can revert to my current version and I’ll only have lost a couple of days. And the writing exercise will have made me a better writer so there’s really no downside to trying this.

What should opening pages do?

Introduce the person the reader should care about the most throughout the book:

In my opinion, the first job of the opening pages is to introduce the character that the readers will be following throughout the novel, the one the author wants them to care about. This is the person with the most complete character arc, the one who answers the story question in the climax.

I’ve taken a lot of courses and read a lot of opening pages as a result, and a common pitfall I’ve seen is the first paragraph not focusing on the main character (MC) but on another character, even though the MC is in the scene.

Readers tend to bond with the first character they meet (unless it’s a mystery and the first character ends up dead). If there are more than one person in the opening scene, I suggest giving the reader some of the MC’s thoughts before moving focus onto the other characters. How are they interpreting what’s going? What is their opinions about what’s happening? What do they think about the people in the scene? etc.

Narrative Questions:

Another job the opening pages should do is present an unanswered question to the reader. Something the reader must turn the page to find out. This links with exposition. If the author explains everything in the first chapter, then the reader won’t need to read on. Let them wait. Tell them only what they need to know while NOT being confusing. You must find the balance point between too much information (info dump) and too little (confusion). Both will force the reader to put down the book. It’s tricky and takes tweaking in layers. And feedback from people who don’t know anything about the story.

Setting:

What kind of world are your characters inhabiting? You want the reader to be immersed in this world and this goes beyond simple description. It’s more than the description. It’s the vibe, mood, tone, atmosphere. Treat the setting as a character. How is it interacting with your MC? Then pepper in some setting details so the reader is grounded. Not too many details or you’ll stifle the readers imagination. Give them a few items to drape their imagination on. Don’t put thier imagination in a strait jacket by listing so many details that you take the fun out of reading.

Plot:

A hint to your plot. Your plot has to start somewhere. Things are about to change. The MC doesn’t know this but the word choice, or metaphors or tone should hint to this impending change, like the distance rumble of an approaching train.

Style/Voice:

It should show your writing style. Look at the individual words. The verbs. Adjectives. Nouns. The mechanics of English. Look at your metaphors and similes. Your sentence structure. Make everything you do here deliberate. A reflection of you and your voice.

Micro-tension:

Make the reader uneasy. A little off balance. Don’t be bland and all roses and daisies. What emotions does the MC have that are at war? What desires? This links to all of the above. Narrative questions can make the reader uneasy. Eg but why? What’s going to happen when…

A mood mismatch, or descriptive words mismatch, with what’s going on can make the reader uneasy without them knowing why. Eg: Shadows and grit and descriptions of disease at a celebration.

Don’t let the reader get too comfortable. Don’t present a bland world with no conflicts. You don’t necessarily need plot conflict, but you need some conflict. Within the MC or between characters.

Those are the big six jobs the opening pages have.

I’m busy seeing if I can add in more of my main character into my opening scene. More of her thoughts. Her opinions. The inner conflict that plagues her (micro-tension). I’ll let you know how it goes.

See you tomorrow,

Happy writing,

Joanne.