For your first draft, you start your novel anywhere. For those who outline, you may have a specific reason for your choice. For those who “pants” their novels, and just write them by the seat of their pants, you may start where your mind settles or with the kernel of idea you have for your novel, whether a character, setting, time, culture, incident, or bit of dialogue. The goal of where you start a first draft is to create momentum so that you can get words written and your story rolling along.
In editing, however, beginnings take on a much more important role and require deeper thinking. It is important not to start too early, but not to require too much back-story either. You want to set up the tone and temperament of your novel quickly. It’s important to engage the reader and give them a reason to keep reading.
The choices for your beginning are as varied as the number of stars in the sky, and more numerous than the number of writers on the planet! Looking at what other authors have done, however, offers some examples for inspiration.
This list is a compilation taken from various posts made during NaNoWriMo. Most are courtesy of E. J. Runyon, Halifax, and Saheen in London, from 2007, and with a last addition from Katsuro in 2015. Commentary is by me. I saved them because I loved them then, and I still appreciate them now.
1. Frame your story.
“In his dreams, the old baker does not notice the cracking sound in Raymond’s chest.” (Dreams make excellent frames, and set up questions the reader wants answered.)
2. Have the narrator say the most important thing on his/her mind.
“I know I’m dying.” (This from first person narrative.)
“First thing in the morning, they’ll be coming for Suzette and Daniel—my babies.” (This setting up a scenario.)
3. Show the narrator’s frame of mind.
“My voices are all on the inside, afraid to come out.” (Establishing a connection with the reader, who is willing to listen.)
4. Jump into the middle.
“Today it will simply not happen again.” (Starting in media res is a well-recognized story-telling device to quickly engage the reader.)
5. Tell us something provocative.
“She sounded so damn good on the phone.” (Adding sexy spice gives us tone and temperament! BUT Note—Do most of your work for this type of opening in the present tense, not the past. Provocative should be immediate.)
6. Narrate, setting up a dilemma (even a small dilemma).
“It took hours to find the exact shade of blue polo shirt he used to wear back when he was the assistant manager for the Globe Tire shop in Torrance.” (The character’s dilemma raises the question why? Why did he want to do that? And the reader wants to know.)
7. Open with a letter, e-mail, blog post, facebook update, tweet, or tiktok message.
“My Dear Loved One. This is me, finally doing as the judge ordered and having the courage up to write.” (It is ingrained in us to keep reading a letter or message.)
8. Narrate, introducing a character from a memory.
“When we were both fifteen, Anna stood in the center of Pius X Girl’s Senior High quad, smiled, winked and started yelling. Out came every cuss word that she knew or could make up for the occasion.” (Fusing past and present uses the fundamental element of time, a universal connection to all readers.)
9. Start with an emotional memory.
“What I remember most from that day was his nails. Thin bands of bone white, curt in length, like the words he had for my mother.” (The metaphor with memory!)
10. Open with conflict.
“The guy at the back table, the one rustling his newspaper every five seconds, Bobby’d take him out first.” (You know what’s coming and can’t avert your eyes.)
11. Start with sights, smells, sensations.
“Crystal hadn’t opened her eyes yet when she smelled the stench. Roses. She hated roses. She peeked out from under the sheet and saw the huge glass vase on the night stand, looking rosy, smelling like death.” (In just these few words, we are there with Crystal, in her experience.)
12. Begin with a song reminding who/where/what.
“The first time Pauline ever heard Rod Stewart sing “The Killing of Georgie,” she was in the Fox Hills mall parking lot, waiting in the back seat of Vita’s white ’69 Imapla. It was Southern California, November 1976. She was nineteen and she thought to herself: this is the best song Bob Dylan’s ever done.” (Songs set up immediate connections with the generation who heard them. Be sure you know your readers to use this one.)
13. Declare-Here I am.
“Call me Ishmael,” Herman Melville, MOBY DICK
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” Charles Dickens, DAVID COPPERFIELD. (Classic opening. Still fresh.)
14. Introduce the family.
“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” Harper Lee, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. (We already like the narrator for her concern.)
15. Begin a journey.
“An ordinary young man was on his way from his hometown of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the canton of Graubunden. It was the height of summer, and he planned to stay for three weeks.” Thomas Mann, THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN. (This can work for adventures and road trips and other stories. It needs to appeal to current context to keep your readers’ attention.)
16. Grab attention with startling action.
“Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.” Chuck Palahniuk, FIGHT CLUB. (If you’re writing action, you set the tone and temperament in the first line!)
17. Begin with a broad statement.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Charles Dickens, A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, ANNA KARENINA.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. (Classic openings that establish time, place, culture all in one sweeping stroke.)
18. Hit the panic button.
“’Abandon the spaceship! The dinosaurs are coming!’ yelled Captain Death.” (This is a specific version of startling action, but worth a separate mention. Adrenaline is a keep-reading emotion!)
As your work on your novel(s), take time to craft that first sentence. Enjoy your New Year with attempts at new beginnings!