There are a lot of Dos and Don’ts for a story’s first pages. Do introduce the protagonist(s). Do start in medias res. Don’t start with a dream sequence. Don’t info dump.

These techniques are important because they accomplish one of the main purposes of your opening: they encourage reader connection. And that’s key because if the reader doesn’t make that connection in the first few pages, they likely won’t read on to chapter two or ten or The End.

Because of the first page critique contests I do, I have a lot to say about story openings—what works and what doesn’t. And today I’d like to share some story elements you can include in your first pages that will pull readers in, along with some opening-page examples from fiction that show this in action. You don’t want to include them all, but if you can add even one, you’ll increase your chances of hooking readers right away so they become invested in your story.

1. Characterization

We know readers connect primarily with characters. When you can start characterizing right away—showing readers how the protagonist is likable or relatable, their defining traits, where they’re vulnerable—the connection is forged.

In the following example from a classic, we learn quite a lot about one of the main characters in the very first paragraph. This is an older book, published before show-don’t-tell became a cornerstone writing technique. Even so, we begin to form a picture of this character—her personality traits and a few physical features—that starts the process of us getting to know them.

In Fort Repose, a river town in Central Florida, it was said that sending a message by Western Union was the same as broadcasting it over the combined networks. This was not entirely true. It was true that Florence Wechek, the manager, gossiped, yet she judiciously classified the personal intelligence that flowed under her plump fingers and maintained a prudent censorship over her tongue. The scandalous and the embarrassing she excised from her conversation. Sprightly, trivial, and harmless items, she passed onto friends, thus enhancing her status and relieving the tedium of spinsterhood. If your sister was in trouble and wired for money, the secret was safe with Florence Wechek. But if your sister bore a legitimate baby, it’s sex and weight would soon be known all over town.

~Alas Babylon

Tools to help you build relatable, vulnerable, and well-rounded characters: The Positive Trait Thesaurus, The Negative Trait Thesaurus, and One Stop for Writer’s Character Builder.

2. What’s Missing?

If your character’s navigating a change arc, there will be something wrong or missing in their life from the get-go. This is important for readers to see early on, because it plays into those vulnerability and relatability pieces. We’ve all been there. We all have things in life we wish were different, or we feel stuck in some way. If you can hint early on at something missing for the character (their inner motivation), readers will empathize with them and immediately want that void to be filled.

It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

The school bus wheezes to my corner. The door opens and I step up. I am the first pickup of the day. The driver pulls away from the curb while I stand in the aisle. Where to sit? I’ve never been a backseat wastecase. If I sit in the middle, a stranger, could sit next to me. If I sit in the front, it will make me look like a little kid, but I figure it’s the best chance I have to make eye contact with one of my friends, if any of them have decided to talk to me yet.

The bus picks up students in groups of four or five. As they walk the aisle, people who were my middle-school lab partners or gym buddies glare at me. I close my eyes. This is what I’ve been dreading. As we leave the last stop, I am the only person sitting alone.

~Speak

Most of us could empathize with this character simply because it’s the first day of school, and we recognize the associated nerves and angst. But in these opening paragraphs, we learn that this character has lost all her friends. She is utterly alone. There’s a lot we don’t know about her situation, but at the very least, we know that for her to find fulfillment, she’ll somehow have to reconnect with others.

3. The Story Goal

In a story with a change arc, the character’s overall goal (their outer motivation) is often (subconsciously) chosen because it’s going to meet their internal lack. Getting into Harvard Law and becoming a lawyer will help her get the boy (Legally Blonde). Catching the serial killer will help the quadriplegic ex-detective once again fine purpose in his life (The Bone Collector).

It’s not always possible to include the goal on the very first page, but if you can pull it off, do it. Then, readers will know straight away what has to happen for the character to succeed, and they’ll know what to root for.

Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.

~The Raven Boys

Here, we see in just one sentence what Blue’s story goal will be: she’ll have to somehow subvert the curse to find true love. There’s so much more to her situation, but this is all that’s needed to create a killer opening line that pulls readers in.

Tools for understanding character arc, inner motivation, and outer motivation: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus and One Stop’s Story Maps.

4. Foreshadowing and Conflict

When we see a character in conflict, we feel for them. We know how it feels to be in conflict, whether the conflict creates awkwardness and discomfort or impending pain and death. Including conflict in the opening pages is a good way to tweak the readers emotions and get them firmly on the character’s side.

When possible, we want it to tie directly to the main conflict or storyline. In other words, it’s not random. Let readers see a small piece of the character’s overall struggle that will plague them throughout the story.

Foreshadowing is a great way of enticing readers with future conflict, or the promise of it.

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.”

“Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just a hint of a smile.

“We have a long ride before us,” Gared pointed out. “Eight days, maybe nine. And night is falling.”

Will could see the tightness around Gared’s mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak. Gared had spent forty years in the watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of. Yet it was more than that. Under the wounded pride, Will can sense something else in the older man. You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear.

Will shared his unease. He was a veteran of a hundred rangings by now, and the endless dark wilderness that the southron called the haunted forest had no more terrors for him.

Until tonight. Something was different tonight.

~A Game of Thrones

Tools for writing conflict: The Conflict Thesaurus, Volumes One and Two

5. Questions

One of the best ways to keep readers reading is to create intrigue. Raise questions that will only be answered if they keep going. In the first pages I critique, I look for at least one question—something that isn’t fully explained that whets my whistle and makes me want to know more.

Pip knew where they lived.

Everyone in Fairview knew where they lived.

Their home was like the town’s haunted house; people’s footsteps quickened as they walked by, and their words strangled and died in their throats. Shrinking children would gather on their walk home from school, daring one another to run up and touch the front gate.

But it wasn’t haunted by ghosts, just three sad people trying to live their lives as before. A house not haunted by flickering lights or spectral falling chairs, but by dark spray-painted letters of “Scum Family” and stone-shattered windows.

~The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

What happened to this family?
Why do their lives look so different than before? Before what?
Why are the people in town so afraid of them?

Full disclosure: I haven’t read this book. I found it in a stack of library books in my kid’s room when I was paging through first pages, looking for examples. But I’m adding it to my list simply from reading the first four paragraphs and wanting answers to the questions the author raised.

6. An Unusual Character or Authorial Voice

This one is impossible for every story because not every narrator has a stand-out voice. And that’s perfectly fine. But if yours does, get it out there right from the start. This gives readers an immediate feel for the character, and they’ll know they’re in for a treat.

Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.

If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages­—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

~Percy Jackson and the Olympians

I’ll close with this example because it hits a lot of the points: strong voice, some some characterization, foreshadowing, and questions. It’s a great example of how multiple techniques can be included on the very first page to pique the reader’s interest.

So next time you’re revising your opening, see if your first few pages tick any of these boxes. If not, revise to include one or two of them, and you’ve got a better chance of pulling readers in right from page one.

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post 6 First Page Inclusions for Drawing Readers In appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

As I’m sure you’ve heard roughly a gajillion times, your story’s first pages are very important. Editors and agents typically request just a portion of your story’s opening, and potential buyers read only a sampling when they’re looking for books to buy. So whichever publishing route you take, those first pages are the only chance you get to win over the gatekeepers—to introduce your story in a way that sucks them in and makes them realize they simply have to have it. 

There are a lot of elements you want to include in your story opening, but I’d like to focus on the one that plays a huge part in winning over readers: emotion. If you’ve hung around Writers Helping Writers at all over the past ten years, you’ve heard Angela and I nattering on about the importance of character emotion in our stories. That’s because we believe it’s the key to triggering the reader’s emotion. The character is the one readers will relate to, the one who will make the reader feel something as they’re turning pages. So we have to convey the character’s emotions as early as possible, in a way that will engage readers. Otherwise, that first sampling is all they’re going to see.

Thanks to the Phenomenal First Pages contest that runs monthly at our blog (subscribe here if you’d like contest notifications), I’ve read quite a few story openings, and I see the same emotion-related problems cropping up over and over. I’d like to address those today.

Not Enough Emotion

It’s not uncommon for me to get all the way through someone’s first page and realize that I have felt…nothing. My emotions haven’t been stirred at all. And when I look back over the sample, I realize it’s because the character hasn’t felt anything, either. If the reader can’t tell what the character is feeling, how are they supposed to know how to feel themselves? And if a scene event doesn’t affect the character’s emotions, why does it matter?

The key here is that the author needs to make sure something impactful is happening. Maybe this comes in the form of a conversation, where the protagonist is reacting to the information being shared or the character who’s sharing it. It could be a moment between friends that shows how important the BFF is to the protagonist. Maybe it’s an actual event or occurrence that has meaning, such as a wedding, a job interview, or the cat yucking on the carpet when the character’s running late for work. 

Once you’ve ensured that meaningful things are going on, the character will need to respond appropriately to what’s happening, even in a small way. Which leads us to problem #2.

Emotion that Has Been Told

While it’s important to get the character’s emotional state across to readers, that’s unfortunately not enough. We have to do it in a way that engages their emotions. Engagement rarely results from telling, because telling doesn’t pull readers in. It takes them out of the active role of a participant in the character’s story and puts them at a distance, just sitting back and listening to events being told to them.

On the other hand, when we show that emotion, it seems more real to readers. They feel like they’re involved in the character’s experience. Their own feelings are stimulated and a bond begins to form, one that will pull the reader further into the story. For instance, here’s an example of emotion that has been told:

He was afraid.

And here’s the same emotion being shown:

His skin felt like it was trying to glide to the back of his body. (Tad Williams, Otherworld series)

Both of these descriptions express the same emotion. But the second one gives you an impression of what that character might physically be experiencing in that moment. We’ve all had that “crawling flesh” sensation; when we see the character going through it, it triggers our own emotional memories and helps us to associate better with the character, inviting us into his experience.

Here’s another example of emotion that has been shown, from Gennifer Choldenko’s Al Capone Does My Shirts:

My face burns. My ears heat up like two heaters attached to my face.

The author doesn’t need to say that the boy is embarrassed; the physical indicators do that for her. We’ve experienced that feeling before, and we get a hint of it through the use of the bodily cues associated with that emotion.

It’s important to keep in mind that emotional responses don’t have to be big to be effective. Maybe a vocal cue can be used, such as the volume of the voice increasing or decreasing. The character’s hands may start to fidget, or their body posture may shift. Even something as minor as a sigh or an eyebrow being raised can indicate a stirring of emotion. Use the character’s voice, body language, or even their thought process to help you show their emotional state in small ways, which can help you sidestep another emotion-related problem.

Too Much Emotion

Just as too little emotion is problematic, so is an overabundance of it. Melodrama happens when a character’s emotional responses are over the top and don’t make sense for the situation. This is a problem because it’s not authentic, and anything inauthentic is going to create distance for the reader as they realize something is “off” and subconsciously pull back. 

The best way to avoid melodrama is to know your character’s emotional range. Each person has a unique range of emotions, meaning, you can have two people in the same situation and they’ll express themselves differently. Knowing what this looks like for your character will enable you to write their responses in the way that best fits their personality.

So think of that range as a spectrum—a straight line with demonstrative on one end and reserved on the other. Ask yourself: Under normal circumstances, where will my character fall on this spectrum? If you can figure this out in advance, you’ll have a snapshot of how they’re likely to respond to everyday scenarios, and you can write their reactions consistently.

It’s also good to remember that emotions don’t bounce all over the place; they follow a continuum. So, if your character starts the scene contented but will become angry at some point, you’ll need to move him gradually toward that end emotion. Maybe you start by adding something that causes him to become irritated. Then he moves to frustration. And finally…anger. A character shouldn’t jump from contentment to rage unless there’s a psychological reason for doing so. Knowing the natural progression of emotions will enable you to write your character’s responses logically and keep you from falling into the melodrama trap.

Listen, I understand the pressure to get our first pages right. There’s a lot riding on them, but the emotion piece can definitely contribute to success. With these tips, you should be on your way toward strengthening your opening and encouraging readers to become more fully invested in the character and the story. For more information on how to write character emotion well, you can also reference the second edition of The Emotion Thesaurus.

This edition of The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.

View the list of 130 emotions
included in this book

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Three Emotion Problems to Avoid in Your Story Opening appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

But Michael Hauge prefers a different term for this phenomenon:

No one likes to be grabbed. It’s a jarring, unpleasant experience. A far better way to approach the opening of your script (or novel) is to realize you’ve got to seduce the reader in the first ten pages. Everybody likes to be seduced; it’s a gradual, enjoyable, and emotionally involving experience that thoroughly captures our attention.
(Writing Screenplays That Sell)

Whatever your terminology, drawing in readers is a vitally important process that needs to happen at the beginning of your story. Also called the setup, it’s everything that occurs before the all-important catalyst that propels your character out of their regular world into a new one.

According to Blake Snyder (Save the Cat), the setup should consist of roughly the first 12% of your story. This is a guideline you can set in stone or take with a grain of salt, depending on your plotting/pantsing style. But 12% is a good rule of thumb because it’s enough real estate to set the stage and draw readers in without it dragging on and putting them to sleep.

Unfortunately, we can get the length of the setup right and still not achieve the goal of pulling readers in. To do this, we have to tap into their emotions. If we don’t make them feel, they won’t be invested in the character; if they’re not invested in the character, they won’t care what happens and won’t keep reading to see what happens. So it’s incredibly important that the setup elicit emotion from the reader. There are a few things you can include in your opening pages that will help accomplish this.

Character Empathy

Readers start reading a book for a variety of reasons: they liked the premise, it was a recommended by a friend, they’re a fan of the author. Readers keep reading because they connect with the characters. We have a very small window—that first 12%—to achieve the reader-character connection, and eliciting empathy is a great way to make it happen. Here are a few ways to encourage that special something between the reader and your protagonist.

Universal Needs

Readers like characters they can relate to in some way. One way to bond your audience of unique individuals to the protagonist is to remove one of their basic human needs, such as belonging or surviving. Because everyone understands these needs, taking one of them away from your hero can endear readers to them.

This is one reason Katniss Everdeen was such a successful protagonist. Most readers couldn’t relate to her circumstances of having to kill others to survive, but they could understand needing to protect a vulnerable loved one or providing for one’s family. If you want to increase your reader’s empathy for the hero, try taking away a universal need, and the reader will stay tuned to see if she can get it back.

Admirability

People are drawn to those they admire, so it’s a good idea to give your hero some qualities that readers will appreciate or aspire to themselves. Intelligence, a sense of humor, kindness, generosity, honor—these are attributes people long for. Seeing them personified in the hero opens us up to them, making us want them to do well.

Notice that I didn’t say a protagonist must be likable (though that works, too). As a selfish and manipulative character, Scarlett O’Hara isn’t exactly a glowing role model, but people relate to her because of her shrewdness, tenacity, and confidence. It’s her admirable qualities that win readers over.

Uniqueness

Readers, along with editors, agents, and publishers, are tired of seeing new versions of the same old characters. We want someone who surprises us with something new. A janitor who anonymously and effortlessly solves impossible math theorems at M.I.T. (Good Will Hunting). An art student in Prague who collects teeth for the demons who raised her (Daughter of Smoke and Bone). When you’re creating your protagonist, see what you can do to make them stand out from the crowd and be remembered.

Remarkability

Few people truly excel in any area, but most would like to. Characters who are remarkable in some way speak to our need for esteem and recognition, whether it’s because they’re intelligent, incredibly talented, or have an unusual ability. Make your character extraordinary and readers will often respond.

Conflict

Well-written conflict inherently elicits emotion—anticipation, yes, as the reader worries about the protagonist’s well being, but it also can generate feelings like nervousness, frustration, or fear. Create a situation many readers have experienced or can imagine going through, and you’ve added relateabilty, too.

This conflict can be overt and obvious, such as a fistfight, terrorist attack, or someone fleeing for their life. But this doesn’t always work in the setup because the reader hasn’t had enough time to get to know the protagonist and care about what happens to them. Conflict at this stage is often more effective when it’s hinted at or implied.

In Stephen King’s Under the Dome, we first see Dale Barbara as he’s leaving town after “taking a pretty good beating at The Mill.” That’s the only reference to his altercation, but it’s enough to tweak the reader’s empathy meter and pique interest. Why’d he get beaten up? Who did it? If he’s innocent, why is he leaving town?

Conflict can also be internal rather than external. A character struggling with an important decision, questioning themselves, or denying a wounding event from the past can be just as compelling as a five-care pileup. However it manifests, be sure to include some conflict in your setup; done well, not only will it tug the reader’s heartstrings but it will keep up the pace, too.

The Need For Change

Most people—readers included—want to improve and grow, to be better tomorrow than they were yesterday. They understand that change, though difficult and sometimes painful, is needed in order to achieve growth. This is why, at their most basic level, stories are about necessary change. Sometimes this change is internal, played out through the character’s arc as they work to overcome fears or wounding events and embrace the fullest version of themselves. Sometimes it’s external—something within the world itself that needs fixing, such as the existence of the one ring in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The most compelling stories often contain elements of change that are both internal and external.

The setup is the perfect place to show what needs to be changed for your character; it allows you to hint at what has to happen for them to be fulfilled by the story’s end. Sometimes this means showing their biggest flaw, the one they think is a strength but is really crippling them. In other cases, it might require showing an inequality or injustice in the world that they must alter in order to pursue her dreams. What has to change before the character can achieve their overall goal? Reference this in your opening pages and you’ll clue readers in to what has to happen for your hero to emerge victorious.

Story setups are tricky; we always want to include more information than they need. To stay on the straight and narrow, remember the two-fold purpose of the setup: introduce the character in their everyday world, and draw readers in by activating their emotions. Stay focused on these outcomes, and you’re on your way to drafting a story start that will keep readers engaged well beyond the opening pages.

PRO TIP: The Story Maps tool at One Stop For Writers can help you organize your setup and other important turning points while keeping them in proper proportion.

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Three Essentials for Engaging Reader Emotion in the Setup appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Have you ever been running late, and found yourself scrambling around your house, looking for your car keys? Where did you leave them – on the kitchen counter? By the front door? Oh wait, you went up to your bedroom to get something. You race up the stairs, step into your room, and then stop short. You blink. You made your bed already. The blinds are drawn.

What were you looking for, again? For the life of you, you can’t remember.

This is a real phenomenon, so if you’ve experienced this, it doesn’t mean that you’re losing your marbles. It’s called The Doorway Effect, and it happens because as soon as you step over the threshold to a new room in your house, your brain has new information to process, and it clears its slate to ground itself in your new environment.

I’m in my bedroom now. My bed is made. I closed the blinds.

It might be a minute or two before you remember you were looking for your keys. You might need to retrace your steps. (But don’t worry, you’ll eventually remember that they’re on your nightstand, and you’ll leave your house only a few minutes late).

You’re probably wondering what this Doorway Effect has to do with writing? Here’s the cool thing about brains – your reader experiences a similar phenomenon when you cut to a new chapter or scene in your book. As the writer, you have the power to take them anywhere when you start a new chapter or scene. You can jump backward in time, dropping into a flashback, skip forward in time by days, months, years, even decades. You can change whose Point of View (POV) you’re telling the story from, you can even start a new scene on the moon if that’s where your story goes.

And your reader is along for the ride. They trust you, the writer, to lead the way. So, as they cross the threshold into your brand new chapter or scene, that they’ve never read before, they clear their slates, and look for clues to ground them in the scene that’s about to unfold. As they ease into the new scene, they’ll be looking to orient themselves, and need the answers to these questions, fast: 

1. Whose head are they in now? (POV)
2. Where are they in time, relative to the scene they just left?
3. What’s around your characters (setting)?
4. Who is in the in the scene when it opens?

This is true even if you start the next chapter only moments later, BTW, so you need to clue them in even if your grounding information is the same as the chapter before! 

If they don’t get that information, they’ll feel lost, like they’re floating, without their feet firmly planted on the ground. Without this information, especially any details about the setting, the reader will picture your characters in a white room, or against a white wall, going about the activities you pen for them. This is sometimes called White Room Syndrome, or White Wall Syndrome (again, aren’t brains cool?).

Many readers will start skimming to figure this out rather than stay in this no man’s land. So, if you don’t give this information until the top of the second page of your scene? They’ll miss all the amazing things that happen on page one.

The easiest way to fix this is to make sure you’re providing the 4 elements of grounding readers in your scenes within the first two paragraphs after every chapter or scene break. It’s like a big road sign when they step over the threshold to help them find their place in your world, so that they can relax and let themselves be dragged into whatever your characters get up to next.

Tips for Including Grounding in Your Scenes

Get creative, and give readers this information as quickly as possible, so you can get on with the story.

Whose head are they in now? (POV)

This is especially important when you are writing your book from more than one character’s point of view.

• Opening with an inner thought laced with your POV character’s voice, or an action or dialogue from them is the quickest way to establish this.
• If you start with another character’s actions or dialogue, readers may incorrectly assume that they will be following this new character’s POV in your scene.

Where are they in time, relative to the scene they just left?

Immerse your readers in your scene as quickly as possible by letting them in on where you’ve taken them.

• Get creative on establishing the time period for your readers. Phrases like moments later, or three months ago, can get boring, and make your grounding feel clunky. Try some of these ideas instead:
  • Show time passing with the character’s growth (longer hair, wrinkles forming, a child growing taller etc.)
  • Demonstrate a change in an object (a jar of peanut butter that empties over time, or a set of swings that shows wear).
  • Reverse these suggestions if you’re jumping backward in time.

What’s around your characters (setting)?

Rather than describing the setting, have your POV character interact with it to keep the story moving right from the top of the scene. And keep this short – adding this information is not an excuse to drop several paragraphs of worldbuilding (info dumping), which can pull readers out of your story.

• Give 2-3 specific showing details about the room or landscape you’re dropping readers into.
  • Have your POV character use something in your scene, or move an object around them that fits with their agency
  • Examples: Have them check the industrial clock on the wall to show urgency, pick up a rock and throw it to show frustration, etc.
  • Setting details are also needed when your characters change locations within a scene or chapter, in addition to the top of your scenes, so use these tips there as well to make sure your readers don’t get lost on your journey!

Check out this article by Angela Ackerman for more ideas on how to ground your characters in your reader’s world.  

Who is in the scene when it opens?

There is nothing more jarring than thinking a character is alone in a scene and having a second character speak up or yell on page two, while standing right beside them, as if they appeared out of thin air.

• Don’t simply list everyone who’s around if there’s a crowd. Mention the crowd but then zoom in on one or two specific people to make this pop.
• Just like the setting details, let your POV character interact with the people in the scene, through dialogue or actions to make it as engaging as possible.

It’s easy to check if you’ve grounded your readers at the top of your chapters or scenes, and to add these details if you haven’t got them in the first two paragraphs after a chapter or scene break to create an immersive experience for your readers, and to lead them seamlessly through the story you’ve spent months or even years crafting. Adding this information does not mean that you have to rewrite a scene you’re happy with. When done with creativity and style, your readers will enjoy your story even more, even if they don’t know why.

Grounding your readers in each scene is one of 30+ practical writing strategies Suzy shares in her Wicked Good Fiction Bootcamp. Want more? Sign up for her Free Masterclass, 3 Secrets to Increase Your Chances of Your Book Getting Published to learn more about her Bootcamp.

SUZY VADORI - Resident Writing Coach

Suzy Vadori is the award-winning author of The Fountain Series. She is a certified Book Coach with Author Accelerator and the Founder of Wicked Good Fiction Bootcamp. Suzy breaks down important writing concepts into practical steps to make it easy for writers coming from outside the industry to get up to speed in a snap, so that they can realize their big, wild writing dreams!

In addition to her weekly newsletter encouraging writers, and online courses, Suzy offers both developmental editing and 1:1 Book Coaching. Find out more about our RWC team here and discover how to connect with Suzy and all the resources she has to offer here.

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If the opening line of a scene is the doorway to the party, what follows is the welcoming handshake and introductions that draw readers into the mix. Effective scene openings extend beyond the fireworks of a provocative opening hook, ushering readers into the new space with no awkward stumbles or feeling out of place.

Here’s how to whisk readers effortlessly into a scene’s flow.

Go in Late …

The first technique is all about judging the point at which to enter the scene. Screenwriters have a saying: Go in late, get out early. Don’t overexplain on either end.

Since stories are about significance (why did the character make those choices, and how did it matter?), scenes should be constructed of significant stuff—stuff that matters, not all the characters’ dull daily duties.

Cut out the boring stuff. Short of a few scenes way back in the first act of your book while you’re establishing the character’s normal world, it’s almost never interesting to show a character waking up, getting dressed, drinking coffee, and getting ready for the scene. Get to the point. Readers come to your book for engaging story action, not the mundane business they’ve already slogged through themselves so they can sit down and read.

Transitions are a common tripping point. You can almost always do away with travel to the next location in the story (unless the journey itself is the point). Travel, arrivals, greetings, goodbyes—those are interstitial moments, not the story itself. None of that merits your precious word count.

Scenes dip in and out of the story at key points of conflict and tension, when things are popping that actually change what’s happening. Spend your time showing the characters doing things that affect the story line, not merely getting ready. It’s like a theatrical play—don’t show the stagehands changing the scenery, just raise the curtain on the next scene.

Aim to begin on the upswing into the conflict or juiciest part of the scene. Some scenes need a little more set-up, but you’ll be surprised how quickly readers catch on if you simply dive in.

This technique of going in late (or in medias res, in the middle of things) is often honed during revision. Write first, hone later. You’ll be surprised how much you can slice away without shaking readers’ ability to follow where the story moves next. Save anything you remove during revisions in your graveyard file, in case you need parts of it again later.

Test out shortened scenes on readers who don’t know your story. They may not know the details of the story, but can they slide into the spirit of the scene anyway? Could you prune away still more? You can always add removed content back a snippet at a time.

Bonus Tip: … Get Out Early

Speaking of petering out, the reverse of “go in late” holds true on the back end of the scene: Get out early. Once you’ve hit the peak—the conflict or surprise or complication—get the heck out of Dodge. Don’t overstay the scene’s welcome by dragging out the characters’ reactions (reaction/emotion, dilemma, and decision). This isn’t the time for lengthy debates …

… unless, of course, it is. If the characters and readers need time to grapple with the ramifications of what just happened, indulge in a full sequel scene.

Anchoring Scenes: The 3 Ws

Once you’ve chosen the right place to begin the scene, it’s time to invite readers in. Readers can’t sink into immersion until they’re oriented in the story. Whose view are they seeing this scene from? Where and when are they?

Within the first page of every scene—preferably within the opening paragraphs—ground readers by establishing the 3 Ws.

1. WHO the viewpoint character is (and WHO ELSE is present in the scene)

2. WHERE the scene is taking place

3. WHEN the scene is taking place, or a sense of how much time has passed since the last scene

1. WHO Nothing in a scene makes sense until readers have context for what they’re reading. Whose experience is this? Establish the viewpoint character unambiguously within the first paragraph or two, ideally within the first two sentences.

Readers usually assume that the first character named in a scene is the viewpoint character. Positioning the viewpoint character in the opening has the added benefit of launching them into motion, doing or speaking or considering or noticing. Now viewpoint character has agency in driving the scene.

Also near the top of a scene, establish who else is present. Ideally, this should happen within the first page or so. You want to avoid the sort of confusion when some character pops off on the last page with a snarky observation, only readers didn’t even realize they were there. A glimpse of each character is sufficient, even a collective mention such as The others armed themselves with plastic forks and swarmed the defenseless box of cake on the counter.

2. WHERE A scene will feel like a snippet acted out in front of a green screen on a movie soundstage if readers don’t know where it’s unfolding. Don’t infodump the details in a steaming lump at the front of the scene. Parse it out.

The things the viewpoint character notices should reflect their personal mindset: their knowledge, priorities, taste, immediate agenda, hopes, fears … What is the viewpoint character doing here in this scene? They’re not sitting around and blinking around at a static world; they should be actively engaged in something that’s obviously headed somewhere interesting.

3. WHEN Pull readers across the chasm between scenes by seeding the next scene opening with cues as to how much time has passed. Unless the timeline is integral to the plot, it’s not necessary to be overt about this. In slower stories or sections, a mention of late-afternoon sun or a brisk autumn breeze gets the job done. The shorter the story’s overall timeline, the more granular you’ll need to be with these references.

Many books benefit from timestamps at the beginning of each chapter (22:58:07 11/12/2093, Bridge of the Atlantis) to help orient readers. Caveat: Not every reader notices or absorbs timestamps, and even those who do are unlikely to parse out the number of days or weeks between dates to grasp the relative passage of time (with the exception of something like the breathless hour-by-hour countdown of a thriller).

Revising Scene Openings

Pro revision tip: Make a single revision pass dedicated exclusively to tightening scene openings. Don’t get sucked into editing past the first few paragraphs. Try starting at the end of the manuscript and working backward scene by scene, forcing you to tackle each scene in its own right rather than in relation to the previous scene.

First, check to see that you’ve started each scene as late as possible, just before things get juicy. Since every scene should cause the next one to come about, like a chain of dominoes, you could also use this revision pass to check that scenes wrap up promptly (“get out early”), before the momentum has a chance to start petering out.

Next, move back to the scene opening to check for the 3 Ws: who, where, when.

Done.

Continue to work your way through the manuscript one scene at a time from back to front, checking only for scene opening issues. The result will be a smoother read that invites readers into the action every time.

LISA POISSO - Resident Writing Coach

Lisa Poisso specializes in helping new and emerging fiction writers. A veteran of the disciplined world of classical dance, she brings that same practiced artistry to writing—where structure, form, and technique are springboards that give you freedom of movement on the page. Explore her Writing & Editing Resources for valuable tools to develop your manuscript, and subscribe to the Writes of Fiction newsletter to receive Lisa’s hand-picked writing advice delivered directly to your inbox. Find out more about our RWC team here and connect with Lisa below.

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How you start your story is super-important, which is why your novel’s opening is crucial. In just a few sentences – yup, sentences, never mind pages! – you need to GRAB your reader’s attention and pull them into your storyworld.

But HOW do writers do this? Well, how long is a piece of string … your novel’s opening may depend on many factors. That’s the bad news though. The good news is there ARE best practices we can learn from. Ready? Let’s go …

WHY a Great Opening is Important

A great opening in a novel is important for several reasons …

i) It sets the tone for the rest of the book. ‘Starting as you mean to go on’ is very important in novel writing. It won’t do to start a romantic comedy with a murder, for example. Whilst that may seem obvious – and it is – it’s surprising how few writers ‘match’ their genre and tone with their content!

ii) It can also set up the conflict and introduce the reader to the characters. Lots of writers think ‘conflict’ = lots of arguments or fighting. Yet as screenwriters always say, ‘drama is conflict’ which means the SITUATION characters find themselves in. In other words, you just need a strong situation that creates lots of problems for your protagonist. This in turn means we learn about your character from how they respond to those problems.

iii) Lastly, a great opening can hook the reader and make them want to keep reading. If a potential reader is interested in your book, there’s a strong chance they will check out your first page. Few of us buy books without downloading the sample from Kindle, or opening the book in the store. We all make snap judgements!

Think of your novel’s opening as your ‘audition’ for a new reader and you can’t go wrong.

The Different Types of Openings

A great opening in a novel is one of those ‘you’ll know it when you see it’ type of things. It could be a powerful prologue that sets the stage for the story to come, or it could be a slow-burn first chapter that gradually builds up to something more exciting. Whatever form it takes, a great opening is always important in hooking readers and keeping them invested in the story.

Tip # 1: Start with Action

One of the most common ways to open a novel is with some kind of action scene. I write crime fiction and thrillers, so I often start with the crime itself … Or I may begin with a person’s response to it (running away, fighting back, racing to cover it up, etc).

However, you can do whatever you like as long as it’s exciting! Perhaps in your horror novel your protagonist is being haunted by ghosts or chased by werewolves? Or in your romantic comedy, perhaps your character is racing after their ex-partner to stop them from leaving?

Action openings are usually fast-paced and exciting, and they can give readers a good sense of what the rest of the novel will be like. They can also be used to introduce readers to the characters and setting of the story right away.

Tip # 2: Focus On Worldbuilding

Another popular way to start a novel is with a focus on worldbuilding. This could involve introducing readers to the rich history and lore of the storyworld. Alternatively, it could simply be establishing the everyday lives of the characters before things start to get interesting.

One word of caution: it can be very easy to ‘info dump’ when worldbuilding if you are not careful! Make sure you don’t make your reader ‘wait’ for the story to start … Introduce the setting, situation and characters hand in hand.

Tip # 3: Start with Characters

Some novels choose to open with character introductions instead, either through dialogue or inner monologue. This often benefits from a quirky beginning that really marks the character out.

One of my favorites is probably I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. Protagonist and narrator Cassandra starts with the memorable line, ‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink’!

More Examples of Great Novel Openings

More memorable first lines that focus on the characters …

• “Call me Ishmael.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick
• “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” – Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
• “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – George Orwell, 1984
• “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” – Vladimir Nabakov, Lolita
• “It was a pleasure to burn.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Tips on Writing a Great Opening for Your Novel

It’s no secret that the first few pages of a novel are important. They are what hook the reader and make them want to keep reading. But how do you write a great opening? Here are a few tips:

1. Start with action. You want to grab the reader’s attention from the very first sentence. One way to do this is to start in the middle of the action, rather than at the beginning.

2. Introduce your characters quickly. Don’t spend pages and pages describing them; just give enough information so that readers can start forming attachments.

3. Set the scene. Give readers a sense of place and time so they can immerse themselves in the story.

4. Use strong language. Your words should be evocative and paint a picture in the reader’s mind.

5. Hook the reader with a question or mystery. Make them want to know more so they’ll keep reading to find out what happens next.

Last Points

A great opening in a novel is incredibly important and should be taken seriously. It sets the tone for the entire story, and it can make or break a reader’s interest from the start.

An effective opening will have characters that readers can relate to, an engaging plotline, vivid description of setting, and clever dialogue. Put simply – craft your opening thoughtfully and carefully for maximum impact.

Good Luck!

LUCY V. HAY - Resident Writing Coach

Lucy V. Hay is a script editor, author and blogger who helps writers. She’s been the script editor and advisor on numerous UK features and shorts & has also been a script reader for 20 years, providing coverage for indie prodcos, investors, screen agencies, producers, directors and individual writers. She’s also an author, publishing as both LV Hay and Lizzie Fry.  Lizzie’s latest, a serial killer thriller titled The Good Mother is out now with Joffe Books, with her sixth thriller out in 2024. Lucy’s site at www.bang2write.com has appeared in Top 100 round-ups for Writer’s Digest & The Write Life, as well as a UK Blog Awards Finalist and Feedspot’s #1 Screenwriting blog in the UK (ninth in the world.). She is also the author of the bestselling non-fiction book, Writing & Selling Thriller Screenplays: From TV Pilot To Feature Film (Creative Essentials), which she updated for the streaming age for its tenth anniversary in 2023.

The post The Importance of a Great Opening in a Novel appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

With all the writing advice out there, we know that some “writing rules” we hear are more like guidelines. However, story structure is important not just for our writing but also for our readers—creating their overall sense of our story—so we should consider the risks before ignoring structure-specific guidelines.

In fact, if our story isn’t working well, we might be able to fix the issue by going deeper into the reasons behind those guidelines. Let’s take one example of a relatively minor aspect of story structure (that most advice doesn’t even mention) and look at how it can affect our story—and how our story can “break” if we fail to include the details readers need.

Story Structure at the 25% Mark

Before we start, first know that different story structure systems use different names for each point, but the function they fulfill for our story is the same. In other words, the names don’t matter.

For example, most story structure systems include a plot event (a story “beat”) around the 25% mark (often called the Catalyst, First Plot Point, or the End of the Beginning), and no matter the label used, the function of this beat is to create a “point of no return” forcing the protagonist into the story.

After this plot event, readers should have at least a hint of (and in many cases, a fairly good idea of):

• the story goal(s) and reasons for the goal (stakes)
• the main conflicts/antagonists/obstacles blocking that goal
• some of the internal issues complicating that goal

Those all work together to tell readers who they’re rooting for or against, what they’re rooting for or against, and what our story is about.

If we fail to include a story beat with this function around the 25%-ish mark (usually between 20-30%), our story’s pace will likely feel slow and/or readers might close the book in frustration at not understanding the point of the story. A well-developed 25%-mark beat will establish the story, plot, conflicts, stakes, and character/emotional arcs of the story.

Internal Issues at the 25% Mark

Those of you familiar with story structure probably expected those first 2 bullet points above, but maybe the last point was a surprise. Many story structure systems and beat sheets focus on the external issues of our story—plot, antagonists, villains, obstacles, etc.—and don’t touch on internal issues.

However, if we comprehend the deep, underlying purpose of a story’s structure at this 25% mark, we know that we want to not only show the goal our characters are aiming for, but also to at least hint at what’s preventing them from reaching that goal right now. After all, without something standing between our characters and their goal, readers will think our story would be over before it began. *grin*

For some stories, that “something” will be all about external obstacles and villains, just like the focus of most beat sheets. But for the remainder of stories (especially those with character arcs), readers should have seen hints by the 25% mark that the “something” also includes internal obstacles—such as characters’ false beliefs and backstory wounds—that interfere with the story goal(s) as well.

Going Deeper Helps Our Story (and Readers)

What’s a reader’s experience if they don’t see (at least) hints of the internal obstacles that will be complicating the protagonist’s path toward the goal(s)?

• Readers may think the external conflicts aren’t enough of an obstacle to the goal to create a story and simply close the book.
• Readers may question whether there’s anything other than a need for word count holding the character back from their goal (in a “the character struggles because the plot needs them to” problem) and lose patience with the story and characters.
• Negative character traits without a hint of an internal-arc goal to improve may be assumed to be permanent, which can make readers less likely to root for them.
• Any self-destructive (or obviously wrong) assumptions a character makes without a hint of how it ties into their internal arc (such as through a false belief or backstory wound) may make them less likable or sympathetic and lessen readers’ engagement with our story and characters.

For example, let’s take a character who assumes no one likes them. If readers have seen evidence throughout the first act that the assumption isn’t true, they might have a negative impression of the character for making such a patently false assumption. The assumption could even make readers frustrated, contemptuous, and dull their emotional connection to our character—and story. Not good.

One potential fix? By the 25%-ish mark, give readers hints/glimpses/allusions to a backstory wound causing that assumption.

Even just a few words hinting at something (such as: He’d learned his lesson about trying to make friends years ago.) can make all the difference between a character that readers sympathize with and a character that readers disdain. The hints give a reason for the character’s internal issues that keeps readers in their corner—and rooting for them to improve.

Story Structure Matters

Just as our story can look “broken” if we haven’t provided glimpses of enough conflict (external and/or internal) by the 25%-ish mark, similar problems can occur if we ignore the other major story structure guidelines or fail to go deep enough into the purpose behind each major story structure point. Story structure matters for creating the overall sense of our story—and for convincing readers that their time will be rewarded with a satisfying story.

So if we struggle with a story that seems broken, try going deeper into its structure and make sure to address the underlying purpose of each major beat in our story. We may discover a few easy edits to fix our story. *smile*

Do you have any questions or insights about story structure and how going deeper might help our story?

JAMI GOLD - Resident Writing Coach

Jami Gold put her talent for making up stuff to good use, such as by winning the 2015 National Readers’ Choice Award in Paranormal Romance for her novel Ironclad Devotion.

To help others reach their creative potential, she’s developed a massive collection of resources for writers. Explore her site to find worksheets—including the popular Romance Beat Sheet with 80,000+ downloads—workshops, and over 1000 posts on her blog about the craft, business, and life of writing. Her site has been named one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers by Writer’s Digest. Find out more about our RWC team here and connect with Jami below.

The post Story Not Behaving? Try Going Deeper into Structure appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

One of the most common questions I get as an editor is, “Am I starting my novel in the right place?” Let’s discuss how you can craft an opening that subtly shows you are, in fact, starting in the right place and feel confident about your choice.

We often think we need to open with a huge bang, something that’ll catch the reader’s attention and play out like a blockbuster movie. But here’s the thing about those high-powered opening scenes: readers don’t care because they don’t yet know the characters or the baggage they bring onto page one. Readers don’t know what the events mean for the characters, or what’s at stake for them.

There’s no doubt it’s difficult to balance establishing the protagonist’s ordinary world, or before, while hooking readers. Ordinary world sounds boring, right?

But the trick to establishing your protagonist’s ordinary world and crafting a successful opening scene isn’t in impressing your reader as much as you think it is. The trick is in crafting an interesting event that somehow impresses your protagonist. To do that, we need enough of a glimpse of their before to understand how whatever happens toward the end of your opening will change their lives.

Think of your opening as having 3 parts:

1. Let us meet your protagonist. We need a clear understanding of who they are and what they believe about their world when we meet them. Preferably, this is done through interesting action and dialogue. Meaningful action that will reveal something about their current beliefs and personality. Think of protagonist Katniss in The Hunger Games, waking up to find she’s alone in her bed when typically, her younger sister is beside her. Her immediate concern flares in the form of dialogue and action. We become acquainted with Katniss on a deep level before she steps foot into the arena, and all she’s done is wake up. No car chases. No mythical beings showing up. Just normality with an interesting twist.

2. The primary external event toward the end of your opening scene leads to a noticeable turn. The “turn”— or the “opportunity,” as it’s called in the One Stop for Writers’ Story Mapping tool—is the moment the opening’s main event impacts the protagonist and leads to a decision of some sort. In light of establishing your character’s ordinary world, your reader will better understand the context and meaning of this new event. So going back to The Hunger Games, the turn is when Katniss’ younger sister’s name is called to become a tribute in the games. It’s the moment that forces Katniss to make some sort of a decision. By then, we know Katniss’ primary goal is to protect her sister (ordinary world) and that this “turn” will force her hand. And because we felt Katniss’ reaction to feeling that cold spot in the bed where her sister should have been, the event of having her name called has context. We already know what Katniss cares about and why, which makes the event far more engaging. 

3. The external event needs to have a clear impact on your character, but only in a way that shows who they currently are and that more than likely, they’re not ready yet for any remarkable changes. Maybe the protagonist is choosing to ignore what’s happening, or choosing to stay on the path they’ve been on since before we met them, or behaving in a way that reinforces who we’ve met so far. In The Hunger Games, Katniss makes a  decision to volunteer in place of her sister. It sounds dramatic, but this is actually not far-fetched based on what we know about her. She’s done something that reinforces the protectiveness she showed on page one. Here, you’ll want a reaction to establish your character’s reaction to events, but nothing so drastic that they seem to be changing already. There’s something going on in their lives that is new to them, but they probably perceive their world as still being within their control.

Take a look at your story’s opening and see if you’ve included these three components of a successful opening scene. Is there a particular aspect you find stands out strongly in your pages? Do any of these aspects need polishing? What other elements of a novel’s opening do you look for as both a writer and reader? Can you think of examples in books or film or TV that accomplish these three elements particularly well? 

Happy crafting!

MARISSA GRAFF - Resident Writing Coach

Marissa has been a freelance editor and reader for literary agent Sarah Davies at Greenhouse Literary Agency for over seven years. In conjunction with Angelella Editorial, she offers developmental editing, author coaching, and more. Marissa feels if she’s done her job well, a client should probably never need her help again because she’s given them a crash-course MFA via deep editorial support and/or coaching. Find out more about our RWC team here and connect with Marissa below.

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In a lecture series on Youtube, #1 New York Times best-selling author Brandon Sanderson talks about the three P’s of plot structure: Promise. Progress. Payoff. 

Promises are particularly important in the beginning of the story, as they draw in the audience. 

Progress keeps the audience invested, particularly through the middle of the story. If there is no sense of progress, then the reader feels as if the plot isn’t going anywhere. 

Payoff is what fulfills the promises of progress. It rewards the audience for sticking around, and if done properly, creates a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the story. 

While all three can be tricky in their own right, many writers struggle to create a proper sense of progress, which can lead to saggy middles. 

Luckily, Dramatica Theory breaks plot down into eight story points that essentially encapsulate progress.

If you apply them to your stories, your writing will always have progression through the middle.

1. Goal – Every story has a goal. It may be a goal of aspiration, such as becoming a top chef. Or it may be a goal of thwarting something, such as stopping a murderer. Whatever the case, a story’s goal is what enables us to measure progress. If there is no goal, then what one does, doesn’t really matter. We have no orientation or purpose, so there is no sense of moving forward or backward. The goal allows progress to happen. 

2. Requirements – In order to achieve the goal, something is required. This can be broken down into two variations. In one, the characters must follow an order of steps, like following a set of directions. In the other, the characters must do or obtain things in any order, like a shopping list. The characters in Jumanji, for example,have the goal to restore the world to normal. The requirement is to win the game. But they must do this in a proper order–they can’t skip turns.

3. Consequences – Consequences are what happen if a goal isn’t achieved or hasn’t yet been achieved. In some stories, the protagonist is trying to prevent the consequences, but in others, the protagonist is trying to stop the consequences that are already happening. Consequences might be thought of as overall stakes. In Ralph Breaks the Internet, if Ralph and Vanellope don’t buy a new steering wheel for Sugar Rush, then its characters will be homeless. 

4. Forewarnings – Forewarnings convey that the consequences are getting closer, becoming worse, or becoming permanent (depending on the story). If a dam is in danger of breaking, then a forwarning may be a crack that shoots out water. In Back to the Future, Marty’s family slowly disappearing from a photograph works as a forewarning. 

5. Dividends – Characters will likely receive small rewards for little successes along the journey to the goal. These are dividends. For example, on her journey to fight in the war in her father’s place, Mulan is rewarded honor and a place in the military when she is able to retrieve an arrow from a wooden post that none of the men could get down.

6. Costs – Just as the journey may include dividends, it also entails costs. These have negative impacts on the protagonist’s well-being. In order to win The Hunger Games, for example, one must be willing to kill others, which also includes psychological trauma. In order for Frodo to get to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring, he must suffer a loss of innocence. This is a cost. 

7. Prerequisites – There are often certain essentials one must have, to pursue the goal at all. These are prerequisites. Prerequisites on their own don’t bring the goal closer. This is why they aren’t requirements. In Interstellar, a spaceship, equipment, and astronauts are needed to travel space to find a new home (goal). But simply having those things doesn’t necessarily mean the characters are closer to discovering a liveable planet. 

8. Preconditions – Preconditions do not directly relate to the goal. They are “non-essential constraints or costs placed on the characters in exchange for the help of someone who controls essential prerequisites.” In Karate Kid, a prerequisite is that the protagonist must receive extra lessons from a master, but the master adds the precondition of doing chores. One does not technically need to do chores to do karate.

Some of these points are more direct–like requirements–while others are more indirect–like preconditions. The direct points will usually be more intense than the indirect. As you apply these elements to your stories, you’ll create a sense of progress–especially through the middle, which will help make any story more satisfying. 

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SEPTEMBER C FAWKES - Resident Writing Coach

September C. Fawkes is a freelance editor, writing instructor, and award-winning writing tip blogger. She has edited for award-winning and best-selling authors as well as beginning writers. Her blog won the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers Award, Query Letter’s Top Writing Blog Award and has over 500 writing tips. She offers a live online writing course, “The Triarchy Method,” where she personally guides 10 students through developing their best books by focusing on the “bones” of story.

To learn more, visit SeptemberCFawkes.com and grab her AMAZING free guide on Crafting Powerful Protagonists. Find out more about our RWC team here and connect with September below.

The post The 8 Points of Progress appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

It becomes even more complicated for stories containing unique or otherworldly elements that readers won’t readily understand. Trying to explain a tribble, flux capacitor, or the imprinting process of dragons can easily devolve into long explanatory passages that leave readers yawning and wondering what’s in the fridge. Not the impression you want to make with your opening scene.

But it is possible to get that important information across in a way that will keep readers engaged. 

Stagger the New Stuff

In general, people need time to assimilate new information and work it into their existing knowledge. If you try to introduce a bunch of new inventions, characters, elements of magic, or political factions at once, readers’ brains are going to explode. Give them one new thing to work on at a time before introducing something else. 

This requires you to ask an important question at the start of your opening scene: What information does my character need right now? 

There’s a common disconnect here between what the author thinks the reader needs to know and what the reader actually needs to know. We ALWAYS think they need more information, which usually results in us throwing it all into the opening chapter. And readers end up overwhelmed or lost.

Instead, figure out what they need to know now, at this point in the story—i.e., identify which one of those unique elements are most important to that scene. Introduce it, then give the reader time to process the information before you throw another new idea into the mix. 

Garth Nix does this exceptionally well. Here’s the first paragraph from Sabriel, the first book of his Old Kingdom series:

It was little more than three miles from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen on the other side of the Wall in Ancelstierre, and not a cloud in sight. Here, there was a cloudy sunset, and a steady rain had just begun to fall, coming faster than the tents could be raised.

With this introduction we see that something unusual is going on with the setting. There are two kingdoms bordering each other, but the usual Earthly rules don’t apply. The weather is different on either side of the boundary wall. Time also flows strangely because while it’s noon in Ancelstierre, dusk is falling in the Old Kingdom.

There are many more—and more significant—unique elements in the story, but this is all the author needed to share at this point. The rest is revealed later, being doled out on an as-needed basis.

Show It in Context

When the time is right to present a unique element, do yourself a favor and show it to readers instead of telling them about it first.

We have this idea that if we explain a new concept before it makes an appearance, the reader will have the information they need to understand it when they finally see it. But this isn’t how the brain works. We grasp new concepts and ideas much better when we can see them in context. So when you have a new element or concept to share, resist the urge to explain it. Simply show it being used, discussed, manipulated, etc. as part of the actual story. This provides the context necessary for readers to fill the gaps in their knowledge, and it does so without killing the pace in your important opening pages.

As an example, the book City of a Thousand Dolls involves something unique called an asar. Here’s how the author introduces it: 

Her satisfaction lasted only as long as it took for a group of girls to decide she was an easy target in her plain gray asar and untidy braid. 

And a few paragraphs later: 

She could imagine the House Mistress perfectly, her rust-brown asar wrapped so it came only to her knees, the short sword at her side. 

Based on this description, the reader understands that an asar is a garment of clothing in this world, and it’s associated in some way with value or worth. Is that due to wealth? Talent? Prestige? We don’t know, and at this point, we don’t need to know. The author has provided enough information for us to be able to move forward without confusion. 

For another inspired example, check out Tim Lebbon’s The Silence. The story begins with geologists opening a subterranean cave that has been sealed off for millennia, releasing a never-before-encountered creature that quickly sets civilization back to the dark ages. We learn about this terror a little bit at a time via news reports and social media accounts. First we watch a flying animal, tiny with distance, bringing down a human. Then we see a live but distorted image of leathery wings and lots of teeth. As more reports come in, the characters start calling them vesps—short for viespi. Wasps. Someone refers to them as a swarm of flying rats… 

Little by little, we gain an understanding of this monster. The author gives readers time to fit the new information into their existing knowledge and create a framework for the vesps. And by being stingy with the details, Lebbon allows intrigue to build as we slowly begin to realize that the characters are in serious trouble.

Find the Right Balance

How much space should you leave between new elements? This will vary from story to story. 

Lebbons takes his time introducing the vesps, using the first five chapters to show what they look like, their hunting habits, and their alarmingly quick life cycle. A longer timeline works for this story because there’s only one new creature to introduce. But in a book like Sabriel, which involves not only a fantasy world but a unique system of magic and a twist on necromancers, the author can’t afford to wait quite so long between elements.

Some of this process undoubtedly involves trial and error, with reader clarity casting the deciding vote. Ask yourself: Are readers confused, or can they follow what’s happening? This is where critique partners and beta readers are invaluable. If they can read your first few pages without getting lost, you’re good to go. But if they voice confusion or ask questions for clarification (I’m not sure what’s going on. What’s this thing supposed to do? Is that guy with the government or the rebellion?), you’ll want to regroup. Maybe you need a little more space between new elements. It’s very likely that some of those new ideas can be shared later in the story, allowing you to simplify the opening.

Listen, first pages are hard. Because we know every possible thing about our characters and their world, it’s hard to know how much to share and when to share it. When it comes to those weird and awesome elements that are unique to your story, spread them out and show each one in context. Readers will be fascinated rather than confused, eager to see what else your intriguing world has to offer.

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Introducing Unique Story Elements without Confusing Readers appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

“Yesterday.”

A beautiful, beautiful song that easily applies to our writing process. Confused? Go with me for a minute.

It doesn’t matter if we’re a pantser, a plotter, a plotser, a puzzler, or some other mash-up of a writing process (there is no right or wrong process!). There will come a time in our first draft, or second or third, when we look back and realize we’ve missed something super important along the way…something that could not have been revealed until we had the space to look back.

That’s important. Keep that in mind as we continue.

So how does a Beatles song apply to our writing? Let’s find out.

Yesterday – The First Act

When writing the first act, we’re often in that I’m in love! phase with our book. The characters are finding their voice, the story we’ve had brimming inside is finally getting onto the page, and there’s a powerful, creative energy for this amazing story idea.

Yesterday
All my troubles seemed so far away

Sure, it’s not easy. For some of us, it may be the hardest act to write. (ahem.)

But while we’re in the first act, plot holes don’t exist, boring side characters haven’t revealed themselves yet, lack of suspense or action or romance hasn’t occurred, because we are still so early in the process.

Then, we enter act two and act three—which have their own share of problems. Even if we’ve painstakingly plotted, scenes that arrive later in the story might throw our original vision off course. And sometime in these later two acts, it can feel as if our troubles are here to stay.

Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

A Shadow Hanging Over Me

Suddenly
I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly

In the later acts, it may feel as if there’s a shadow hanging over our words. 

Something’s changed somewhere, or we feel we have missed an opportunity to deepen the story…but because the story has not been completely written, we don’t have the clarity or distance to see where we’ve gone astray. 

We all have different ways of dealing with this, from puzzling our scenes together and connecting them at the very end of our process, or sticking to our story outline no matter what…even if a scene is no longer working…or making a note in the margin and moving on, trusting ourselves to fix it later and praying we’re not writing ourselves into a corner.

But that shadow. It can really dampen the writing spirit.

Now I Long for Yesterday

Why she had to go, I don’t know
She wouldn’t say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday

Hey. It happens. Hindsight is 20/20, or so they say. At the very least, hindsight lets us see the path we’ve traveled, and where we could have taken different steps to shorten our journey or saved ourselves from some hard bumps along the way.

Lucky for us, we’re writers.

We actually do get to go back and rewrite the early acts of our story.

Some editing insights happen only after we’ve written “The End”:

• Strengthen Theme – What is the central emotion, lesson, or question that our story radiates from? Does our theme run through the entire story, or do we allude to it once and then forget about it?
• Deepen Character – especially side characters – What is their goal? Do they reach it by the end of the story, or do they fail? How can we better set up their faults and strengths to help them reach or not reach their goals by the end?
• Fill In Character Motivation – Sometimes we don’t understand a character’s motivation until the end (why does Snape keep protecting Harry Potter??)…and then we have to set up the beginning motivation to better support the end.

And then, there’s this little thing I like to think of as the subconscious story mind. It’s magical.

Oh, I Believe in Yesterday

Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday

The magical Subsconscious Story Mind (SSM) is both a mindset and an editing bullet point.

Oh, I believe in yesterday is such a perfect lyric to describe the SSM. 

Our magical SSM understands more than our conscious brain does. It gets our story themes even before we do. 

You know those lightbulb moments you get as you’re reading your first draft for the first time? Somehow, you’ve made a subtle scene the impetus for a majorly important end scene…and you didn’t even plan it that way!

Looking back at our first act…after our story is written…gives us the ability to bring our subconscious genius to our conscious story. We get to utilize the full, creative magic of applying 20/20 wisdom to our ‘yesterday,’ 

Don’t miss out on this, the magic of yesterday. Not only that, but believe in yesterday. It’ll get you through the shadows that hang over your writing process. Trust your SSM.

You have left yourself clues in your story. Now, it’s time for you, author, to dig up those clues, bring them out of your story’s subconscious and closer to your story’s surface. 

These are clues our reader can stumble across and have an even more satisfying conclusion to our story. Like Snape casting a secret counter spell, use your SSM and yesterday magic to create plot twists, strengthen the story theme, and hook your readers in for not only this story, but for all your books yet to come.

CHRISTINA DELAY - Resident Writing Coach

Christina Delay is an award-winning author of psychological suspense, as well as mythological-based fantasy written under the pen name Kris Faryn. A wanderer by heart, Christina’s latest adventure has led her and her family to the southwest of France. When not planning their next quest, Christina can be found writing in her garden, hosting writing retreats, sneaking in a nap, or convincing her patooties to call her Empress. If you love books about complex characters who never know when to quit, with a good bit of will-they or won’t-they tension, check out her books.

The post Yesterday: Looking Back at the First Act appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Many aspects of writing can be hard to get right, especially in our first draft. For just two examples:

• With our story beginning, we might struggle to find a good balance between a throat-clearing boring scene (before getting to the good stuff) and jumping into the plot’s action too quickly (before readers care about our character hanging off a cliff by their fingernails).
• With our characters, even with all the prep work to make our character well-rounded, we might struggle with how to show them to readers in a way that elicits empathy and a desire to follow their story.

Put those two aspects together, and we have the double difficulty of introducing our characters at the beginning of our story to create the right impression for readers. We all know that first impressions can be important, so what should we keep in mind for how we introduce our characters?

Step #1: Is Our Choice a “Good” Scene?

There are countless options for how to fulfill each idea of our story. Even once we have a general premise, plot, and characters, we can reveal the story in dozens—if not hundreds—of ways. So how can we know the right setup, scene, or situation to create the right impression?

At any point in our story, a “good” scene is one that:

• moves the story forward, setting up the next plot point or milestone in the character’s emotional journey
• grows out of previous story events
• reveals aspects of our character that we want readers to understand
• increases reader interest in the story and character
• reinforces our story’s theme and/or our character’s emotional arc

Of course, at our story beginning, we don’t need to worry about the second bullet point as much. But in exchange, our opening scene also needs to establish our story’s genre, setting, mood, and tone.

Step #2: What Impression Does Our Choice Create?

For the all-important early introduction to our character, we also want to consider which scene and situation option would best:

• allow our character to express their current personality (not act out of character)
• kick off the right character emotional arc and story theme
• establish our character as empathetic, likeable, and/or compelling to readers
• reveal a hint of our character’s vulnerability, longing, or false belief (so readers get a sense of their path of growth)
• anchor readers in who our character is and the world they live in

“Boring” Is Never a Good Choice

Note that for the last point listed above, we want to share context, not backstory or explanation. We just want to give readers a hook to connect with our character and their goals and struggles.

Contrary to what we might think, beginnings aren’t about setting up the character and their situation. Beginnings are about setting up elements of the story’s conflicts. Readers will learn about the character and their situation along the way.

For example, to hint at a character’s longing or the obstacles in their way, we could:

• show a choice the character makes that demonstrates how they’re sabotaging themselves from reaching their potential
• show a problem the character must deal with that gives readers our intended impression of some character traits
• show a problem that gives readers hints about the main conflict and how it relates to the character

The point is to show conflict. Readers want to see characters in action, showing who they are, their strengths and weaknesses, and what matters to them.

Revise to Get It Right

As I mentioned at the outset, we’re often not going to get all the pieces right in our first draft, but feedback on our opening pages can help us fix issues in revisions. Our goal is to make readers of our excerpts and “look inside” pages want to keep reading.

For example, in Treasured Claim, the first story of my Mythos Legacy series, the opening scene showed my heroine preparing to steal—er, acquire jewelry, setting up her personality and the conflict and goals with action. Obviously, however, that setup could also make her unlikable to many readers, so I revised to include her motivation: If she didn’t steal jewelry, she would die. Including that context for how the character was vulnerable helped readers connect to her.

Tweaking motivations, reactions, emotions, etc. can all help readers get on the same page as our intentions. Thinking of how readers will interpret our words, story, and characters can be difficult, and it’s often doubly hard to create the right impression of our characters from the start. But with feedback and revision, we can make sure our character’s introduction not only sets up the story and plot, but also gives readers a reason to stick around for their journey. *smile*

Do you have any questions or insights about character introductions and impressions?

JAMI GOLD - Resident Writing Coach

Jami Gold put her talent for making up stuff to good use, such as by winning the 2015 National Readers’ Choice Award in Paranormal Romance for her novel Ironclad Devotion.

To help others reach their creative potential, she’s developed a massive collection of resources for writers. Explore her site to find worksheets—including the popular Romance Beat Sheet with 80,000+ downloads—workshops, and over 1000 posts on her blog about the craft, business, and life of writing. Her site has been named one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers by Writer’s Digest. Find out more about our RWC team here and connect with Jami below.

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