Let’s face it: When you submit your piece hoping it gets published, every word matters. Permission to get sloppy after page 37 would not be given, assuming the editor can handle choppy prose or “inventive” spelling if he got that far. But what you may not realize is that the beginning of your manuscript is with much the most important part because it will encourage an editor to keep reading Prayed to throw everything aside. After all, you may have created an admirable middle or an impressive ending, but no one will ever get there if their beginning is mediocre.
Despite more books being published than ever before, the publishing world is more competitive than ever. Agents and publishers are inundated with staggering piles of unsolicited manuscripts, and it is physically impossible for them to read every single one in its entirety. The beginning is the only chance you have to make the right impression.
Accept it, unless you have to, how often do you You push through a book when you’re not overwhelmed at the beginning?
Which brings us to some rules for great starts. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but often those exceptions only succeed in the hands of experienced writers or those with multi-book deals. For the typical writer, it pays to pay attention to what the current market demands.
Make your start shine:
~ Start with the action.
“Action” doesn’t necessarily mean a fistfight, explosion, or skydive gone wrong. Action means starting your book or story in a compelling place, with a scene, with something at stake for your characters. Look closely and you may find that you have pages of material that shouldn’t start your book. They may fill in some important blanks for readers, but those backstory pages can be safely moved to a place in chapter two or later (or, better yet, spread out in smaller chunks throughout the work). .
Don’t start your story with history, start with a fascinating now that grabs the reader by the neck and does not allow him to move away.
~Never put dialogue or direct description in your first lines.
To clarify: the dialogue is fine in the first scene. In fact, many experts agree that the first few scenes without dialogue fall short of their potential. This is because the most compelling reading material involves tension between people, and people often talk to each other. However, if your first few lines are dialogue, it’s impossible for the reader to understand who is speaking from the beginning (or why he/she as a reader should care), since the reader hasn’t had any history with the characters.
Similarly, the description from the beginning will not draw the reader into the story. Not because it confuses or misleads them as dialogue does, but because static description can be boring and laborious and tells the reader nothing about the story (the action, the problem of the story) itself. If the setting is in any way crucial to your first scene and you feel you have to start there, stick to a sentence or two and then go straight to the heart of the scene. There will be time for description later.
~Make sure your writing is accessible and engaging.
Your beginning is not the place to try some experimental stylistic device or to stump your readers with a puzzle. He wants his readers to think, but he doesn’t want them to feel stupid or say “Huh?”. If the reader is immediately frustrated and confused, he can bet he won’t sign up for 300 more pages.
~Prepare the promised story.
You’ve seen buyers in bookstores. They scan the book jacket for a description, and if that intrigues them, they turn to page one and skim the opening to see if it’s the kind of book they want to read. Make it immediately clear what kind of story yours is. Don’t start with a knock knock joke if it’s an essay on a serious topic. (Although there is room for humor in almost any piece, it must be properly woven into the work and not crossed out in the wrong place. But that’s a topic for another article.) Don’t start with the point of view of a character I’m planning to kill off on page three. You get the idea.
Readers like surprise, they don’t like feeling disoriented.
~Always remember that boredom kills readers.
If you’re bored when you write the beginning, if you fall asleep at your desk when you read it again, and if trusted readers can’t stop yawning when they review it, what makes you think the strangers you send it to will stay? captivated by him? that? Readers have more choice than ever before (in print and online), and they won’t stick with you beyond a few dozen words if they’re bored. Make sure your opening sticks your readers to the page, wide awake and eager for more.