The first line.
The first scene.
The first chapter.
I was paralyzed from writing in my youth when my father used to make dramatic pronouncements that “The first line in the book is the most important one – it can make or break your book.”
If you wrote that as a first line, you’d see that my dad actually would have been a good fiction writer. However, my goal in life for years was to get him to write his experiences in Vietnam and Korea, which he always meant to but never did.
Anyway!
If you’ve grown up since the 90;s, it may not seem like such a big deal to you – just write it and go back and change the first sentence.
However, my first stories and my first movie scripts (Ninja and martial arts films) were all written on an IBM Selectric typewriter. To make a change like that meant literally re-typing the entire novel.
I remember the script-read for my first movie script, where we all had copies of the script and brought up notes and suggestions – so that I wouldn’t have to do 50 re-writes! In todays’ age it would have been easy – get 50 emails or texts, “can you change this to this?” “Sure!” And you’d get the PDF or FDX in the reply.
So why do so many writers obsess about the first chapter?
Because the reality is, when someone sees your paperback novel in the grocery store, they stop and look at the first page.
The decision to buy or not to buy is often that one page. If the reader turns the page, they’re going to buy the book. Is a book a good one? If you see the cover bent a little in the grocery store, it means someone looked at it and put it back – probably not.
[Tweet “The decision to buy a book or not is often the first page.”]
So essentially, you have to write SOMETHING in the first page to interest a reader, and the first 10 pages to sell a publisher, and the first 30 to sell an agent.
That’s why you can go to Writer’s Digest’s shop and choose the “first 30 pages” critique service for a low price. They’re going to evaluate everything you’ve written on those factors –
- Will the grocery store reader buy it?
- Will the publisher buy it?
- Will the agent buy it?
My recent study of Scott James “troubleshooting your novel” book has really changed my entire take on this process. Formerly, I was of the opinion that the first line of the book merely exists to interest the reader to keep reading.
Scott James gets into many different reasons why you agonize about it. But he does emphasize you shouldn’t worry about the first line until long after the re-writes are done… and then you just change the first line to reflect the novel!
Wonder if my dad knew about this? I should buy Scrivener for my dad.
Writing your first line can wait until the book is done.
Another good thought I’ve heard is, “write the novel. Then delete chapter one.” So many people often worry about setups and establish, with lines like…
“he always drank coffee with a straw.”
Really, that can just come out in dialog.
He watched him with thinly veiled contempt. “Why do you always drink coffee with a straw?”
“My teeth get stained easily.” The fussy man answered, sipping the coffee.
If you do this stuff in chapter one, yeah… delete that.
Common errors number two is that you load up Chapter one with so much action that Detective John Maclain would complain he needs a break!
And then you bog down chapter two with useless back story that can emerge in dialog as a result of conflict.
Remember, in Die Hard we learn far more about John and Holly’s marriage through their ARGUMENTS than through the back story technique of telling a third party (in this case, the limo driver).
And nobody complained about how Exposition was delivered, because it was done through argument.
Remember, writing up chapter one is designed to get people to chapter two. If you lose everyone at chapter two, you miss out on the essential ingredient for long term writer success – the word of mouth referral.
Nothing firm here about how to write Chapter one – but some insights of things you must keep in mind
How do you really write chapter one?
Just write it, and worry about it later.
Fix it in the editing and first re-write.
