The difficulty of opening a story

[Toby Frost]

I don't think it's necessary to provide cheap or artificial thrills to engross a reader. What an author surely has to aim for in a beginning is something that will get the greatest number of potential readers reading as soon as possible. What won't work, it seems, is a primer in backstory, a mock-epic speech like the yellow text at the start of Star Wars films, a load of meaningless action without some kind of reader engagement or a description of someone being bored (which is strangely popular).

I once wrote a long post about openings (What I think about openings), but the summary is that a good opening often constitutes a break in previous action and the start of something interesting, probably the beginning of a problem for an important character or that character starting to solve the problem. Zooming down as much as possible helps, although the instinct is often to zoom out and say impressive waffly things about mankind reaching to the stars, etc. If you're sufficiently good as a prose stylist, you can start with a long rambling description, but not everyone is Mervyn Peake and he was writing about 60 years ago. The way I see it, it's really a matter of trying to hedge your bets as much as possible, which means getting the reader meaningfully involved in an interesting situation that they can understand as soon as you can.

 

[The Big Peat]

I think that's a fair assessment.

I was thinking about this earlier and the balance - there has to be something *happening*, there has to be a question - and decided that The Eye of the World has one of the best beginnings I've ever seen. A lot of character establishment is done and there is nothing rushed, but equally, there is *definitely* something happening. We build from Rand seeing something, to a few boys seeing something and strangers in the village, then Tam taking it seriously then TA-DAH!

 

[HareBrain]

The Eye of the World has one of the best beginnings I've ever seen.

I seem to recall ch1 drawing us nicely into the human story without trying to establish too much about the world at once. So in that sense it met the "establish character, then world" maxim pretty well.

However, the world had already been established to some extent in the prologue. Without the interest in these super-powerful beings being whetted there, would ch1 have been just too slow for most people?

 

[The Big Peat]

I seem to recall ch1 drawing us nicely into the human story without trying to establish too much about the world at once. So in that sense it met the "establish character, then world" maxim pretty well.

However, the world had already been established to some extent in the prologue. Without the interest in these super-powerful beings being whetted there, would ch1 have been just too slow for most people?

Interesting question. Oddly enough, I'd actually completely forgotten about its prologue when I typed those words, so clearly yes. Yet I'd normally hold up EotW's prologue as one of my favourites too: interesting in its own right, relevant to the story without screaming everything, and very mood setting. So maybe no.

I think I stick mainly with yes, it works even without the prologue, but there's no way of knowing that for sure.

 

[Cli-Fi]

I've always felt nervous and self-conscious writing the first chapters to my series - there's so much to establish in terms of world and character!

The result is that those chapters have never felt as though they flow so well as later ones.

Apparently it shows - I've just had a great piece of editing from @Jennifer L. Carson on the start, pointing out areas for improvement, especially in terms of emotional engagement.

Perhaps the biggest problem with rewriting early chapters is that I've worked so often on them - because of the pressure to get them right - that I end up simply reciting them from memory.

Still, at least I have something to go on, and hopefully improve upon.

But the very first part of a story - opening it - still seems the most frustrating part for me!

For me it depends. If I have an idea for a relatively simple plot. EG: One of my books is about a team of hackers finding a mysterious computer code that allows you to control all technology. Another is about America electing a Robot as President in the 2050 elections. Those were relatively simple and just went from A to B picking up clues and the like. Sort of like a procedural Television show, then the beginning is easy for me to write. Just lay out the murder, the mystery, the characters etc...

I've written three novels like that before, and never had any issues with the beginning until... I started my most recent project in 2009. As this is my first attempt at writing such an epic with seemingly infinite scale-able narrative and my first attempt at a trilogy. My beginning could have literally started anywhere! Especially due to the nature of Time Travel and my cursed planned ending! Yes I had an ending and middle in mind even before I sat down to write it. I sat down to write this thing sometime in 2014 or 2013, maybe even 2012 at some points. Though I know in 2012 I was still fleshing out characters.

A novel is as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. For me, there were times when I doubted my own ability to be able to write my latest WIP as well. I guess the problem for me was the more I plan the more complicated the beginning gets to write. Yet, this latest project needed the right meat in the right places so that all the pieces made sense.

It's no straight line like electing a Robot in 2050. Sure the Robot could have problems or could have scandals with the manufacturing of it, which it did. But it's an entirely different animal than what I am trying to do with this book.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The human story must come first. Background is just that - background. You can tuck that in as the narrative develops.

 

[Dave Barsby]

The old addage about an opening sentence needing to grab the reader is now bobbins, but it does apply to the opening paragraph or two so make them catchy.
Meanwhile, it is very offputting to a reader to have info-dumps early on, so just drop-feed your world-building based on what is essential to know at that particular moment. It is one of the trickiest things to do in SFF, but essential. Let the world be built in the reader's imagination, instead of immediately handing them a glued, painted, completed Airfix model. That way the first chapter can start on the story/ character, not the setting.

 

[Jennifer L. Carson]

America electing a Robot as President in the 2050 elections

Hey Cli-fi...can we move that up to 2016? Pleasepleaseplease?