Shorewalker
Well-Known Member
I'm looking for a bit of input on an issue I'm currently wrestling with. The background is that I'm intending to write a high fantasy epic stretching across four books. Book one is currently undergoing second draft and book two is completed in first.
Going through the second draft of book one, I'm questioning/struggling with the opening. As we all know, this is where the book succeeds or fails...if your first few pages don't grip the reader, forget how marvelous chapter 12 is.
The problem is, very little happens in the first chapter, certainly not in the first few pages. For reasons of plot and gradual reveal, this is where we need to start, but there is no action. What there is is a lot of description, a moody, evocative introduction to the world and our primary POV character. She is obviously down on her luck, something tragic in her recent past haunting her and driving her on, and she is seeking specific aid. We get a single flashback to an event she suffered through, and we get an understanding that there is a lot more to her circumstances than that, but chapter one is really an immersion and a teaser.
I personally like the chapter, as (I believe) it drops you straight into the world, introduces you to three important characters, gives you a good sense of who and what they are...and leaves you wondering what their stories are and where the overall tale is going to take you.
But not a lot happens.
I'm therefore toying with three different ways of opening, giving me four options total.
(1) Leave it as it is.
(2) Start in the same place, but immediately introduce a problem, perhaps an attempted assault or some sort of indignity/disaster inflicted on our heroine that has no bearing on the remainder of the story, but does get us right into conflict. Most of the chapter could remain the same, but this option can bring an edge to the first few pages.
(3) Write a small prologue. This I've already done just for the exercise of it. We have a character who will not take part in the remainder of the book (other than for his corpse to be discovered four chapters in), and who meets a swift and brutal end within 2,500 words. This piece serves to introduce the enemy and besides the bloody action contained within, it leaves the reader with all those questions regarding who they are, what they're doing here and what do they intend.
(4) The trickiest option. I have a second tier, non-POV character, who has something perpetrated upon him halfway through the book. I think I could start with him (in a prologue type thingie) musing over how things have come to this pass. The character and his circumstances will allow for action as well as one hell of a lot foreshadowing and a clear sense of major events/upheaval occurring in the world. The trick will be not to reveal too much, whilst still giving enough to convey just how precarious matters have become. This piece can actually be rounded out nicely at the very end of the first book, an epilogue revisiting him as he realises what has occurred in his absence and how disaster is now just around the corner.
Apologies for the length of this (brevity is something else I'm attempting to deal with!), but I wouldn't mind some thoughts/feeling on the question. What's the best way of opening a 1,000,000 word fantasy epic?
Going through the second draft of book one, I'm questioning/struggling with the opening. As we all know, this is where the book succeeds or fails...if your first few pages don't grip the reader, forget how marvelous chapter 12 is.
The problem is, very little happens in the first chapter, certainly not in the first few pages. For reasons of plot and gradual reveal, this is where we need to start, but there is no action. What there is is a lot of description, a moody, evocative introduction to the world and our primary POV character. She is obviously down on her luck, something tragic in her recent past haunting her and driving her on, and she is seeking specific aid. We get a single flashback to an event she suffered through, and we get an understanding that there is a lot more to her circumstances than that, but chapter one is really an immersion and a teaser.
I personally like the chapter, as (I believe) it drops you straight into the world, introduces you to three important characters, gives you a good sense of who and what they are...and leaves you wondering what their stories are and where the overall tale is going to take you.
But not a lot happens.
I'm therefore toying with three different ways of opening, giving me four options total.
(1) Leave it as it is.
(2) Start in the same place, but immediately introduce a problem, perhaps an attempted assault or some sort of indignity/disaster inflicted on our heroine that has no bearing on the remainder of the story, but does get us right into conflict. Most of the chapter could remain the same, but this option can bring an edge to the first few pages.
(3) Write a small prologue. This I've already done just for the exercise of it. We have a character who will not take part in the remainder of the book (other than for his corpse to be discovered four chapters in), and who meets a swift and brutal end within 2,500 words. This piece serves to introduce the enemy and besides the bloody action contained within, it leaves the reader with all those questions regarding who they are, what they're doing here and what do they intend.
(4) The trickiest option. I have a second tier, non-POV character, who has something perpetrated upon him halfway through the book. I think I could start with him (in a prologue type thingie) musing over how things have come to this pass. The character and his circumstances will allow for action as well as one hell of a lot foreshadowing and a clear sense of major events/upheaval occurring in the world. The trick will be not to reveal too much, whilst still giving enough to convey just how precarious matters have become. This piece can actually be rounded out nicely at the very end of the first book, an epilogue revisiting him as he realises what has occurred in his absence and how disaster is now just around the corner.
Apologies for the length of this (brevity is something else I'm attempting to deal with!), but I wouldn't mind some thoughts/feeling on the question. What's the best way of opening a 1,000,000 word fantasy epic?
