Starting With a Line of Dialog

[Wayne Mack]

What are your feelings on starting a chapter or a section with a line of dialog? In a quick online search, I have found this listed as an option for opening a section, I have also done a brief survey of novels in my library and find that it is rarely done and when it is done, the section is an immediate continuation of the previous section -- same characters, same setting, no time gap.

I accept that one shoudl never say never, but how do you feel about this as a general rule of thumb?

 

[ckatt]

I've read advice that says don't do it. But I can also find plenty examples of great writing that does it even when introducing a new scene. So I see it as a non issue myself.
So long as I you have a clear reason for doing it and the effect is coming across as you wish then I think you're on solid ground.

 

[HareBrain]

One of my favourite books, Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, starts ch1 with dialogue (though just two words before a tag/description). I can't see why it should be any less advisable than any other starting method.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I do it all the time. And then my first publisher couldn’t typeset them so I had to change them all

 

[AllanR]

I flipped through a few books and found these with chapters starting with dialogue. One had 6 lines in a row, all untagged...
Dostoyevsky's The Idiot
Barbara Kingsolver Poisonwood Bible
P deWitt The Sisters Brothers
Alice Munro Friends of My Youth
Numerous short stories in sci fi collections as well --and these started the story with dialogue

 

[Bramandin]

I didn't look too hard, but I couldn't find an example in my books. To me, it seems fitting for an emotional bomb like "I think that we should see other people" or a scene of chaos like "Mom! Where are my shoes?"

Or maybe when a character is first waking up and hearing someone saying something is the first sensory data available.

 

[Elckerlyc]

‘You’re a spoilt bad-tempered *******,’ my sister said, and jolted me into a course I nearly died of. (Dick Francis - Flying Finish, chapter One)

Sure you can start with a line of dialog. If done right. For some reason this one always stuck with me.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I did that with a number of chapters in both of my published novels, but didn't notice until I looked just now.

 

[sknox]

My rule of thumb is use a different finger.

(srsly, do it if it feels right and let someone else tell you it didn't work)

 

[paranoid marvin]

Is it any different to having a first person narrative, a book in the form of a diary, or a story in epistolary from like Frankenstein or Dracula?

The most important thing is to find the right hook to gain the reader's interest; if that's a killer line of dialogue, or cracking descriptive intro then it really doesn't matter.

Find the opening that's right for your story rather than follow any rules.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I opened my first novel with:
"Angus!"

Not one of way too many beta readers or the agents that responded to offer me suggestions for improving my book mentioned it as a negative thing.

A lot of people found the scene funny which helped.

It is something I have gravitated away from doing but I still think it was the best way to open that novel. I do sometimes start new chapters with dialogue - I love throwing readers right into the middle of a conversation with the sense they have missed something.

Beta readers (some with a lot of industry knowledge) have ever suggested I change that technique. Now if I ever get my backside round to tradtionally publishing something, it may have to change. If I self publish it won't be doing.

 

[therapist]

I think opening a random chapter with dialogue is very different from opening the book. The main argument against opening the book with dialogue comes down to disorientation. But once you already have a feel for the characters and story, beginning a scene with dialogue isn't that disorientating, and can introduce certain scenes just as clearly as narrative.

 

[DLCroix]

Well, this only it breaks you the capitulate rule, because it is customary for the first paragraph of a chapter not to have indentation, and for the same reason a chapter that begins with a dialogue looks strange precisely without that indentation: in the Hispanic world we do not use quotes (") but long dashes (—). In fact, they are called dialogue scripts. But if you start a chapter with a dialogue the truth is that nothing happens, it doesn't make me lose sleep. So, with all the more reason, the use of quotation marks, in the case of stories in English, makes it even easier. What happens is that we Spaniards see the em dash without indentation as very unsightly. But, for example, suppose we start a chapter like this:

"We're screwed," said the captain.

I really don't see any problem.