Writer's Advice

Starting a Book

The HARDEST part of writing a book is starting it. Finishing it is pretty hard, too, but starting it is simply awful. For instance, I'm totally redoing one of the books I recently started. A lot of people have complained to me about starting books. They say that they think their writing sounds stupid and have thrown stories with brilliant premises away because they feel the beginning isn't good. Sometimes, books do fall flat, but you should't throw away a great idea because you can't start it well.

I'll get to prologues in a second, because you can do a lot of things with prologues. First I'll explain Chapter 1.

There are two things that must happen in the start of a book: you must introduce the characters and setting. I know I sound like a seventh grade English teacher, but I'm serious. It does not really matter what else happens, but we have to know who the main character is (or at least the main character of this chapter). A lot of people whose works I've read on this website jump right into the action, telling us nothing about the character but their name (and sometimes not even if it's written in first person). Their story starts with "[Name] did this, this, and this." without telling us ANYTHING about the character. You CAN cut right to the action in chapter 1, but it's very difficult to do that and still work in all the necessary information. 

Somewhere in the course of events, the character's personality has to come through. The way you do this depends on your style of narration, but this character cannot be a blank slate experiencing events without any personality, thoughts, or opinions. (I guarantee everyone's made this mistake.) How much information you give about your character is determined by your plot and what kind of book you're writing, but we have to know the basics. Chapter 1 is the set up for your story. Though sometimes it's intriguing to keep things vague, you can't leave your readers in the dark for too long or your readers will get disinterested or confused.

Prologues are different. There are two types of prologues. One type explains something to the reader as an introduction. It gives the reader crucial information about the story. The other type describes events that set up the rest of the story. It's okay-- in fact, necessary-- to keep things vague in the prologue. Usually the situation is unspecified. Sometimes the characters' names are only revealed in dialogue. In a prologue, you can jump right to the action without explaining anything, but prologues are short. They're descriptive, but they have little detail. This type of prologue usually should not be from the point of view of the main character, or it might as well be chapter 1.