Photographed: the moment before the tortie decided the calico (A cat weighing five pounds more than her, mind you) needed to be attacked most viciously.
This is the visual form of where to start a story, because in the next few moments, this happened, and the story of a viciously cute kitty on kitty battle began.
This is the last assignment before we dive in an begin actually writing the book. Hooray!
Today, I want you to think about where your book begins. A good beginning for a novel includes (roughly) several things.
- 1: A reason to care about the main character
- 2: A catalyst event that drives the main character to the final goal/destination of the story/series
- 3: A link to the conflict that is preventing the main character from reaching their final goal/destination
- 4: Hints and Tidbits about the world and character you’re focusing on.
1: Readers want to care about the characters, have something in common with them, and otherwise form a sort of rapport with the character. Yes, your first scene needs to begin this process. (Spoiler alert: this is hard af.)
2: Catalyst events are something that begin the process of moving the character into the story. In Rise of the Rift King, a young Kalen will uncover confirmation that someone in his family is poisoning him, and that the father of the woman he is to wed is involved with the poisoning.
That the father happens to be the king, and that the woman is the heir, only adds additional problems…
3: A link to the end game: ultimately the Requiem for the Rift King series becomes a confrontation between The Rift, Kelsh, Danar, and the rest of the influential kingdoms in the region… and because the Rift King was the man set to inherit Kelsh’s throne… let’s just say chapter one of the first book will have a huge impact on the entire series.
You need to foreshadow the rest of the book with events in the opening scene. Something in that scene needs to help the characters start moving.
Another example: in Whiskers on Kittens, the main character’s prison exploits and her day in court lead her to the mission to rescue the kittens, which is the entire point of the book.
In short, the beginning should be the absolute closest starting point to the end of your novel.
In Rise of the Rift King, Kalen being poisoned is the catalyst for the entire series. If he had not been poisoned, the entire series wouldn’t have happened.
The catalyst event can be small and build into a mountain, or it can be the summit and avalanches down. There is no truly wrong catalyst event type, but some require a great deal more skill and practice to properly execute.
4: Hints and tidbits are a good way to introduce concepts and characterization without boring readers to death. Exposition dumps are not ideal. They tend to bore readers. In a perfect world, you’ll have a few basic lines to settle readers into what is happening and where, and then you’ll drip and dabble exposition into the rest of the book until the world building seamlessly happens around the actual story.
I’ll give you an example of story-based exposition in the form of the opening from Last but not Leashed:
There was nothing quite like starting my week with a serious case of petrification. What had I been thinking when I’d applied to be a contractor for the CDC? Ever since I’d become the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s dog, I’d almost come to a premature end more times than I cared to count.
Ah, right. They’d bribed me with fifty an hour, full benefits, hazard pay, paid training, and a boss I’d kill for if she asked it of me. It was a good thing Ethel Frankwell was as straight laced as they came, else I’d be putting my lycanthropy virus to use in all the wrong ways.
If my virus had its way, I’d be taking her home with me and never letting her out of my bedroom ever again.
I needed a new job before I went insane, and it wouldn’t be the job hazards that finally got to me. It’d be Ethel Frankwell, her mousy brown hair, her doe-sweet eyes, and her hypnotizing hips. Facing my boss tested my limits on a good day, but nothing made my day quite like watching her stomp off when someone stirred her ire.
I could handle petrification; it happened at least once a month in my line of work. Facing my boss post-petrification while I clutched a gorgon’s throat with one hand and trapped a pixie with the other wasn’t a good start to my Monday.
This is a whole lot of world building presented in ‘this character was just turned to stone, and this is why he’s putting up with it’ format. It’s character-focused, but the character has been put into a less-than-ideal situation. (Sorry, Dale… I found myself saying that often while writing this story.)
In Dale’s case, Ethel is his conflict and his goal, and it’s very much a Man Vs Self conflict type splashed with some vs society and very limited vs man. But this story? It’s mostly man vs self.
Dale is constantly battling with himself over the possibility of becoming Ethel’s partner.
And yes, your opening scene should have hints of the conflicts to come, like I’ve done here.
So, spend today thinking about what drives the character forward… and what events will ultimately have the character take the wheel and start driving themselves forward.
The beginning of your novel should be the absolute last moment possible for the character to be sucked into the story.
Ruthlessly trim out the backstory; you can drip and dabble that in later. Ruthlessly eliminate the ‘warm-up’; you don’t need it. Pick an event that catapults the character(s) into the meat of the tale. You can flesh things out later.
And yes, sometimes, you will realize you misjudged the situation and have to go back and add more to the beginning because you started too close to the end. Or you started too far from the end. It happens.
That’s what editing (and reflection on what you’re writing) is for.
Happy writing, folks!
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