Famous First Words: Give your work a strong beginning
by Angela Harms
When you sit down to write, anything you can get on the screen (or paper) is a victory. That’s not the time to worry about making sure you have a powerful beginning. Too much of that kind of thinking can keep you from getting anywhere at all.
But when the beginning is so old you can barely remember writing it, it’s a good idea to go back with a fresh eye and hack it to pieces!
The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.
—Robert Cromier
(Maybe he'll read this article before he does his re-write.)
Well, it’s true, you may have written something with a riveting first page, first chapter, even first half. But don’t bet on it.
Nothing to be scared of, though. You only have to change things when you have something better to put in their place. So your writing can only improve.
The Hook
A hook is what pulls the reader in. It’s what make the reader stop at the browsing table and keep reading. “Wha? Yeah, uh, I’ll be right there…” When I picked up The Glass Castle, I was immediately drawn in. (See why on the right sidebar of this page.) The first sentence grabbed me, and what followed kept me interested.
A hook is not the same thing as a gimmick. If you take an uninteresting story, or one that is told in a dull way, and try to tack on hook at the beginning, you still won’t pull readers in. Readers are smart; if it doesn’t fit with the story, they won’t buy it.
The Fizzle Beginning
A tacked on, gimmicky hook is going to backfire.
I waited, but it was all I could do to keep from running. I checked my fingernails, fumbled in my purse. Then, a shadow moved to my left, and I stiffened.
“You ready to go?”
It was only David. “Yeah, let’s go.”
The trick is to start with an engaging story, and then find engaging ways to tell it. Concentrate on the first sentence, but also on the first paragraph, the first chapter, and beyond. If you can keep that focus up, you’ll find your writing habits have improved, and you’re crafting each sentence, rather than spitting them out.
The Quiet Beginning
Some beginnings aren’t really bold or exciting. But they’re not lacking in interest, either. It’s not the volume or outrageousness of your beginning that will give your story pizzazz.
Hear that? It’s a car out on the highway. One went by yesterday, too.
Are you curious? I know I am.
A successful opening moves the story along somehow (or kick-starts it). What the reader wants is to be puzzled, to experience a little meaningful stress. Usually that means that your character is experiencing stress as well. If your character seems bored, it’s likely your reader will be too.
“Hey, Hon?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could pick me up some socks while you’re out today?”
Of course, it isn’t completely hopeless. We can think of ways to make that opening quickly go somewhere interesting. But without heroic efforts, we’ll watch it dissolve into nothing, quickly.
The Irrelevant Beginning
Suppose I write a story about a woman who works with dolphins, falls in love and makes a great discovery, causing her beloved to become jealous of her success and do something horrible. If I start that story with a scene where she gets into her red Lotus and drives very fast to her office, and then don’t ever mention the Lotus again, I leave the reader hanging and dissatisfied. I could make it even more frustrating for the reader by introducing her mother, who we never see again, and mentioning a letter she gets in the mail before taking off for work, without ever saying who it was from or what it has to do with anything.
The Buried Beginning
One of the best ways I know to figure out the right place to start a story is to write whatever you like, then go back and figure out when the story starts happening. In the previous example, I may write all of the things I’ve mentioned, and then cut everything so that the story starts when she opens the door to the office to find…
Wait, I’m not telling!
A story with a good beginning is like a moving escalator. Once you start, it’s easier to keep moving along than to get off (by closing the book). If you let your story start where it starts you’ll be well on your way to having your reader hooked.
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Angela Harms
