You Can’t Eat Soup Without a Can Opener

I love to write novels, and I’d like to share with you some tips I’ve learned about how to start your story.

With fiction and a great deal of nonfiction, the opening is the most important segment of the work because if we lose our readers here, we may never get them back.  At least in tennis we get a second serve, but in most types of writing we don’t.  If the reader isn’t intrigued by the 3^rd page (some even say the 2^nd page) we’ve lost the game. Here’s another way to think of it. It doesn’t matter how good the contents of a can of soup are, if I don’t have an OPENER that works, I’ll never know what those contents tasted like.  It’s the same way with our stories.  Maybe pages 50-125 are outstanding, but without a good opener, it won’t matter.  If the reader closes the book on page 3, he will never know how great my novel would’ve tasted. 

So, how do I make a terrific opening?  I should start at a place where something is happening, and I have to make it interesting.  I don’t think this was always true, but today we live in a “microwave” society, and everyone wants everything QUICK!  We have to compete with riveting movies and TV shows.  If my story starts too slowly, the reader will put it down and reach for the remote.

By the end of page 2, I should be developing the strands of the story and building conflict.  We as authors have to start close to the hub of the story.  We need to make our readers feel the anticipation of what’s to come.  And to do this we use Leads and Hooks.

1. One type of lead is a Shocker lead, which explodes into the reader’s consciousness.  No subtlety, just quick dramatic impact.  We use action verbs and develop immediate conflict, like a man about to fall off a high-rise building.
2. Or we can use words that aren’t frantic but give the reader a sense of immediate suspense because of the setting of the story—like a courtroom or perhaps a hospital operating room.  Then the built-in conflict draws the reader in.
3. Or we can begin with mystery:

Ray patted himself down again .  He’d put the wallet in his back pocket—he remembered doing it, but it was gone! And so was the girl’s address.  Without it, he’d never find the key to the storage locker.

4. Or danger:

            Gregory held his breath.  The large fin circled closer and closer.  There

was no way he could outswim it.  The spear in his hand was a matchstick

compared to the huge fish’s body.

5. Or something to be curious about:

It was a cemetery . . . and it wasn’t.  No stones or markers, yet rounded earth humps spread across the field in some predetermined design.

I hope this helps.  Get that opener going and serve up a great story!