Your goal when writing
a story is to get the reader to turn the first page. If they don't
want to turn that first page, then they won't read your story. You have
approximately three paragraphs to get the reader involved and to make
them want to turn that page. So, how do you get your reader hooked
in those first few paragraphs?
There are four fundamentals which can help to increase interest in the
opening paragraphs: character, conflict, specificity, and credibility.
Character
If you think about when you are reading a story, one of the first things
you want is to be introduced to the protagonist so that you can start to
get to know them. We don't have to know everything about them in
the first couple of sentences, but we want to get a flavor for who they
are. Will they be someone that we like? Can we identify with
what the character is feeling, thinking or doing?
How do we best introduce our character? Readers always like to
know what a character looks like so that they can form a mental image.
Do we need to fully describe the character's looks on the first page or
is it more important to start establishing their personality? If
there is something important about the way a character looks that will
enhance the first few paragraphs by including the description, then the
answer is yes, you do need to describe that part of the character right
away. Otherwise, it is probably better to build the description of
your character a little at a time rather than all at once. A story
which starts with a detailed description of a character drags, and your
mind wants to race ahead to find out why we care about the character.
Misfit McCabe opens with a scene between two characters, Katie
and Timmy. From the opening, there is a sense that Katie is the
leader between the two who is always coming up with ideas that get the
two of them into trouble. Timmy is trying to impress Katie by
coming up with a twist to the original idea, to make it seem even more
wicked. Plus, he is trying to show her that he can be as "bad" as
she is. There is also the impression that as both Katie and Timmy
are changing as they age, Katie is unsure about the person her life-long
friend is turning into.
Conflict
Without conflict you don't have a story, so you want to make sure that
you at least hint at some conflict during the first page. This
does not mean that you need to start the opening sentence with your
character running for his life or hanging from a cliff. You will
not be able to fully develop the conflict in the first few paragraphs
either, so how do you handle conflict in the opening? Some
conflicts may be overtly dramatic, such as opening with a character
being stabbed through the heart, but others will be more subtle and can
take place within the thoughts of a character.
"You know I'll swear it was all my idea."
"But, Katie, it was all your idea." Tim reached
behind his back and pulled out a flask. "Except for this."
"Are you getting sly on me, Timmy Lawrence?" He
never tried anything without checking it out with me first. " What's in
it?" Other than something to get us both into trouble.
He shrugged one shoulder and leaned back against the
side of the shed. " Oh, nothing much. Just a little rum to go with
the cokes I brought." He cracked open a can and handed it to me.
"Drink some out, so I can spice it up for you."
Swallowing as much as I could in a mouthful, I passed
the can back to him. " What made you think of this?" A new Timmy
was emerging, and I didn't know exactly how to handle him.
He grinned as he concentrated on pouring the rum into
the coke. "I just figured that if we were going to start smoking,
we might as well mark the occasion with a drink of celebration."
He doctored his drink and set the flask on the ground. "Anyway,
you're always saying that I never come up with my own ideas. So I
did."
"I'll say. And what an idea." I could see
the faint flush of pride on Tim's cheeks.
In the above opening passage of Misfit McCabe, the conflict of
Katie rebelling against her everything she has been taught is intimated
by her experiment with smoking and drinking. By doing something
she knows is wrong, she is trying to break away from the mold of who she
is expected to be in order to find out who she really is. There is
also the minor conflict hinted at surrounding her changing relationship
with Timmy and that she is not sure how she feels about things changing.
So, on the one hand, she wants things to change, and on the other she
wants them to stay the same.
Specificity
The more specific the detail of the story, the more vividly you paint
the picture for your reader. The easier it is for the reader to
visualize, or empathize with the character, the more involved they
become with the story. Use specifics rather than generalities in
the characters speech, description of the setting, and the character's
thoughts. Let's take a look at the difference using a specific
term versus a more generic term makes in the way something reads.
Version 1 "But, Katie, it was all your idea." Tim
reached behind his back and pulled out a bottle.
"Except for this."
Version 2 "But, Katie, it was all your idea." Tim
reached behind his back and pulled out a flask.
"Except for this."
The word bottle and the word flask both mean a container which holds
liquids, but the word bottle is much more generic than the word flask.
A bottle could contain milk, water, or even Kool-aid. A flask
contains alcohol. By using the word flask, we leave the reader no
question as to what Timmy has brought with him. When polishing
your opening page, examine each word to ensure that you have used the
best, most specific word you can to draw the reader into your story.
Credibility
How do you make sure that your first page is credible? That may be
the most difficult question to answer because what it means is that you
have started your story well enough to allow the reader to trust you as
an author. So how do you get the reader to trust that you can tell
the story well?
- Make sure what
you have written is tight. Don't use ten words, when just a few
will do. As authors, we tend to use more words when we are
struggling to bring a scene to life than when we know where we are
going with the story. When you are reviewing what you have
written, go over each sentence and see whether or not you could
"tighten" it up by reducing some of the words, or changing several
general words to the use of one specific word.
- Use the word
that comes closest to the image of what you are trying to convey.
This goes back to specificity. Remember the example of the use
of the word flask versus the word bottle and which one
best conveyed the image to the reader.
- Your reader
should not have to try and decipher what you mean. Work on
making your meaning clear. Just because the meaning is clear to
you doesn't mean that it is clear to your potential reader. The
best way to find out whether you have been successful is to have
different people read the passage and if they have questions about
what is going on, then you need to make some changes to clarify the
meaning. Sometimes we really like the words that we have written
and think that it says exactly what we want it to. The question
that you then have to ask yourself is whether you are writing for your
eyes only, or do you want more people to enjoy your story. If
your answer is that you want more people to enjoy your story, then
swallow your pride and rewrite the confusing passage so that it is
understandable to the reader.
- Remember, your
words should reveal your story and bring it to life. If you are
trying to show the reader how clever you are as a writer, chances are
the reader will sense that you are trying to show off and will then
have a negative attitude about reading your work.
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