First Chapter Mistakes and Cliches

hi this is Ellen Brock editor at key top Inc and this video is going to be about avoiding first chapter mistakes and cliches a big cliche that a lot of writers fall into is opening with your character waking up and this is really Kemp ting because it makes logical sense as the start of the day just like it's the start of your book so starting with the character waking up seems to be a very very popular way of starting a book but you really don't want to do this because agents and editors really consider that a red flag that the writer is an amateur doesn't know what cliches are and that is not going to set you out on the right foot so you definitely do not want to start with your character waking up the other thing you definitely don't want to start with is a dream this is very common also because you can introduce sort of a theme or you can create a sort of artificial drama or suspense by having a dream include some sort of element that's more exciting than what would be going on at that point in the story in reality but you don't want to do this because it's pretty clear that that's what you're doing is trying to create some artificial drama and it's also just overdone to the point where it's much better to just avoid doing that entirely um another thing you don't want in your opening chapter is to have your character look in a mirror this is another huge cliche and it again makes logical sense if your character looks in a mirror they can describe themselves whereas normally we don't think about what we look like so we wouldn't narrate what we look like in a natural way so you don't want to do this is this a major cliche and again it could result in an automatic rejection from an agent or an editor another cliche is opening with your character running away from something this is used a lot because it yes it does create tension and drama and it can be an interesting way to start a book but it's just sort of done a lot and another cliche is starting with a description of the weather or the moon or something along those lines another mistake that writers often make with first chapters is starting in the middle of an action scene which some websites or books will suggest that you do and it can be a good way to hook a reader but you just want to make sure that you're giving enough context that the reader can understand what's going on and I see a lot of my clients manuscripts I don't really know what's going on because I'm dropped too abruptly into the middle of a scene so make sure that if you are going to do that that there's the pacing works with information and backstory weaved in well and that you're not sort of leaving your reader scrambling to pick up the pieces and figure out wait what's going on I don't understand I have no idea what's happening another reason you might not want to start with action is because if we don't care about the characters yet we have no reason to care about actions relating to that character so if you're really good at fast characterization opening with action can work well but ultimately it's not required that you do that and if you don't feel that you can adequately explain the motivation behind the action it would be better to save action scenes for the second chapter or even further into the book in the opposite problem is also an issue you don't want not enough happening in the first chapter um it especially shouldn't seem like it's just a vehicle to explain the basics of your character like what they look like and what they want to do those things are important and I talk about that more in my other video about how to write a great first chapter but you just want to make sure that there is a conflict that something is happening and that it's not just a description of what the character looks like and feels like and what their history is you also don't want to put too much backstory in the first chapter like things that happened to the character before the start of the book it's better to put that in later after we already care about the character it will have more impact or just to put it in where right before closer to when it becomes relevant we don't need to know everything about the character in the first chapter and breaking up the things that we don't need to know immediately it can help a lot in the pacing and keeping that at it at a fun interesting engaging level so that it doesn't start just stagnating and it just becomes lists of things about your character so those are the basic mistakes and cliches to avoid in a first chapter if you have any questions or any topic suggestions for me you can email me and off of my email at the end of the video and if you need any editing assistance don't hesitate to send me a message through my company key top Inc and I hope you enjoyed the video thanks for watching

Channel: Ellen Brock

Views: 143,423

Rating: 4.9354534 out of 5

Keywords: novel, writing, editing, first, chapter, tips, cliches, book, mistake

Id: O1y_E6sTYfA

Length: 5min 10sec (310 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 16 2013