- What's up, my friend? Abbie here, and welcome back
to WritersLife Wednesdays, where we come together to help
you make your story matter and make your author dreams come true. Writing chapter one is
easier said than done. If you are a writer
embarking on a new story, you know how terrifying it is to stare at that first blank page. You know that this is a critical moment. This first page is either going
to make or break your book. This is going to be a
reader's first impression of your writing, and what they see on this first page is going to determine whether or not they
continue reading the story. It's a lot of pressure. I don't know about you, but
I am a very picky reader. When I go book shopping, I like to take my time
browsing, looking at everything, and sometimes, if a cover jumps out at me, I'll pick up a book, see what it's about, read the description,
and if I am intrigued by the description, I will
start reading the book itself. I will sit down and start
reading it for five minutes. If I'm book shopping online, I use the Look Inside preview to start reading the book there. And if it doesn't grab my attention within the first five minutes, I close the book and move on. Yes, five minutes. That's my attention span. If you can't make me
care about the characters within the first five
minutes, you lost me, and I'm not the only one. Official scientific research suggests that the average adult attention span is now only five minutes, down from 12 minutes just a decade ago. So assuming that you have
less than five minutes to capture a potential reader's attention and pull them in, how, then, do we write a winning chapter one? I've made videos on writing both the hook and writing the opening chapter. You can find those videos
right here, but in this video, I want to focus on the dos
and don'ts of chapter one, the common cliches and pitfalls to avoid, and how you can spin these
cliches and make them unique. So grab a notebook and let's get started. Why does your story matter? Good question. What if I told you that there's a science behind every great story? I don't just teach you how to write. I teach you how to change
the world with your story and make your author dreams come true. Number one: Don't start with exposition about the world, magic system, or society. Not only is it lacking internal
conflict, it's overwhelming. We're already disoriented
when we start a new story, and I know you think
that is sufficient reason to start explaining things,
explaining the world, the society, how everything works, but I'm more interested
to see the main character and understand their place in the world. If you have a lot of worldbuilding to do at the beginning of your
story and you're afraid that your reader will be lost without it, I completely understand,
and I would highly recommend checking out this video where we explore different ways to show exposition through action. Number two: Don't save
the internal conflict and good stuff for later just for the sake of making your protagonist mysterious. Mysterious narrators can be
cool, they can be done well, but it is a fine line. You can't save so much that we don't even know what
this character cares about and therefore we don't care about them. Can you give us just a
taste of the good stuff now? Can you show me enough of what this character is
struggling with internally so that I can care about
them and empathize with them, even if I don't know everything that's happened to them
or their backstory? Number three: Don't start
from the point of view of a character we will never see again or a spooky prologue
from a mystery narrator. Every time I see this done, I want to just edit that
part out of the book, because 9 times out of 10, it would make the story so much better. Because think about it. You have five minutes
to make your reader care about one of these characters. Who's it going to be? A mystery unnamed narrator
that we will never see again? Seriously? A confused mind always says no. That's a rule I live by, both
in business and in writing. If I can't see why this
character matters to the story, then I can't see why they matter to me. Or even worse, we start to
care about this character and get to know them and then cut away and never see them again and go to a completely different mood, a completely different story, completely different set of characters. Don't put your reader through
this kind of whiplash, please. Number four: Don't overwhelm the reader with too much information, names, and characters on the first page. I cannot tell you how many
times I have opened a book and not read past the first page because there was just
too many character names, place names, worldbuilding, too much information on the first page. Remember, your reader
is already disoriented when they first open that
book and start reading. They are a person who has been blindfolded and dropped into the middle
of your fictional world. Now you take the blindfold off. What do they see? They can only handle, like,
two names on the first page. If you need to have
three or more characters in the opening scene, consider referring to them as something
other than their name, so maybe sister, mother, boyfriend, bully, business partner, something that allows us to see their connection
to the protagonist, because that's really
what matters the most right out of the gate. That matters more than
knowing this person's name. Number five: Don't start
with your character waking up in the morning on
a boring day in their life. Again, you're saving the
good stuff for later. Why? So you can lose our attention before we even get to the good stuff? But don't panic if your
book starts like this. It's a common cliche that I
see writers do all the time, and I used to do it all the time too when I was new to writing. A lot of writers think
they have to set the stage, sort of, by painting a picture of what this character's
average life looks like before something happens to push them outside their comfort
zone, but I invite you to consider what would
engage you more as a reader: watching this character's
average day in the life or watching this character's
average day get disrupted by the conflict that's going to push them outside their comfort zone and force them into the ring with their greatest fear. Okay, now that we've gone over all the pitfalls to avoid, let's look at the things you should
be doing with chapter one, ways that you can spin these
cliches, make them more unique, and engage your readers in the process. Number one: Do start with your character in a conflicted place, dealing with external
and internal problems. Remember, this is the most
vital moment in your book. This is the dealbreaker, the
hook, the first five minutes that's either going to pull your reader in or lose their attention. So cut right to the heart. Show me what this
character is dealing with. What is the conflict that
they are facing head-on, both externally and internally? And if you need more
help writing the hook, check out this video right here. Number two: Do reveal enough of your protagonist's internal conflict for us to care about them, even if some of it remains a mystery. I've found that you can get away with a curiosity to reward
ratio of, like, two to one, meaning we have twice as many questions about this character than we have answers, but we are still getting the
satisfaction of some answers. Even if we don't understand
all their backstory and their motivations, you
should still be giving us reasons to care about this character and see where they're coming from. Show us their decision-making process. What matters to them? What do they believe is true? How do their beliefs
influence their relationships, their choices, and their actions? You can show us a lot about a character without necessarily seeing all of their childhood trauma right away. If you want to leave us asking questions and being curious, cool,
I'm fine with that, but you have to make us care. You have to make me care as the reader or else I won't continue reading. Number three: Do use
the first five minutes of the story to connect the audience to the character you
want them to care about. If you don't know where to
start your story, here's a hint: Start where the external
conflict is clashing with the main character's
internal conflict. What is going to happen
to force this character outside their comfort zone and make them face their greatest fears and misbeliefs? Showing how this character responds to the inciting incident, responds to getting shoved
outside their comfort zone, show us what their comfort zone is. It shows us what they believe is true. It shows us their internal conflict. And all without infodumping! It's amazing. A lot of writers try to
paint a clear picture of who the main character is before they introduce the main conflict or the inciting incident, but I believe that you should bring
the inciting incident into your story as soon as possible. Shove your character
outside their comfort zone and establish who they are by
showing us how they respond and react to being shoved
outside their comfort zone, which brings me to my final point. Do start your story with
your character waking up to something unexpected
that will have a big impact on their life or their story. I know I said don't start
your story with your character waking up in the morning, it's too cliche, but you can actually
spend this to be unique if you bring the conflict. It works with internal conflict. Show me what is not
average about this day. Why is today special? What's going to happen? Show me why this is not the average day. What is the contrast? Why is today special? What's going to happen
today that is different than any other day of
your protagonist's life? What is going to happen
that will set your character on the path of their
transformative journey? Cut to the chase. Give us the good stuff. It is only a promise of
more good stuff to come. It will only keep your reader reading, and that's what you want. Okay, boom. There you have it: the do's and don'ts of
writing chapter one. And if you wanna dive
deeper into this whole topic and explore further what you can do to engage your reader's curiosity and pull them into your story, definitely check out my live training How to Write a Captivating First Chapter. In this training, I
share the brain science behind capturing your reader's attention, where and how to start your story, how to show internal conflict on page one, cliches to avoid when
writing the first chapter, and lots of story examples
of strong opening scenes and what you can learn from them. You can get access to this live training and many others in the
archive by joining my Patreon at the Live Training Pass level. Click the link below this video to get instant access to that class and start writing a
mind-blowing first chapter. Comment below and tell me, what are your first-chapter pet peeves? What is it that makes you
immediately lose interest in a story, and what is it
that pulls you in to read more? Smash that like button
if you liked this video, and be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already,
because I post writing videos every single week and I
would love to have you here in the community. Until next week, my friend, rock on. Starting with strong individuals and then looking for opportunities where we can challenge the beliefs of these individuals by
placing them in scenarios with other individuals
who have different beliefs and different conflicts. I think that's really
important and a good place-
