How to Hook Your Readers on Page One - Starting Your Book With a Bang

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the kate and abby show what's up guys welcome back to another episode of the kate and abby show today's topic is super exciting we're going to discuss starting your book with a bang how to grip your readers in the first few pages or on the first page this is something that is a hot topic i think a lot of writers are trying to figure this out how to start my book in such a way that pulls readers in right away and takes them on a journey throughout the story so we are going to unpack that today kate and i are going to discuss the best practices for creating a brilliant first chapter that will hook your readers so we're gonna dig into that today but first we have to thank our sponsors who are you guys you're the ones who support this this podcast and keep it going and we so appreciate your help so if you get value out of this show go to patreon.com the kate and abby show and help us keep it alive and free of interruptions so let's get into it what do you think is like the most number one important thing for a writer who is trying to make their first chapter awesome so i think starting with internal conflict yes so many internal conflict guys yes internal conflict makes me think of uh that video you did for your channel or just all the edits of you saying how important that is yep um because it's that important think about what ropes you into a story that just makes you not want to stop watching not want to put the book down and a lot of times it's because you connect with the internal conflict of the character especially in fantasy writing and abby and i have been writing something together in our co-written series which is more of a action-adventure urban fantasy feel and a lot of fantasy sci-fi genres start out with world building here is the world here's how it's built here's the rules of the world and how the lands are laid out and the different peoples that inhabit those lands no one cares exactly and that's what that's the thing is we can still have all those details we can still have all those descriptions but we have to start out what's going to capture us and capture our attention right away is who's the main character and why does it matter to them what is their internal conflict what are they dealing with what are they struggling with that helps us to hook into how we can relate to that character right yeah because we have to care about what the characters care about otherwise you're just your mirror neurons are firing as your brain reacts to whatever it is that's happening on the page and you're kind of seeing it from your own perspective of what would i do in this scenario if you know i was being chased by a villain or there's a car chase going on or some other exciting thing a lot of writers think that they need to think of something exciting to hook their readers at the first page oh something high peril do or die scenario has to be happening on the first page not necessarily like yeah you can you can use a high peril scenario to hook your reader but really what pulls them in is the characters what makes us care about the characters you know what do the characters care about because once i start to feel for the characters and understand their internal conflict now i sort of become them right rather than the other way around i'm like just reacting to this story as if it was happening to me exactly right yeah you explained that so well in some of your science of story videos that you don't want it to be just that they're you know watching this high intense thing happen and yeah we can understand the do or die situation but you could insert anyone into that you know what i mean like we talk about this a lot it's are the stakes high for your main character because of their internal conflict or are the stakes high because anyone in that life or death situation would react that way right because then it could be about any of the characters it could be about the sub characters it could be about you know you it could be about your character it doesn't matter because of course you know if it's a a live or die situation most everyone would react this way and it's not really based on their internal conflict at all it's just based on the fact that they want to stay alive which is a very um i mean i guess you could say that's internal conflict but it's so broad that it doesn't help us to understand it's the same for anyone it doesn't help us to understand that character at all right it's not personal yeah you can have a do or die situation but first we have to understand what is their conflict inside and i've seen this done the right way in films and in books and when it's done right it's so good because you can take a do or die scenario where the character is facing a certain death if they do something wrong and it's intense but what makes it even more intense is to know what is this character going to do if they survive yes what is their purpose what is beyond this moment they have to overcome this obstacle why not because they're gonna die otherwise because they're gonna do something they're gonna fulfill some desire some deeply rooted belief after they survive this right that's what makes us that's what pulls us in right that's the burning question and that's the same thing that is devastating if they you know die get destroyed aren't able to fulfill that dream that's what makes us that's what brings us to tears think about any high-intensity thing you've watched maybe it's like an avengers movie maybe it's like a star wars movie you know we the characters that have brought you to tears when they've like died in battle is not just because you know oh that's sad that that person died it's that you knew them you knew their internal conflict whereas in those same films tons of people are getting killed all the time in the space wars and in you know battle we don't cry for every single one why the same thing's happening a person's being destroyed but we don't cry for them we're not moved why is it we're not moved because we don't know anything about them whereas when it's the character that we've understood their internal conflict why they do what they do we connect with their humanity that's what cheer that's what causes us to either cheer them on or be brought to tears when they're unable to fulfill their dream to fulfill their true desire right yeah so it has to be personal you have to make it personal and as soon as you can make it personal the better like if you can do that on page one that would be ideal yes you know getting to know the main character and what they're dealing with what is the first character we encounter and what's important to them that's how we're going to measure the importance of literally everything that happens afterwards yes you know even if we encounter new characters and we go into their points of view we first have to understand why do these secondary characters matter to the main character that we first cared about and once we know why they matter to the main character then we can shift focus and care about these other characters but first we have to have that yardstick of the main character to measure the importance of everything else by exactly especially dealing with villains too a lot of stories make the mistake of let's introduce the villain and their evil plot first before we even know who the main character is or why we the villain is even relevant which is something that you talk about in your video where you break down captain america starting differently and it makes it so much stronger if you guys haven't checked out that um it's like a bit of a video essay that's one of your science of story right yep yeah one of abby's science of story like video essays breaks down how it could have started stronger we both love that movie but there are things that you can always tweak to a good story to make it even better to make it even more dynamic and even stronger one of the things is to start with internal conflict of the character why does the character matter to you the viewer or reader before we even care about the villain why does the villain matter we don't know until we know the main character and the main character's internal conflict then the villain matters and like you were just saying those things should be brought in aft as soon as it matters to the main character it can be added to the story right right exactly that's the mistake that a lot of writers make when they're when they have a big cast and they switch around between different characters is without exploring the connection between the characters why they matter to each other what they all have in common then you don't really know why are we looking at this right now exactly why are we here why are we not with the main character but once you start to establish that connection you you can then care about about the other characters and that's why it's so important to take the time to get really personal with the main character right out of the gate and it doesn't even matter if something high stakes is happening on the first page that it doesn't necessarily have to be happening on the first page now you can make that happen on the first page is if if you can make it work it's really cool but it's not necessary what is necessary is making us care showing us what matters to this character what is their internal conflict what do they want more than anything what are they afraid of more than anything what is their misbelief or fatal flaw what is the lie that they tell themselves that they believe is true and how does that direct every decision they make and once you've established those things or even insinuated those things we can now start to care about this character and what we want to see them get what they want exactly i really put a lot of thought into these exact things when i wrote the blood race the first chapter of the blood race i really wanted to design it so that it was covering all of those bases and in that first chapter it's dealing with a character who is basically tormented by their own superpowers and some of you guys have read the book and you know exactly what i'm talking about but the main character's internal conflict is revealed his powers are revealed and his dilemma because of his powers i keep him trapped and the inciting incident all happened in chapter one and i think that's such a good formula like you were saying really on the first page we should already have a flavor of their internal conflict um and then kind of moving on to our next point that we have jotted down here is don't wait ages before the inciting incident hits yeah that's another mistake a lot of writers make because they start the story too soon yeah right because really the inciting incident is what's going to propel the story forward that's a huge huge part of why any of this even matters you know what i mean and when we wait way too long like oh let's do all this backstory let's do all this world building well we don't really care about it yet but once the inciting incident happens it draws us in right the sooner you can have the inciting incident happen the better right like as soon as you build what matters to the character you can basically push them outside their comfort zone as quickly as possible right like a great example that pops into my head and a ton of you guys are gonna know um this example is uh the first iron man movie did a great job of this great great job of even even bringing it so far forward that's basically the first scene and then we rewind a little bit to backstory if you can even if you're flashing back to okay now we're gonna go back and explain a little bit you're better off starting with the inciting incident and like oh what what whoa okay i'm drawn in now i want to know more yeah that is honestly the best marvel opening i've seen so far yeah in any mcu film and i love the format of it that you see the inciting incident you see what's gonna happen is like rewind you know three days or whatever two days and then we start again from there so we kind of have this hint of what's going to happen we sort of know what's going to happen but we get to backtrack and understand the main character first right and then start to care even if we don't necessarily um know the whole internal conflict at play here it still gives us enough of a enough parameters to understand why it matters yes it's not just oh this is a thing happening to anybody right because then it's it's like you know this could be anybody we could be following anybody but no it specifically matters to this character because of this let me show you exactly so that's that's a cool format the the rewinding thing or you could even start from just the beginning and go through it quickly i mean like a lot of times writers spend too much time on something that can be shortened it can be tightened it can happen quicker because you don't want your reader to feel like or your audience to feel like okay when's something gonna happen yeah you know and as soon as you can introduce a clear goal i think is the moment your story takes off i've just noticed this over and over again with books with movies with tv shows the moment where i feel like okay this is going somewhere i want to see what happens now is always the moment when the main characters decide on a clear goal and they start to go after it yeah before that it starts to it feels meandering and kind of uh directionless you know right exactly so as soon as you can establish internal conflict something pushes them outside their comfort zone and now they have a clear goal those are like really the three points to hit if you can hit them all in the first chapter that's awesome right but even if you don't hit them all in the first chapter it depends on how long your chapters are well like i think you did it brilliantly in a hundred days of sunlight in the fact that the inciting incident actually kind of already happened yeah yeah which is really cool yeah because you wouldn't even think of that with like oh how about the inciting incident already happened and then we opened with tessa actually just having a nightmare of the inciting incident happening which in the case of abby's book is a car accident which causes her to temporarily lose her eyesight she has a nightmare she's experiencing ptsd she wakes up and she's already in her situation of experiencing blindness right so that and that all happens in a couple of pages yeah in an artful way in a snappy way but in a very potent way that makes us just feel so hardcore what she's feeling it sinks us right into her character into her despair with her into her humanity where we can connect with her and now we want to know what happens next right you know thank you yeah that was all in a couple of pages yeah i i tried to do that with that because i when i first started outlining it i was like i kind of want to start with you know the car accident because that's when really something happens yeah but i didn't want to write all the in-between stuff of you know really it was with three weeks i think was the time that had gone by since the accident so i didn't want to write three weeks of her you know going through this and then we arrive when she's you know finally being pushed outside her comfort zone because really in the first chapter the inciting incident happens the push outside the comfort zone happens and it's with her grandparents trying to you know get her somebody to help her with her blogging and stuff and she kind of puts her foot down and makes the decision like no i'm not gonna do that this is not happening right and all that happens in the first chapter so that's awesome i i use the dream to make all of that just snappier and more tight and quick and yeah it's a brilliant way to do it so there's multiple ways yeah like try to try to really step back and flip it on its head flip it on its side look at it from different perspectives talk to someone who's never read it maybe even like a friend of yours who isn't even a writer now something like you know how else could you see this happening because sometimes a fresh perspective is what you need in order to see it through different new eyes like maybe it maybe the inciting isn't already happened maybe we're experiencing a character that's already on the run from the law and we don't know why and then through a few flashbacks we're gonna see oh that's why that's all i even i care even more now and now i've already gotten to see some of what their internal conflict is how they're making decisions how they're you know living their lives maybe it's happening it's maybe it's a dream flashback you know maybe we're rewinding a few days and then then we're seeing that so there's multiple ways that you can really do this right yeah a lot of different ways a lot of different methods but number one most important thing is to make the reader care about the character care about what the character character cares about exactly yeah it's so important because when we make it just like it's high stakes for everyone involved no matter what right then it could be about any one of those characters exactly which is funny because when you think do or die that's like the ultimate decision right i was talking about this on my um my live training about creating relatable characters that i did last week which by the way you can still watch the replay of and watch the whole live training even though it happened in the past you can still get access to that we'll link it below but in that training i talked about how the stakes of do or die or the fear of you know if i i might get myself killed doing that is really not a strong enough fear you know it's it might it may seem like that's the ultimate thing that's the worst thing that could possibly happen well yeah technically but it could happen to anybody so what's worse than that is like your internal conflict and a different scenario a different worst case scenario that you have actually spun in your head to think that this is worse than death basically it's like pain versus pain that i always talk about why do we do things that we could risk our lives doing because the opposite of that is more painful to us like we've been able to reframe it in our heads to redefine pain in our mind so much so that we would rather risk our lives getting this thing than not ever get it you know right risk never getting it so if you can show how your character is so afraid of not getting what they want and afraid of the opposite and reframe that in their mind to be actually worse than possibly dying in pursuit of it now suddenly their stakes are unique you know they're different from the other characters they have a different goal they have a different fear they have a different outcome if they live through this and they don't get what they want it will actually be more painful right so all of those things can be established in your first chapter and we we recommend that exactly and you can you can spend time on the first chapter and you can also for some of you i know get stuck on the first chapter and you are just like going over and over and over again sometimes it can actually be better to just let yourself write what you want and you can come back you can come back and sometimes you can come back stronger after you've written more and you're like okay i understand this character better now i understand the story better now and now i know exactly what i want that beginning hook to be yes yeah experience yeah like that the series the fantasy series that i'm passively working on i have played with the beginning so many times and it wasn't until i really got into the story and developed the entire fantasy world and then almost at the very end i'm like oh i know what i want i know what i want for the very beginning now and i actually wrote that as a separate thing almost like writing a short story and put it at the beginning and it was perfect so it's like you don't need to know from the outset necessarily you can just if you're find you're getting stuck and you're like oh i just keep writing this over and over again it's making me hate this book i don't want to be a writer anymore i'm going to change careers that then don't don't torture yourself just move just move on and it's going to come to you trust us it's going to come to you as you write it's probably going to be better than it would have been if you just forced yourself to write it at the beginning yeah i've done that many times changed the first chapter and it came out better than if i had waited forever trying to come up with the perfect thing because oftentimes you can see it from a different perspective if you just write forward and don't agonize over the first chapter so much just keep writing and see where it takes you and then later you might come up with an even better idea for the first chapter because the first chapter can really be i find that the first chapter is usually the most edited out of like any part of the book or the first few chapters because it is obviously the part that you really want to get right when you're hooking your readers in the very beginning but you can really take your time take stock and go back and try new things you know there's no rush exactly the important thing is that you enjoy the process and that you are creating characters that you can fall in love with because if you can fall in love with them your reader will probably fall in love with them right exactly that's so true yeah that's that's the number one most important thing is why does it matter to you as well yeah because that that's going to tie into your theme which ties into your character's misbelief which ties into their internal conflict so it's all connected all of this is interwoven and that's what makes it so cool because it's not just about the character's story it's also about your story it's about what is the personal experience and personal aha moment that you want to bring to this story what would you tell your ideal reader if you could sit down with them what would you want to leave them with what kind of feelings would you want to leave them with and all of those things route back to the main chat the first chapter your main character how we introduce them what they're dealing with you know it doesn't just have to be their struggle it's also personal for you it should matter to you as the author right exactly yeah because once you have that personal connection i think it's so much easier to write from a a place of like a heart-centered place you know yes and bring your own realizations and beliefs and truths to your main character right place of deep connection yeah for sure exactly yeah so i think these are all good things to keep in mind as you construct your first chapter and really take your time with it don't feel like you need to rush don't feel like you need to you know do it right now it can come later you don't have to rush to get it done at the outset of your book and sometimes it can actually be better to go through these questions in your mind like you were saying and figure out what am i trying what is the truth i want to scream from the rooftops as you always say yeah exactly so important exactly what what is what matters to you right and through that you'll find what matters to your characters and what matters to your reader and what matters to the world and all of those things are connected so yeah this is really it's a huge topic the first chapter we could talk we could do like several episodes on this i actually would really like to do a live training on this in the future as well so i'm definitely uh going to be making more videos on this we're going to be talking about this some more we might do a story mining episode on story openings that rock and what you can learn from them so yeah a lot to unpack here but hopefully you guys got some value out of this discussion comment below and join the discussion tell us what you thought we love to hear your thoughts and talk with you about all of these topics so do that if you have not been on the youtube version of this podcast you can find that on kate's youtube channel which is youtube.com ka emmons and if you're listening on the other podcast platforms give us a nice rating we always appreciate that it helps so much thank you again to our amazing sponsors you guys who are listening right now you make this show possible and we love you so much so if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the kate and abby show and help us keep it alive and free of interruptions until next week stay stoked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 19,095

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Id: eDDceWjpAqE

Length: 25min 39sec (1539 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 28 2022