How to Nail Your Novel Opening and Hook Your Reader - Advice from a Book Editor

as a professional book editor i spend a lot of my time working with writers on their opening pages of their novel this is because these pages are so critical to your novel's success you need to engage the reader and intrigue them enough to commit hours to reading your book and if you are seeking a literary agent's representation then it is so critical that those opening pages hook them enough to request the full manuscript and then feel compelled to take your project on so today i'm going to walk you through the three key elements that your opening pages need to have in order to be effective then we will walk through an example of the opening chapter from my all-time favorite novel so stay tuned to figure out what that is now if you are working on a novel and are hoping to eventually have it published head over to my channel i have a lot of videos with advice on how to go about getting published and make sure that your book is as strong as it can be from a craft perspective it would mean a lot to me if you hit that subscribe button so that you'll get notified every time i post all right so the very first element that your opening pages need to have is some kind of point of conflict there needs to be an element of tension going on in the opening chapter of your novel now it doesn't need to be big there doesn't have to be necessarily some kind of war going on between the characters there doesn't have to be some kind of apocalyptic event happening in your opening chapters so don't think that a point of conflict means there has to be some kind of physical violence or any type of big catastrophe it could be as small as the character struggling to decide what they want to wear that day for a date that they're going on or it could be a really big internal decision that the character is making like if they're moving to a new country for instance but no matter what there needs to be something that the character or characters are grappling with in those opening pages because that's going to be what intrigues the reader that point of conflict is going to do two key things one make the reader interested enough to keep reading the story to see how that point of conflict unfolds and how it shakes out and two it's going to give us a sense of how the character or characters think and what goes on inside their heads what's important to them what are their motivations what are their fears all of that is wrapped up in this initial point of conflict that you need to bake into your opening chapter or opening pages now the second key element that your opening pages must have is intriguing characters one of the biggest mistakes that i see writers make in the opening chapter is spending a lot of time world building and spending a lot of time describing the setting in a lot of my new detail while that is certainly valuable you don't want to spend all of your really really critical opening page time just on setting and world building this is because you cannot cannot cannot sacrifice character development in these opening pages most readers are ultimately reading to connect with a character and if your novel is in first person this is especially critical because the reader could put your book down if they don't immediately connect with the narrator and the narrator's voice so take another look at your opening pages and make sure that they are character oriented and make sure that they are as character oriented as they can be of course you might necessarily need to include some setting details or you may want to start world building in those initial chapters those are good strategies to have however you need to make sure that your characters are also really coming through in those opening pages preferably and i this isn't going to work for every single novel but in an ideal world your opening chapter would feature some of your main characters and in a perfect world your protagonist the reason i say this is if your opening chapter or opening pages doesn't end up featuring your protagonist or your main characters then you run the risk of the reader becoming really intrigued with what they read in that opening chapter but then feeling cheated whenever those characters actually don't prove to be the main ones in the story so for instance this might happen if you have a novel where the bulk of the action is going to take place in a certain time frame but then you want the opening chapter to be 20 years earlier to establish some type of event that then led to whatever's happening in the present day narrative that is a tricky balance to maintain i'm not saying it can't happen there are plenty of books that make this work but just keep in mind that it is going to be tricky because you don't want to hook the reader in on that 20 years ago narrative and then they realize oh wait this isn't actually what the story is about and these characters actually aren't who i'm following in the story ideally the characters that you're bringing into those opening pages are going to be the characters that we are engaging with for the duration of the novel so see if you can rework your opening chapters to really showcase them and what's exciting about them the final element that all successful opening chapters have to have is strong momentum this is related to my first point about having a point of conflict but it is a separate element if that initial conflict you establish in the opening chapter resolves itself or fizzles out too quickly you're going to ultimately lose the reader's interest so you need to continue to propel the reader forward into the rest of the novel you ultimately want your reader to feel that sense of propulsion and that sense that they just can't stop turning the pages a sense of suspense is something that we often talk about in mystery crime or thrillers but it's a common misconception because every single novel should have an element of suspense the element of suspense is just the element that keeps the reader reading if there's no question of what's to come or that desire to unravel the plot then there's nothing really for the reader to be reading for now it's especially critical to establish the sense of suspense and momentum and urgency we also call it in the first section of the novel because this is the section that is the most critical for reader retention it's the easiest time frankly for them to still put that book down maybe they're in the bookstore and they're just browsing those opening couple pages and deciding if they want to purchase that book they aren't committing yet to the entire novel so you need to make sure that you are building that momentum and you are giving the reader something to look forward to and something that makes them want to keep reading and you're almost teasing them a little bit you're giving them just enough to hang on to and understand what's going on and situate themselves in the narrative but they still want to learn more now i know these three elements might sound very theoretical and even philosophical so i want to use a very tactical example to show you how all three of these elements play out in a really successful opening chapter so time for the big or not so big reveal my favorite novel ever is the things they carried by tim o'brien it is a work of fiction that just absolutely blew me away when i first read it in high school it was something that i initially didn't want to read at all i didn't think a story about the vietnam war was really going to engage me at that point in my life and i sat down i opened that first page and was immediately hooked by this passage so i'm going to read it through now and then i'm going to point out how tim o'brien uses all three of these key elements to establish an opening chapter that really hooks the reader first lieutenant jimmy cross carried letters from a girl named martha a junior at mount sebastian college in new jersey they were not love letters but lieutenant cross was hoping so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack in the late afternoon after a day's march he would dig his foxhole wash his hands under a canteen unwrap the letters hold them with the tips of his fingers and spend the last hour of light pretending he would imagine romantic camping trips into the white mountains in new hampshire he would sometimes taste the envelope flaps knowing her tongue had been there more than anything he wanted martha to love him as he loved her but the letters were mostly chatty elusive on the matter of love so beautifully written right now what actually is baked into these opening sentences that makes them so effective at engaging and intriguing the reader let's talk through them so the first line here really immediately establishes that intriguing character first lieutenant jimmy cross carried letters from a girl named martha jimmy does end up being one of the main characters that we follow in the novel and we are immediately intrigued by why he is carrying letters from this girl we also understand he's a first lieutenant so we immediately wonder where he's currently stationed and how long he's potentially been on duty about midway through the passage the section about after a day's march he would dig his foxhole wash his hands under a canteen and wrap the letters this really establishes that momentum that i was talking about because we understand that there is this routine that jimmy is following and we're intrigued to understand how that routine is broken both by him receiving these letters but also the author is hinting at the fact that jimmy is at a war zone we know that he's traveling from the line after a day's march and so we're intrigued to learn more about where he is where he's going and what's ultimately going to happen to him because we do immediately get that sense that he is potentially in danger and in war so that momentum is already being established because we're already getting intrigued to unravel how the events are going to play out in the novel and then that last line really hammers the subtle point of conflict that i referenced as the very first element you need he's talking about how he really wanted martha to love him as he loved her but her letters were just mostly friendly and didn't necessarily give that romantic inclination there you go classic point of conflict right unrequited love that immediately hooks the reader it tells us about jimmy and it tells us about his inner desires and motivations so i hope this helped you see how really successful opening chapters weave in all of those three elements in order to hook and engage that reader i hope these tips help you go back to your opening chapter or opening pages of your novel and workshop them in order to incorporate all of these elements so that you nail that opening chapter and inspire your readers to tear through the pages a really good idea if you're having trouble understanding if your opening pages are effective and if they are coming across as you intend them to is to enlist a group of beta readers or potentially investing in a professional edit of those opening pages so that you can really get that third party perspective to understand if they are as intriguing as you intend for them to be you know the story in and out and certainly it's interesting to you so it can be hard to separate yourself from your book enough to see the potential problems with it and to just really get that honest feedback of did this intrigue you or not so i really encourage you to whenever you're ready share those opening pages with someone it could be a friend or again you could go down the line of getting a professional edit of those opening pages if you're really committed to making them absolutely as effective as they can be now if you are in the process of workshopping your opening pages encourage you to check out my video on some of the common mistakes that i see writers make in the first 10 pages of their story that will really help you point out some of those really common errors and then you can go ahead and self-edit and make sure that you address them if you found this video helpful it would mean a lot to me if you hit that like button below and in the comments let me know what issues you're facing with your opening pages and i will do my best to help you out with some tips in any case best of luck with your project thanks so much for watching and happy writing [Music] you

Channel: Alyssa Matesic

Views: 24,736

Keywords: authortube, how to write a novel opening, how to begin a novel, how to start a novel, how to write a novel beginning, how to write a novel, how to write a first chapter, writing tips, writing advice, how to hook readers, how to write an opening hook, opening scene, first scene, first chapter, opening chapter, novel opening, how to start your novel, writing, author tube, how to write a book, publishing advice, book beginnings, how to start your book, starting your novel

Id: B7MWOwlHfQA

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 07 2021