How to Write a Strong First Chapter

in your book dreams somebody picks up your book at the bookstore they open to the very first chapter and they start to read but then what happens either they scoff and they abandon your book maybe on the shelves or they lose track of time and look like a predator stalking your book of miles we want our book to be stopped so what separates those abandoned pieces from the ones that get toted out in the store or east or hey it's the aid to the e-book right well I may take a lot for somebody to even pick up your book once you have them there you can't let them go the term hook may be thrown around the interwebs very loosely but your book literally needs to hook your readers fingers or eyes to the book with vicious result this is your moment this is the reason you're hovering over your computer right now so this one person can pick up your book and it's your job not to let them down and that starts from the very first words of your book so without further ado here are my top five tips to writing a kick-ass first chapter number one decide what is important since my advice today can be applied to a wide range of genres it's vital that you decide what's important in your own story while I write why a sci-fi fantasy you might write historical fiction or contemporary romance the first chapter of each of these should be in stark contrast to one another and the best way to figure out what's really important in your story is your handy dandy outline don't have one what pack are you waiting for this outline should be like the Holy Bible to your story and once you have it completed you'll have an idea of what's important to your story and to your characters have an outline but you still don't have a clear idea your outline probably needs some work then I've written some posts and have some other YouTube videos on this topic I will link them down below if you guys want to see them but if your book is mostly about love then have some heartbreak in the first chapter if it's about a detective who becomes a vigilante then open with the scene that first cracked his resolved maybe that's a murderer getting away because the poor police work or a fluke make your first chapter a sneak peek into what the reader should expect for your entire novel for example in my novel a husband is gravely injured in a brutal attack the rest of the novel centers on the adventure that his two children take up to find whoever committed his crime so what's my first chapter about the crime of course I snag readers so the flash-forward scene in the incident that's told from another perspective that way when my readers get 15 were actual happens there's never been an information and I've successfully snagged my readers attention boom number two read some mystery a first chapter doesn't necessarily need action to hook your reader but it does mean to make your reader curious even though curiosity killed the cat curiosity is gonna keep your reader slip in the pages so how do you make someone curious about what's going to happen in your novel a little bit of mystery a pinch of intrigue and one frog's foot in all seriousness you can accomplish the mystery by introducing a strange aspect of your characters life can your main character fly and talk about it not something you want to divulge straight away then talk about your characters overwhelming fear of heights so that when he finds out he can fly things to get really interesting see what I did there I expanded on an already existing part of the story so that everything still stays relevant if your characters looking to find the love of their life then a fear of heights won't really add me intrigue that is unless she falls in love with a skydiving instructor want another example Harry Potter in the Sorcerer's Stone the Dursleys have a baby dropped on their doorstep in the first chapter this is the plot point of the first chapter but the majority of the chapter is all about introducing various strange and magical elements of the story there's a lot of people walking around in clothes just a strange new fashion cats reading maps so it's mr. Dursley crazy or something he who must not be named has been killed and everyone's rejoicing who is this person why are we celebrating his death all of these elements are important to the story and they're introduced in the first chapter rather than telling these things about the story in summaries we're shown these odd things right at the onset of the story our curiosity keeps us reading so take a page from JK Rowling not literally that's illegal and make those curious things important in the beginning number 3 put it on hold a lot of us feel some anxiety when we think about writing first chapter we hear all about how it needs to accomplish so much that it can be really daunting so why would you wait aren't you just putting off the inevitable I started writing my novel in July of 2015 in the months since starting out my writing has changed dramatically yes I've been writing my entire life but this is the first time that I've ever written over a hundred thousand words on any one project but by the time I got near the end of my I had a better idea of where things should actually start out I knew the essence of the story at this point and I knew it would make the reader care about my book if you make really thorough outlines you can probably just go ahead and jump right into the first chapter I made the mistake of having a rough outline for my novel and ended up changing a lot of things I was really happy that I waited to write the first chapter because now I know that it includes something of importance to the story also if you have the first chapter jitters you're gonna feel forever trapped on that first page just trying to get everything right so to get over that I'll start little ways in and if they're getting though my characters and getting in the swing of things I'll go back and read while there's great importance in the first chapter it doesn't have to be the first thing that you write number or decide where to start this is very important like life-changing book altering success making important since the first chapter decides whether or not somebody wants to continue reading your book you need to make sure the point that you start at is worthy of first chapter material I had an idea of where to start my book from the very beginning I changed the opening scene but I knew a long time ago where I wanted to start how did I know this I knew that I wanted to start just before the catalyst in my story which is the father's injury and the muppets disappearance that way my readers could properly orient themselves into the logs of my characters you want to get just enough time so that your readers know when these events take place and where there's literally an infinite number of places that you could start your book but remember it's not the beginning of your entire story you want your readers to believe that they're a part of this characters life and a part of this story and everyone's life is ongoing and I can realize it's really like ongoing we don't just wake up in the thick of things things are already happening life is already established some conflict is already resolved Before we jump into the story so I think it's useful to consider what your characters were like before the first day of school of your novel getting to know your characters like this allows you to add depth to your first chapter your writing can then convince the reader that this is an actual person and that is the first step to getting your reader to care about your character number 5 ask for a lot of feedback like a lot are you worried about your chapter don't let it cripple you basically if it involves writing and freaking out it's totally normal instead of letting this worry and halt your writing completely use it to make your writing better how can I possibly turn worrying into a good thing if you're concerned about the quality of your work then you're already halfway there okay maybe not halfway writing does take a long time if you just throw some words onto a page and lock it up on create space and don't be surprised if everyone thinks your work is garbage just like any part of your book your first ever needs to be edited yeah how do you know what to edit your inner worrywart will tell you exactly what to worry about so trust your gut you hammering out that first chapter but you're still not sure about it and ask people literally everyone in there mother go to a critique partner a close friend your parents your partner ask them what they think honestly and objectively about this chapter tell them to treat the chapter like a total stranger rodas ask them if they would honestly keep reading it would they buy it if not then why dig for specifics what didn't they like was the dialogue boring swallow your pride but don't choke and listen to what they're saying sometimes you may have to pry the information out of them so don't be surprised if you feel a little violence when they finally give something up this is your baby and it hurts when somebody picks on them just remember you asked for it you need to know what to Auk with your writing so that you can improve it since the first chapter so important feel free to ask everyone their opinion on it all these people don't have to critique your entire manuscript so just ask them about the first chapter and you can always decide to ignore their suggestions if you don't agree with them it's your book after all remember it the important part of the first chapter is to grab your readers interest keep in mind who your target audiences and think about how you can make your story's premise grip them from the beginning so some small announcements for my novel really quick I will finally be releasing some chapters in the coming weeks and I'm also gonna be revealing some the characters for my story so if you have any interesting ideas on doing character reveals or if you have any specific information that you want to know about my characters make sure to let me know I still cannot believe I've gotten this far in my story and I can't wait to share it with you guys as always if you enjoyed this video make sure to give it a thumbs up so I know that you guys actually will like it and make sure you subscribe to my channel I post new writing videos every Wednesday if you ever have any questions or suggestions for a new video be sure to tweet me at Vivian trees by the way how many of you noticed hi [Music]

Channel: Vivien Reis

Views: 318,658

Rating: 4.9556127 out of 5

Keywords: Writing, Am Writing, Writer, How to, How to write a book, Write, Author, Fiction, Science Fiction, How to write a novel, Creative writing

Id: l-9bPv3Ear0

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2016