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Here is the latest post from Writing in the Shadows.

​It was a dark and stormy night...​

I have stood in bookshops more times than I can remember, holding a novel open at the first chapter and reading those first few lines. The cover drew me to the book, and the blurb got me interested. But it's the writing, that opening, that decides whether I buy the book or put it back on the shelf.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and that's particularly true of novels.

Opening lines matter. They set the expectation for the story, they set the mood and, often, they pose a question for the reader, with a promise that if they keep reading, they'll find the answer.

But how do you write a compelling opening line?

The English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote the most famous bad opening line ever: It was a dark and stormy night. The line is so notorious there's even a competition for bad opening lines named after him.

I generally advise authors against opening with the weather. It's the literary equivalent of clearing your throat before a speech. Readers don't want a weather report; they want a story.

Of course, there are exceptions. George Orwell opened Nineteen Eighty-Four brilliantly with a description of the weather: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

In one short sentence he gives us a banal weather report, then immediately pulls the rug from under us.

"First sentences are doors to worlds," wrote Ursula K. Le Guin. A good opening is an invitation: come with me, let me show you what's beyond this door.

Openings can be subtle or outrageous. It depends on the genre, and on the voice.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and a tea-cosy.

That wonderful, quirky opening comes from I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith.

At the other end of the scale, there's this:

When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.

That one is from Firebreak, by Richard Stark.

One is descriptive: the kitchen sink, the dog's blanket, the tea-cosy. The other is bare bones: the phone rings, but Parker is busy in the garage killing someone.

Both set the tone, and both pose questions.

• Why is the narrator sitting in the sink to write?
• Who is Parker killing, why, and who's on the phone?

A great first line gets the reader through the door. But it's the rest of the first chapter that keeps them in the room, and plenty of well-written chapters still lose them.

Here are three of the most common reasons a first chapter fails, from my work as a developmental editor:

1. It starts in the wrong place.​
A lot of first chapters are warm-up laps: the alarm going off, the character looking in the mirror, the drive to work. The writer needed to write those pages to find the story. I certainly have. The reader doesn't need to read them.

The fix: find the first moment something changes, or threatens to, and start there. You can often delete the first page or two and lose nothing.

2. Nobody wants anything.​
We don't follow characters because they're likeable. We follow them because they want something and something's in the way. If your protagonist is just watching events happen, the reader will watch too, and then put the book down.

The fix: give your character a want, even a small one, in the first few pages, and put an obstacle in front of them. Stories run on conflict.

3. It explains too much.​
Backstory, world-building, how the magic system works, why the marriage broke down. It all matters, but not yet. Readers will happily stay a little confused if they're also curious.

The fix: for every piece of background, ask whether the reader needs it right now to understand this scene. If not, hold it back. Mystery is a hook; explanation is a speed bump. Give readers a question, and an implicit promise that the answer is coming.

Fix these three and your opening will be stronger than most of what crosses an agent's desk.

But it's hard to see these things in your own work. You know what you meant, so you read what you meant, not what's on the page. That's what I want to help with.

I'm running a live workshop on exactly this.

Hook Them on Page One: Write an Opening Chapter Readers Can't Put Down​
​Wednesday 25 November, 7–8:30pm (UK time), online via Google Meet

In 90 minutes we'll go deeper than I can here:

• Why the openings of published novels work, from Orwell to Stark, taken apart line by line
• Where your own story really starts, and how to find it
• What agents, editors and readers decide in the first page
• A short, guided writing exercise on your own opening, so you leave with a sharper first page, not just notes
• Time for your questions

Tickets are £25 (plus booking fee). There are only 20 places, so everyone gets a chance to ask questions. The recording will be available for 7 days afterwards if you can't make it live, and everyone who comes gets an exclusive discount on my First Chapter Assessment.

​Book your place →​

Paid Members of Writing in the Shadows get 20% off the workshop fee.

Use Code: WITSMEMBER

If your first chapter has been sitting in a drawer, or you've rewritten it twelve times and still aren't sure, come along. Bring your opening page.

Best wishes,

Ken

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