How to write the first paragraphs of a novel

Let’s put ourselves in a situation: a reader goes to a bookstore and sees a book that catches his attention. Its cover and/or its title seem interesting to him and he picks it up to leaf through it. He glances at the back cover, opens the book, and reads the first few lines.

Once it’s in their hands, it takes the reader (and sometimes the publisher as well) about ten seconds to decide whether or not they’re interested in continuing to read the book. That is the time we have. That is why the way in which we start our story is so important.

In this post I wanted to gather a list with some tips to get a novel start (some are also useful for story starts) of those who hook:

1. Grab the reader’s attention

I guess this is clear: we have to capture the reader’s attention from the first line. For this, the best thing is that something happens already at boot and, of course, that it is something interesting.

That is, let’s try to avoid a start where an alarm clock goes off and someone gets out of bed, goes to the bathroom, makes breakfast… You know, something routine that we don’t care too much about. Or, to give another example, let’s avoid the beginnings in which the narrator starts talking about the weather instead of going to the point (by the way, on this topic of not starting talking about the weather we wrote another blog post a long time ago: Excuse me, are you the weather man?

On the first page of the book, something has to happen and this something has to cause interest in the reader. For example, José Saramago’s Essay on Blindness begins in the midst of the chaos of city traffic, when a traffic light turns green but not all cars start. There is one that stands still and inside there is a man who is waving his arms and shouting something. Curious pedestrians approach to see what is happening, until finally the man gets out of the car and shouts: “I am blind”. At that point, the book already had me hooked! How to Write an Effective Narrative Essay

2. Set something in motion

This tip is from the book Suspense, by Patricia Highsmith. In it, the author recommends starting a text with something that moves, it could be a train or someone running… Specifically, Highsmith’s words are the following: “I like that the first sentence contains something that moves and gives the impression of action, instead of being a sentence like, for example: “The moonlight lay still and liquid, on the pale beach.”

Although it is not necessary that the movement is always so evident. Sometimes it can be more subtle, like the door closing and the character leaning against the wall, blinking, in the example text below:

Five hours with Mario, by Miguel Delibes: “After closing the door, after the last visit, Carmen lightly leans her neck against the wall until she feels the cold contact of its surface and blinks several times as if dazzled. Her right-hand feels sore and her lips are swollen from kissing so much.”

3. Short paragraphs and direct sentences

Another piece of advice from Patricia Highsmith is not to start with a paragraph that is too long. “Between one and six lines” , the writer tells us, so as not to tire the starter reader. Although I would dare to raise it up to eight lines… But hey, the number is not as important as the concept: start directly and briefly.

As an example, let’s look at the beginning of Patricia High Smith’s Full Sun: “Tom glanced over his shoulder and saw the guy come out of the Green Cage and walk towards him. Tom quickened his step. There was no doubt that the man was following him. He had noticed him five minutes before when the other was watching him from his table, with an expression of not being completely sure, but enough so that Tom drained his glass and left the premises quickly.

4. Place the reader in time and space

As a general rule, on the first page or the first chapter of a novel it should be clear when and where the narration takes place. Is it in the present? Is it the past? Is it the future? Where do we meet?

1984, by George Orwell: “It was a bright and cold April day and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, chin tucked into his chest in an effort to fend off the annoying wind, slipped swiftly through the glass doors of the Victory Houses, though not fast enough to prevent a dusty gust from blowing through his head. I have.”

This is the first paragraph of the novel and with this start, the author places us in a world that does not seem exactly the same as ours. In the following paragraphs, we already talk about an elevator, a telescreen (which at the time the novel was written was more science fiction than it is today), and Big Brother.

By the way, if you pay attention, in this first paragraph of the book George Orwell talks about time, but he does it to show how it affects the protagonist and to create a tone and setting for the story, which is not the same as starting the book by saying that the sun was high and shining brightly while the snow was piling up on the roadsides, blah blah blah…

5. Specify the rules

Every work of fiction is a proposal to play. When we sit down to read a book, from the first lines the author is proposing some rules for the fictional universe in which he wants us to immerse ourselves.

These rules must be defined as soon as possible. If you want to tell a story about magic, witches, and magic potions, start with a magical event. Make it clear from the start that magic is part of the game, or if you don’t, you run the risk of the reader being sucked into a realistic tale and then, when the magic is found, not believing it.

In addition, the novel’s tone, style, and genre have to be known from the beginning, so that the reader can know if he really cares or not. As an example, let’s look at the first paragraph of the first of the novels in the Harry Potter saga:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by JKRowling: “Mr and Mrs Dursley, who lived at 4 Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were very normal, thankfully. They were the last people you’d expect to find involved with something strange or mysterious, because they weren’t up for such nonsense.”

6. Leave the backstory for later

The backstory is the English term to define the past of the characters and events. Come on, what happened before the story you’re telling? It is usually presented as a memory of a character or through the narrator who explains what happened in the past.

Why not start there? Because the reader is still not interested. If we start telling the backstory, it is likely that we will bore him. First, you have to intrigue the reader, introduce him to the world of the story, and let him know the characters and their conflicts. When we’ve done that, it’s time to tell him everything we need him to know about the backstory, because then he’ll already be in the story and want to know.

Be careful, it is not the same to tell a backstory (the typical one: “he went to the merry-go-round and remembered that afternoon of his childhood with his parents…”) as to start the story in a scene from the past. For example, the first chapter is about a boy who goes with his parents to the fair and something happens to him. Then, in the second chapter, we jump many years later in time and see the boy as an adult.