“The temperature of the room dropped fast. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling. The glowing filaments in each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like a colony of toadstools had their wicks snuffed out. The darkened room filled with a yellow, choking cloud of brimstone, in which indistinct black shadows writhed and roiled. From far away came the sound of many voices screaming. Pressure was suddenly applied to the door that led to the landing. It bulged inward, the timbers groaning. Footsteps from invisible feet came pattering across the floorboards and invisible mouths whispered wicked things from behind the bed and under the desk…

Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him.”

A few observations:

• The book has two rotating points-of-view, the ancient djinn here and an eleven year old magician.  It was refreshing and brave to start with the character that wasn’t the audience stand-in.
• I like that the author implies (rather than exposits) what’s going on here.  He never explicitly says that this is a magic ritual, but it’s pretty obvious even before you get to the invisible mouths whispering nefarious things.
• The atmospherics and sensory details did a really good job foreshadowing the plot and setting the mood.  The description of the magic is a lot more sinister and evocative than, say, the Harry Potter series.  (Quickly distinguish your story from competing works, particularly if your main character is a tween British magician).

1. Show us something interesting about a major character (usually the lead protagonist)

• If you were going to give a gold medal to the least delightful person on Earth, you would have to give that medal to a person named Carmelita Spats, and if you didn’t give it to her, Carmelita Spats was the sort of person who would snatch it from your hands anyway. (Austere Academy).
• There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. (Voyage of the Dawn Treader).
• I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. (Notes from the Underground).
• Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting ‘v’ under the more flexible ‘v’ of his mouth. (Maltese Falcon).

2. Set something unusual and interesting in motion. YES: A drug-fueled trip across the desert or an execution by firing squad. NO: Waking up.

• They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
• The telephone was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was nobody in the room but the corpse. (War in Heaven).
• We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).
• It is cold at 6:40 in the morning in Paris and seemed even colder when the man was executed by firing squad. (Day of the Jackal).

3. Establish the setting with a striking detail, usually one that sets the mood.

• Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth. (Silence of the Lambs).
• It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. (The Bell Jar).
• The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. (Neuromancer).
• You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. (Bright Lights, Big City).
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984).

4. Introduce an unusual relationship for the main character (with other characters, himself, his surroundings, and/or the readers).

• All this happened, more or less. (Slaughterhouse-five).
• Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. (The Stranger).
• The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. (The Napoleon of Notting Hill).
• I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. (Infinite Jest).

5. Introduce problems and/or conflicts.

• A screaming comes across the sky. (Gravity’s Rainbow).
• Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror. (Herbert West, Reanimator).
• Justice? – You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. (A Frolic of His Own).
• The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years–if it ever did end–began, so far as I can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.  (IT).

6. Subvert expectations and/or set up eye-catching contrasts, like exploding grandmothers.

• High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour. (Changing Places).
• It was the day my grandmother exploded. (Crow Road).
• Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).
• One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. (The Crying of Lot 49).

What are some of the best opening lines you’ve encountered?

1.  Don’t begin with a long description of the setting or background information.  Do begin with dialogue and action. Agreed.  However, explain enough so that we know what’s going on.  I put down a book on page 2 yesterday because it spent all that time beautifully describing the weather and a man jumping out of a helicopter without explaining anything about why the guy came out of the helicopter.  At first, it wasn’t even clear whether the person fell out accidentally or jumped.

2.  Don’t start with a character other than your protagonist. You may wish to consider starting with the antagonist, but generally I agree with this.  If your side-characters are the most effective hook to your story, you’re writing the wrong story!

3.  Don’t start with a description of past events.  DO jump right in with what the main character is involved in right now, and introduce some tension or conflict as soon as possible. In some cases, the inciting event of the book may have happened before the book starts.  I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem.  For example, a novel might start with a superhero or homicide detective investigating a crime that has already happened.  As long as you keep the focus on what is happening now (the investigation, for example), covering an event that already happened shouldn’t bog down your plot.  

4.  Don’t start in a viewpoint other than the main character’s. Agreed!  I’d reject pretty much anything that starts with a side-character that shows up once and then disappears.  (Switching between main characters is okay, but a one-and-done narrator is NOT.  Don’t waste our time on a character that isn’t central to the plot).

5. Don’t delay letting your readers get to know your protagonist, or present her in a static, neutral (boring) situation.  Do develop your main character quickly by putting her in a bit of hot water and showing how she reacts to the situation. Please get to the trouble sooner rather than later.  Also, make sure the main character has a goal early.  Otherwise, the plot tends to drift around in a most uninteresting fashion.

6/7.  Don’t start with your character all alone, reflecting on his life.  Don’t start with your protagonist planning a trip, or traveling somewhere, in other words, as a lead-up to an important scene. I don’t know.  Depending on the character, solitary preparation might be intriguing.  It depends what the foreshadowing is like and what you’re building up to.  I’d MUCH rather read about an unlikely assassin rigging together a sniper rifle out of parts bought at a Home Depot than another student waking up on the first day of school. (Start in the middle of the day unless the character’s morning routine is intensely interesting/unusual).  Dodging police and security cameras for a perfect murder are almost assuredly more interesting than whatever you could do with a school bus. Unless the school bus is the murder weapon.*

*If your assassin ever uses a school bus as a murder weapon, please send me the manuscript at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com.

8.  Don’t introduce a lot of characters in the first few pages. I agree very strongly.  If you have more than three characters in, say, the first two pages, I’d recommend checking to make sure they’re all contributing something to the scene.

9.  Don’t leave the reader wondering what the characters look like.  I don’t think this matters much. If you give the readers clues, I think they can fill it in on their own.

10.  Don’t have the main character looking in the mirror as a device for describing him/her. I would only recommend using a mirror/reflection if the character’s physical preparation is extremely important to the plot–”I want to show what my character looks like” is NOT enough. For example, if the character’s peacocking is important to his personality, showing him laboriously preening in front of a mirror can help develop him in a way that develops the plot.  His brown hair and green eyes, not so much.

11.  Don’t wait too long to introduce the hero (love interest), in a romance or romantic suspense.   Do introduce the hero by the end of chapter one. Is this using “hero” as a synonym for “love interest?”  I’m confused.

12. Don’t spend too long leading up to the main conflict or problem the protagonist faces. Do introduce the main conflict (or at least some significant tension) within the first chapter. Nice save.  I don’t think it’s terribly important we see the main conflict early on, but we need something. For example, we’ll probably see Peter Parker’s problems at school (bullies, romantic drama, classes, etc) before his villains and/or life as a superhero.

What do you think?

2. Another option is having the character start with an action that is typical to him, but NOT typical to most other protagonists. This is why opening a book with the character waking up is usually ineffective. It rarely launches into the unique/interesting aspects of the character and the story quickly enough. You didn’t write a story about this character to show him waking up, so just skip to the part that we WILL care about.

3. Many (most?) stories start with a character in a comfortable/safe but not particularly glorious situation. (Luke Skywalker, farmer-in-training. Bruce Wayne, happy son. Guy Montag, data management specialist). If the inciting event of your story is an event or action that forces the character out of his comfort zone, then it helps to establish the traits that will be most important to understanding how the inciting event will force him to change. For example, Bruce lives a carefree, sheltered childhood and has it ripped away from him by the senseless murder of his parents. That’s probably all we need to know about his childhood. What do you need to establish about the character and his situation before the inciting event? Ideally, the less, the better. The material before the inciting event is more like an investment than a payout.

4. Showing that the character is relatable early on can help, but don’t let that be an excuse to do a bland/forgettable setting. Schools are particularly vulnerable to this (geeks/dorks getting abused by jocks/bullies, kids struggling to fit in with the cool crowd/cheerleaders, etc). Establish right away how your world is different than similar ones. For example, Ender’s Game is partially about a kid trying to fit in at a new school, but since the kids are competing to be the ones to lead humanity’s war against an alien race, usual struggles (like gaining the respect of the old hands) tend to play out in very fresh ways.

To help you write sharper and more compelling openings, I’m starting a writing contest that will end on July 31.  Both novelists and comic book writers can participate as many times as they’d like.  If you’re interested, please post the following below…

• A two-sentence synopsis of what you’re writing.
• A sentence-long description of your target audience.
• The first five pages of a novel or comic book.  (We won’t be picky about comic book formatting, but if you’d like to know more about how to format a comic book script, please see Dark Horse’s guide here).

The best openings will be featured in an upcoming article I’m doing about how to write effective introductions.  Here are some questions to guide you.

1.  Is there an interesting main character?  In particular, how well has his personality been developed?

2.  Is something at stake for the main character?  Do we care about whether he succeeds?

3.  Does the story feel like it is going somewhere?

4.  Is the story clear and easy to understand?

5.  Has the author demonstrated a strong sense of style?

6.  If readers could keep reading past page five, would they urgently want to?

7.  If it’s a comic book script, has the writer worked in interesting visuals?

1. The status quo of the main character.  What is this character like before everything goes wrong?  In the Lord of the Rings, for example, Frodo celebrates Bilbo’s birthday before being called upon to save the world.  In Superhero Nation, Gary is a workaholic accountant.
2. The inciting event.  What throws the character off his status quo?  Usually, this is the point at which everything starts to go wrong.  For example, in Superhero Nation, Gary narrowly survives a car-bombing very early on.  This forces several changes on him:  first, he is transferred away from his job for his safety.  So he’s completely out of his social comfort zone.  Second, assassins are now trying to kill him.
3. A goal for the main character.  This is usually a response to the inciting event.  This can be as simple as “I want everything to return to normal.”   Gary wants to rebuild his life by getting a job somewhere and he wants to survive the assassins.  This brings him to the superpowered Office of Special Investigations.  Wacky hijinks ensue!  (Buy the book when it finally gets published, heh heh).

A lot of manuscripts get bogged down in details that are typically too far removed from these three goals.

1. Prologues.  They usually lack immediacy and, far too often, they just skip the main character entirely.  Ick.  The main character is almost always the best available way to hook readers into your story.
2. Backstory.  Typically, it doesn’t really matter what your character was doing 5 or 10 years ago.  Readers want to know what’s happening now.  If you are literally unable to start the story without explaining what happened 5 or 10 years ago, you may wish to reevaluate the starting point for your story.  Ahem.  “If your backstory is more interesting than your current era, you’re writing the wrong story.“  If you have to introduce backstory, try to keep it to a bare minimum. Tell us only what we need to understand what is going on now.
   
3. Side-characters.  If the side-characters are the best hook to your story, there’s probably something wrong with the main character and/or the plot.  For example, if a fantasy novel wants to show us the parents of the hero right before he is born, that will trap us in backstory.  Furthermore, will readers care about the hero’s parents?  Probably not.  If they were the most interesting characters in this book, they would be the leads.  Harry Potter #1 was very well-written, but it made a questionable choice to start the book when Harry was an infant.  It was a very slow beginning.
4. Elaborate settings.  Typically, the main character is a better hook into the story than the world is.  A strong character can be relatable and likable, mostly unlike a strong world.  Try to limit the setting at the very beginning to just what we need to understand the main character and the plot.

I originally wrote this article for novelists, but it’s largely true for comic-book writers as well.  The main difference is that a comic-book writer has even fewer pages to establish the status quo.  What is your Peter Parker like before he becomes Spiderman?  If your character has a particularly interesting origin story, I’d recommend giving the status quo no more than half an issue (12 or 16 pages, probably).  But readers tend to appreciate introductions that are much shorter. A good establishing shot is typically sufficient and lets you get to the interesting stuff faster. (I love alternate identities as much as anyone, but usually the superhero identity is more gripping.  Would you want to read a comic called The Amazing Peter Parker or Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne?)

In a comic that probably ranges from 24-32 pages, you really need to get to the inciting event (probably the radioactive spider-bite or however else your hero got his powers) as soon as possible.  In a superhero story, I’d recommend giving the hero his powers early enough in the first issue that you can introduce his goal.  Ideally you can conclude the first issue with a fight or some other climactic event that gives you some room to offer some resolution (which satisfies readers) while setting up a greater conflict that will leave the readers wanting more.

1.  Is it easy to read through? If your first page introduces many characters, fictional words, place names and the like, the story is probably a slog.  If your first page is hard to understand, your manuscript is dead on arrival.

2.  “Do I care about this story?” The easiest way to make a reader care is to give urgent, pressing goals to a likable protagonist.  If nothing’s at stake, readers will probably find the story boring.  If the reader doesn’t care on page one, your submission is in grave danger.

3.  Does the author have a professional grasp of English? If the author has glaring grammar or punctuation problems on page one, they’re just going to assume you’re an amateur and move on to the next manuscript.  Making a good first impression is important.

4.   Does it look like the plot is going somewhere? If the first page gets bogged down in a geography lesson, or a winding prologue, or a lengthy exposition, the answer is probably no.  Pacing the first page well is extremely important.

1. The main character introduces himself to the reader (“Hi, my name is ____, but you can call me ____.”) Isn’t there anything more interesting you can tell us about the character than his name?  If not, you should probably get back to the drawing board.  This type of opening is also annoying because it’s usually the only part of the book that’s addressed to the reader.

2. The main character wakes up and does his morning routine. Instead of showing your character waking up, getting dressed and then having breakfast, why not skip to the interesting part?  Furthermore, virtually everyone eats breakfast and gets dressed.  Please show us something distinct about the character.

3. The main character is immediately plunged into danger. OK, so the hero is getting shot at.  Why should we care?  If you go down this route, make sure we’re emotionally invested in the character.  Introduce the character a bit before throwing him to the sharks.

4. Something unusual and cryptic happens in the first half-page. For example, a mysterious woman hands the hero a baby and then walks away.  Typically, this type of opening could be improved by spending more time describing what the hero’s life is like before the strangeness starts.  I’d recommend that novelists spend at least half a chapter describing the hero in his element.  Then, when you shake up the status quo, we will have a better feel for the character moving forward.  For example, CS Lewis described his characters for several chapters before bringing them to Narnia.

5. The narrator delivers a geography lesson. I recommend showing us your characters before the world, particularly if your world is similar to Middle-Earth.

6. The opening sentence uses pronouns for “suspense.” “Until it happened, I had no idea how badly they had screwed me.”  This narrator is obviously hiding what “it” and “they” are.  That’s not suspenseful, just annoying.  Make sure you give us enough to understand what’s going on.  For example, we could rewrite that sentence as “until the dragon’s face exploded into a gooey mess, I had no idea how badly Adventurers, Inc. had screwed me.”   Please remember to let readers know everything that the point of view character knows.