Beginning Your Novel
It was not a dark and stormy night.
The dark and stormy night gag is the classic way to open a novel. No one does this unless the novel is actually about the night itself. I approach opening my novels in the middle of something that is either happening to a main character or something he or she is doing at the time. I believe that character rather than description is the best way to jump start a novel and to pull the reader inside. It is sort of like giving the reader a hand to hold and guiding them into the world that you have constructed for them. Again I am only making a suggestion. You are a writer. This is your first chapter. You are going to be the one who will have to make hundreds of choices along the way before your novel is finished. The beginning is just the first of many. Write what makes you comfortable.
Being a writer is about choices as much as it is about story telling. Learning what works best when opening a novel is going to be trial and error. You may finish a novel. Sit down to edit it and discover that the first few chapters are unnecessary and the book really begins with chapter three or four. This happened to me once and I discovered that removing the first two chapter did not change a thing about the rest of the book. Those chapters had been my way of getting into the story, but were not needed to tell the complete story. Consider this when you sit to edit your work.
If you want to see how I open a novel you can check out the first chapter of my novel suspense novel Calling Vicki. The first five chapters are available above for free. Just click a chapter heading. Thank you for visiting. Please take a moment to stumble this post on stumble upon and to add it to your facebook. Good luck with your writing and have a nice day.
It was not a dark and stormy night.
The dark and stormy night gag is the classic way to open a novel. No one does this unless the novel is actually about the night itself. I approach opening my novels in the middle of something that is either happening to a main character or something he or she is doing at the time. I believe that character rather than description is the best way to jump start a novel and to pull the reader inside. It is sort of like giving the reader a hand to hold and guiding them into the world that you have constructed for them. Again I am only making a suggestion. You are a writer. This is your first chapter. You are going to be the one who will have to make hundreds of choices along the way before your novel is finished. The beginning is just the first of many. Write what makes you comfortable.
Being a writer is about choices as much as it is about story telling. Learning what works best when opening a novel is going to be trial and error. You may finish a novel. Sit down to edit it and discover that the first few chapters are unnecessary and the book really begins with chapter three or four. This happened to me once and I discovered that removing the first two chapter did not change a thing about the rest of the book. Those chapters had been my way of getting into the story, but were not needed to tell the complete story. Consider this when you sit to edit your work.
If you want to see how I open a novel you can check out the first chapter of my novel suspense novel Calling Vicki. The first five chapters are available above for free. Just click a chapter heading. Thank you for visiting. Please take a moment to stumble this post on stumble upon and to add it to your facebook. Good luck with your writing and have a nice day.
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