{"id":322,"date":"2012-10-19T12:24:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T12:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/2012\/10\/19\/why-does-your-first-chapter-suck\/"},"modified":"2012-10-19T12:24:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-19T12:24:00","slug":"why-does-your-first-chapter-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2012\/10\/19\/why-does-your-first-chapter-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Does Your First Chapter Suck?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
When all else fails, add pixie dust.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u00a0
The first chapter is the door to the rest of the book. The first chapter is a fist of firsts: first sentence, first hook, first introduction to the cast of characters, first goal, first twist, first turn, and first cliffhanger.<\/p>\n

Newbie writers know this, and try to stuff everything into the first chapter.<\/p>\n

And it sucks big time.<\/p>\n

So what went wrong?<\/p>\n

The newbie scratches her head, and re-reads one or two famous books in her genre and discovers \u2026 HEY! What the heck? Mr. Famous Writer didn\u2019t put in any of that stuff about Theme and Setting and Backstory That Makes You Love The Character, and so on. What\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n

There are four possibilities. <\/p>\n

1. Mr. Famous Writer has banked on previous successes but made a hash of it this time, out of laziness. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. Mr. Famous Writer\u2019s book succeeded despite, not because of, the first chapter. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3. Mr. Famous Writer knows how to break the rules in a way that still works\u2014and in a way that Newbie Writers would be better off not trying yet. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4. Mr. Famous Writer did in fact follow all (or most) the rules of a good first chapter and simply did it so well that one doesn\u2019t notice. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Newbie Writers always want to believe (1) or (2). Sometimes, they\u2019ll grudgingly grant (3). But almost always, the Correct Answer is (4). The first chapter of the famous book in fact does do exactly what a first chapter should, but so smoothly and subtly \u2013 or so blatantly and obviously \u2013 that somehow the Newbie Writer can\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n

When I say, \u201cNewbie Writer,\u201d I mean, \u201cGuilty as Charged.\u201d I\u2019ve been there, done that, and I\u2019m trying to learn better. With that in mind, I\u2019m going to be looking at the first chapters of several well-known books in my genre (fantasy), to see what the author did, and why it worked. It\u2019s quite possible, in fact, inevitable, that not everything in the first chapter (or book) worked for every reader. It\u2019s easy, but stupid, to be dismissive when something obviously did capture thousands, even millions of readers.<\/p>\n

What works? What makes a first chapter into the kind of door that invites the reader further into the book? <\/p>\n

I’d say there are five “Firsts” that must be introduced — and must be awesome — to add up to a great first chapter:<\/p>\n

1. The First Sentence
2. The First Hook
3. The First Character
4. The First Exposition
5. The First Twist<\/p>\n

How those five things are handled will determine (or, at any rate, should determine) the tone and structure of the rest of the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When all else fails, add pixie dust. \u00a0 The first chapter is the door to the rest of the book. The first chapter is a fist of firsts: first sentence, first hook, first introduction to the cast of characters, first goal, first twist, first turn, and first cliffhanger. Newbie writers know this, and try to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,369,589],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-chapter","category-newbie-writer-mistakes","category-writing-tips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}