This month I’m beginning my third novel, and I face a familiar, nerve-racking challenge: deciding how to start. The opening of a novel sets the tone for everything that follows, and I’m torn. Should I go back in time and give the reader a sense of how the conflicts playing out in the present spring from long-buried events from the past? Or should I kick things off with a dramatic inciting incident that changes the course of my protagonist’s life in an instant? There’s also the appeal of slowly building the world and characters before turning it upside down by the end of the first act. And then, there’s the temptation of starting with a glimpse into the future and unraveling how my characters ended up there. So I thought today we’d examine these four possibilities to see which one fits my own story best in the hope my analysis might also help you as well.
Start with a scene from the past
Generally labelled as prologue, this approach sets the stage for the reader by showing an important event that occurred before the main timeline of the novel, often revealing key backstory or a mystery. For example, Joyce Maynard’s latest novel How the Light Gets In begins with a long scene in a hospital maternity ward as we see a child being born and the parents’ reactions to this life-changing event before we’re plunged into the main story thirty years later. This approach lets the author create a vivid sense of mood or introduce a secret that will echo throughout the narrative, provides immediate intrigue and depth, and draws the reader in before they meet the main characters. The prologue often leaves readers with questions that will only be answered as the story unfolds.
Plunge us into the action
This approach begins with a momentous event that propels the protagonist into a new world or conflict, usually within the first ten pages or so. There’s little build up, just a quick rush to action. Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto is a well-known example with its famous opening line—“when the lights went off, the accompanist kissed her.” Likewise, Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips introduces us to a mother and her toddler son on a routine visit to the zoo when shots ring out within the first ten pages. This method thrusts us into the action immediately, forcing the protagonist to deal with the fallout of this sudden, life-altering event. The inciting incident creates a dramatic shift, leaving us wondering how the characters will adapt and overcome. The key is to introduce this shift early, to give the story momentum and hook the reader.
The slow and steady build
In this scenario, the novelist creates a slow build through initially introducing a unique setting and complex characters and showing life as it is (the ordinary world) before a major change (the inciting incident) turns this world upside down. This method creates a sense of normalcy before everything changes and is probably the most common approach, particularly with novels that give as much weight to characters and their interrelationships as to plot. By building in anticipation and deepening the reader’s emotional connection to the world, the writer makes the eventual upheaval more impactful. Kristin Hannah did this effectively in her recent best-seller The Women, where we are introduced to Frankie in 1966 in Coronado California and steeped in her family dynamics and culture, before she enlists in the Army Nurse Corps and is shipped overseas to Vietnam where her entire world view is called into question.
The flash forward
Opening with a dramatic moment from the story’s future, this technique grabs readers by plunging them into an intense, climactic scene, and then rewinds to the beginning, leaving them eager to understand how things escalated to that point. In my recent novel Blindspot I used this technique, beginning with a two-page courtroom scene where we come to realize the protagonist, a district attorney, is not prosecuting the murder case but is in fact the defendant. I then take you back three months to see what led up to this situation before carrying the story forward. Celeste Ng used this technique as well in Little Fires Everywhere where the opening pages reveal a family home burning to the ground and then read on to understand how events led to this dramatic conclusion.
So back to my next novel. I want to examine the dynamics at play when a young bride is kidnapped on her honeymoon and how the ransom demand of two million dollars affects her step-mother and assorted members of the family. While the kidnapping is the inciting incident, I believe it will have more impact if I start a bit earlier, at the wedding reception, where the reader can observe the family members interacting and become immersed in the world (a vineyard estate in northern California). And that brings up another point to consider: based on back cover copy and early reviews, the reader may already know “what’s coming” (in my case, a kidnapping) so the impact of a flash forward can be lessened.
So which approach is best? The answer is they’re all viable choices, but you’ll need to take the time to carefully consider the structure of your novel before choosing. Different genres often lend themselves to specific types of openings, but it’s equally important to experiment and find what works best for your particular narrative, considering how each approach works to establish tone, pacing, and reader engagement. Because while we want to hook the reader, we also want to set the stage for the entire journey to come, allowing your story to shine.
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