Writing Your Way [Writing Tutorial]

First Chapters

Listen, your first chapter is the absolute MOST IMPORTANT chapter in the entire book! If your first chapter doesn't hit, the reader will instantly lose interest and close your book. But there is a way to combat this;

You have to catch your reader's interest with the very first line and continue to feed their interest for the rest of the first paragraph. Now, you don't have to start with high action to make it interesting. You can have something as interesting as a person making soup while verbally planning out how to kill a god. That is interesting enough for your readers to want more information.

If you start your book with someone simply getting out of bed in the morning, taking a shower, brushing their teeth and getting dressed, your reader's are going to skip over all of that or not even bother reading the rest of the chapter, EVEN IF it has interesting elements towards the middle.

Your story doesn't have to start with some deep poetic meaning that's all mysterious. It could just be something like, "The corpse wouldn't shut up!" Or "My brother was cursed again." You can make it as weird as you can and it'll hooked the reader to want to know what's going on.

People will often write in a dream sequence to hook reader's but it doesnt really work unless you have a purpose for it. If its just there for poetic purposes, it's not going to catch the reader's attention. Reason why is because when they wake up, you go back into the morning routine which I've already said doesn't work. The only right way to do a dream sequence is if the character wakes up and says something along the lines of, "That's the third time I've died in my sleep this week!"

The point of chapter 1 isn’t to start with exposition. It's to start the story. Many people start with loads of plot, lore and telling every single detail of the entire world before you even introduce the main character which is just wrong. The point of the first chapter is to hook the reader and emotionally blackmail them into turning to the next page.

So to write a good first chapter you need to introduce only one conflict. Not five. ONE! It can be your main conflict driving the entire story or the conflict before the main conflict which drives the story. You just introduce one conflict that the audience can gnaw on.

Example: Oh no, they're late for their job at the magical DMV.

Second, please know, you do NOT have to name every single person that walks past your main character. Save it for later. Giving 8 different character names and 3 different place names is too much for the reader. All you're trying to do is drive the story, not stop it with a lore dump and continue as if nothing happened.

Dialogue is a great opener as long as it leaves the reader asking more questions. If someone opens with "Did you hide the body?" It will make your reader want to know more of what's going on.

First impressions matter! If your Main character is whining about something boring like missing the bus for school or they wanted pancakes instead of waffles, the reader already won't connect with the story. You don't want to bore your readers with filler or trivial things that have no place in the overall story. Cut it out and put something actually worth knowing.

Now listen, it is okay to rewrite your first chapter even after you've completed the book. In fact, it's recommended that you do. Future you will understand what the story actually needed.

Also, when introducing the main character, make sure you show the audience who they are as a person instead of just telling them. Whatever their first line is should tell the audience everything about them.

Don't do this: I'm usually the type of person to be more bold then quiet, but today was just different. I always raise my hand in class, but I decided not to today.

Like...no. Don't do anything of the sort. Instead let something trigger their personality so that it speaks for itself.

Make sure all of your scenes are interesting and productive to the progress of the story. If you want a chill dialogue sequence where they're just having a simple conversation, have it be foreshadowing or a dramatic irony. You can even write it so that every scene is your favourite scene. Otherwise, your readers will be just as bored.

More words does not mean a better story. I promise you the story you want to tell can be done is 100k words or less.