BY MEGAN OLIPHANT
As a reader, a writer, and an editor, I’ve had lots of experience reading beginnings of books. And the more I have read, the more I can tell by just a few paragraphs if the story is going to keep my attention or not.
Many writers try to “fix” this problem (and I am guilty of this too from time to time) by starting the story in the middle of the action, or “in media res”. Then after the immediate crisis is over, go back and tell the reader why this scene is so important. Or, even worse, stop the action entirely to let the character “remember” why this scene is so important by showing us how the character arrived there in the first place.
The problem with this approach is twofold. First, unless we already care about these characters, we won’t care that they are being chased by a black SUV down the interstate with their two year old in the back seat, or that the bomb countdown has only thirty seconds left on it. Until we care about your protagonist (even just a little bit) they will not be real. We will not have suspended our disbelief enough yet to care if the car flips or the bomb explodes.
The second problem is that as a reader, the crisis situation will feel contrived, and we will feel manipulated into caring. I can promise that even if the reader continues on in your story, they will never be fully immersed in your world, because they will never fully trust you.
So what can you do? How do you create movement and excitement from the beginning if you’re not putting the protagonist in some kind of peril, and avoiding a travelog through your setting?
Here are some ideas:
- Have your protagonist be upset about something important to them. It doesn’t have to matter to the reader, but show how much they care about whatever it is, and make them sympathetic. Your reader may be a middle aged woman, but making your teenage male protagonist agonize over approaching his crush will bring up similar feelings in your reader. This event shouldn’t be big. Not life threatening. Just big enough to elicit honest emotions in the character and the reader.
Have the protagonist “save the cat”. If you haven’t heard of Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder, check it out. The premise is that you need to create that sympathy with the protagonist early on, so have them do something nice, like save the neighbor lady’s cat from the tree. It’s a cliche now, so don’t use that one, but within the world you’ve created, show them being nice or kind when they don’t need to. It gives them a likability that is necessary for us to begin to care about them. Even if your character is an antihero, having him zoom around the puppy in the road instead of running it over with his motorcycle will make him relatable.
- Let your protagonist be present.How often do you really sit down and think about that experience you had last week with the guy in the coffee shop? Don’t let your character do it, either. If that scene is important to the story, then SHOW us the scene, don’t “remember” it. It’s okay to remember the scene after you’ve showed it to us, however, and point out the now important fact that we (and possibly the protagonist) missed the first time around.
What is important in all of this is that you are building a dialogue with your reader. Even though your characters need to have lives beyond the pages of the book to be well rounded, as a writer you are introducing us bit by bit into your world and the life of your protagonist. We have to experience it step by step, or you will lose us and we will close the book, leaving your story unread.
And that is the greatest peril any writer faces.
Megan Oliphant has studied creative writing since college, taking classes from the founder of LTUE, Marion K. “Doc” Smith at BYU and attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp in late June. Her primary interests are in fantasy, ranging from dark urban to high epic, but she’s a sucker for a good mystery that she can’t guess the ending to before she gets there. She divides her time between reading, writing, and “familying” with her husband and five children in North Carolina.
Megan joined The X Team in May of 2014. Her first project, The Accidental Apprentice by Anika Arrington, was released in October of 2014. She is project lead on Darkness Rising, a young adult fantasy by Elizabeth Lunyou, slated for release in 2015.