Alright, we’re finally getting to the good stuff. We have our hook, our character profiles, I assume that we’ve decided on a basic structure, unless you’re one of those heathens who chooses to blaze their own trail, in which case… Hat’s off and good luck to you. I don’t know how to outline something like that, though.
So for the sake of my sanity we’re going to proceed assuming that we’re sticking to one of the traditional methods. Regardless of which skeleton you’re planning on using, it’ll be up to you to do a great job fleshing it out and that starts with designing a captivating opening chapter. To do this we need to ask ourselves a few question.
Will this be in past or present tense?
Past tense is pretty much the standard, go-to when writing a story. You can, of course, choose to write in present tense which reads like a detective novel from the 1940’s. But it tends to be distracting to the reader. Either way, you’ll want to have that hashed out before you start writing. Oddly enough, I usually write my outlines in present tense and then write the novel itself in past tense. I don’t know why… it’s just how my process works. You do you.
Who’s P.O.V.?
It’s important before we even start outlining that we know who’s telling the story. This is going to affect what we can or can’t show. For example, if we are telling the story from the First Person perspective of the main character, we can only have scenes where that character is present. We will also only be able to know what that character is thinking and feeling… unless they have some kind of special telepathic or empathic superpowers.
We could also opt for Third Person Omniscient, which basically makes the narrator an all-knowing god-like being who can float around and be everywhere at once, hearing everyone’s thoughts and feeling everyone’s emotions. Terry Pratchet and Niel Gaiman are fucking legends at working this kind of thing. But not everyone can handle that much responsibility, so keep that in mind when you’re making this decision.
There is also Third Person Limited, where the narrator can only relay their own thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. The narrator doesn’t necessarily have to identify themselves and they can be impartial, but I personally think it’s easiest to go with either first person or Third Omniscient. Third Person Limited, tends to trip me up during the editing process.
What Elements Are Essential for Chapter One?
There are a few bases we need to cover. First, we need to keep in mind that modern books have a much faster pace than books from fifty or even ten years ago. Back in ye’ olden times, people used to buy books and then read half of it before getting frustrated that nothing interesting was happening.
Now that we have thinks like Kindle Unlimited and even if we don’t, we can still read the first 10% of any ebook for free before deciding if we want to spend our $2.99 on it, we as readers have a lot of power. We expect, nay, demand that authors capture our attention as soon as possible or risk losing our business.
Coming back to this side of the line, that puts an immense amount of pressure on us as authors. We need to introduce our Main Character or characters, give basic physical descriptions, and a quick idea of what their normal life is like.
If it’s a Romance Novel, you also generally want your lovers to meet in chapter one, even if they don’t like each other immediately. Just bring them together so that we see them interact on the page. Statistics say that Romance readers are the most impatient of any genre According to my last publisher, if a reader doesn’t see the two main characters meet in the first 400 words, a staggering 60% of them will toss your book aside like a ripped pair of panty-hoes.
When you’re an indie author you can say a big F**** You to those 60% but as a ghostwriter, I was captive to their ravenous demands. This is your book so it’s up to you if you want to open on your lovers meeting. I’m just giving you the stats that were given to me by a marketing genius who knew how to sell maximum number of books.
In Chapter One, every line is precious real estate and you can’t afford to bog it down with any gratuitous world-building, or flashy descriptions of the crown molding in her grandmother’s study. You get bonus points if you open with something shocking… Sex, violence, or a life and death struggle are usually crowd-pleasers.
The sooner you can slap your readers in the face and get their attention, the more likely they are to turn that page. If you can get that far, the next things you need to worry about are laying the foundation for the rest of your story. What used to take a quarter of the book to say, we need to say in the first chapter, which is usually no more than 10% of your total page count.
So, if you take nothing else away from this post, please remember that by the end of Chapter One, we should know who your protagonist is, what they want, and what is preventing them from having it. If it’s a Romance, we want to see the lovers interact on the page together. The sooner you catch the reader with your hook, the more likely they are to finish your book... that rhymes... I'm keeping it.
Next week we'll get into how to outline the second act of your book. If you found this article helpful or even a little entertaining, please like and share it with your writerly friends.
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Until next time, keep those pages turning and those keys clacking!
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