❝When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you're done, you have to step back and look at the forest.❞ — Stephen King

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Whether you're here for a review or just want some tips to help improve your opening chapter, this is the place for you! Here you'll find a bunch of writing tips for your first chapter. When I think of additional tips, I'll add them to this chapter here!

Questions you should answer:

— Where and when is your story set? Do some light world building. It doesn't have to be anything grand, just something to introduce the setting to your reader so that they know whether it's set in modern day London or a magical 16th century Columbia.

— Who is the main character? They should be introduced in the beginning, unless your opening is a prologue set years before the main setting of your book. In which case, you should have a good reason to introduce this scene and the characters in the prologue opposed to your lead. It should also be clear how the prologue is setting up the story to come.

— Your opening should also either set up and introduce what is "wrong" in it's world. (i.e. it's a dystopia overrun by an evil alien dictator who wants to enslave the human race or maybe your main character is the underdog in a vicious high school). This helps to set up some background information on why the character is at odds with the world around them and what they might do to change things.

— If it doesn't do this, it should introduce a disruption in which something goes wrong. What is the problem that will arise to change your protagonist's journey? Something has to change to drive the story forward. (i.e. your protagonist could have escaped a death sentence and is now going on the run or something big in their everyday life might change, forcing them to walk a new path). This might not happen right away and could be a few chapters in but it's good to at least start setting it up in some way from the start.

Give your reader a taste, not the full meal:

— Why should the reader stick with your book? What is going to make them want to read more? Not knowing something! Readers always want to uncover things and love to know every secret. The trick? Don't give it to them. At least, not right away. From the very first chapter you should be withholding some information from your reader and they should know it too. Sprinkle something in that will keep them guessing and wanting to read more!

Prologues, prologues, prologues...

— So you want to write a prologue before your first chapter? Make sure you know why you want to write it and what importance it has on the rest of the plot.

— In my story "The Clockwork Princess" I included a prologue to set the scene with a typical fairy tale opening. It states that the story starts "a long time ago" so that the reader knows this happened before the main events of the book and introduces a damsel in distress, the villain, and the casting of a decades old curse. This prologue had a purpose and allowed me to provide background information on the state of the world before introducing my protagonist who is living in it years later. It set up the main problem and has the reader asking why the princess was cursed and who is going to break that curse.

— If your prologue is not a separate thing to the rest of the story, you probably don't need it or can just title it "Chapter One" and move on. This is because a prologue is a separate introductory section of a story and not typically a part of the main story or following the main protagonist.

— Another interesting example would be "A Marvellous Light" by Freya Marske, which does not actually have a labelled prologue but the first chapter certainly acts as one. It is the beginning of the story but introduces none of our main characters, focusing on the point of view of one Reginald Gatling. I won't spoil things for those who haven't read this book but Gatling is only mentioned by name throughout the rest of the novel despite being a very important figure in this first chapter. His story is what sets up the main plotline of the book and kicks things off for the protagonists, who are not even introduced until the next chapter. Moreover, neither of them actually interact with Gatling at all throughout the rest of the story, despite one of them having known him relatively well. This is another good example of a prologue, even though it begins as chapter one in the book, as it sets up what is to come and feeds a lot of questions to the reader right from the start.

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