5 Ways You're Not Making the Most of Your Novel's First Lines (According to Brain Science)

Gina Kammer Author

Use these points to cast a gripping spell on readers from your very first lines.

5 Ways You're Not Making the Most of Your Novel's First Lines

What Brain Science Says about Writing with Story Structures #3

The insights from cognitive psychology can help us understand the effects and usefulness of story structures, and this is what I break down in this series. In these articles on story structure elements, I dive into the effects of story on readers and how these structures play a part in that. I also offer suggestions for what writers can do to have the best of both worlds — both the joy of just writing and creating a tale readers will want to read.

Readers need an instant reason to care. That’s the job of a novel’s opening lines. It’s what hooks readers and compels them to keep reading to find out more. But what’s the secret sauce that makes readers care?

Unfortunately, I can’t provide one neat, concise answer, and I’ve seen multiple styles of opening sentences that work. So let’s start by addressing first how you may not be making the most of your novel’s first lines.

1. You didn’t name the character.

   
   Readers need to know who the story is about. It shouldn’t be a mystery to be later revealed. Stand-in pronouns keep the opening vague, and it’s going to be harder for readers to orient themselves to who or what they’re supposed to care about. Don’t miss this easy fix! A name helps readers to start forming ideas of the character in their minds. While there may be exceptions, the point still stands that readers should have a pretty clear idea of whose story it is from the opening.
   
   

2. You used too many in-world terms or concepts.
   
   Make the entry point into your novel’s world as effortless as possible. Did you include a made-up word? Did you immediately introduce a concept a reader doesn’t have the context for? Readers aren’t invested yet. Draw them in by grounding them in something familiar. You can always push into less familiar territory later on. But don’t alienate your reader from the opening lines. Ask yourself if those made-up terms or worldbuilding concepts are absolutely necessary in the first sentences. Then start introducing these new ideas one at a time.
   
   

3. You got too caught up in setting the scene.
   
   Most writers have the tendency to focus on describing the setting, accounting for their worlds’ histories or political situations, or establishing their worldbuilding in something like a crash course for the reader. These are natural places to want to start. When we tell stories, we want to provide context. But starting with any of these things stacks the reader effort with my first two points as well. Starting with setting the scene means that readers don’t yet have a lens to view that scene through (the named character). Trying to establish the world first likely means too many new concepts or terms are barring readers from easy entry. Descriptive openings can be beautiful, but they don’t really mean anything until we know why and how a character cares about such a scene.
   
   

4. Your opening lacks tension and conflict.
   
   If it’s just a normal, boring day for your character before disaster strikes, that might be just fine. But when you’re trying to convey emotion and invite your readers to feel what they need to feel to experience the story, relating to a bored character is also going to feel pretty boring for readers. Waking up is a common starting action that lacks much conflict at all in most cases. Hooking readers can be easier with higher action, but that’s not necessarily the answer for every book either. In any case, what usually works best is to also have a smoldering tension just beneath the surface — more on that in a bit! No matter how “normal” your story starts for your character, it should feel clear for readers that something is about to change that makes this starting point the seemingly most crucial point in your character's life. Or simply consider bumping your story up in its timeline to create that kind of hook.
   
   

5. Your opening sets up inaccurate expectations.
   
   (Settle in. The explanations and justifications here require more paragraphs.)
   
   An opening does the important work of setting up the book’s promise to the reader as well as hooking the reader with the inner character conflict. If it sets the wrong tone, sounds like it’s a different genre from where it was shelved, or otherwise confuses readers, this is an easy point for readers to set the book aside because they’re not yet invested.
   
   On the other hand, if you start with a scene that’s not the reality for the character, you might break reader expectations in another way. For example, if you open with a dream or nightmare, readers might find the events really engaging — only to find out it was all basically a “lie.”
   
   When a dream (or something like a dream that turns out not to be real) is used to open a book, it usually immediately breaks the promise no matter how good the reason is for using it. In other words, it’s a sort of betrayal for readers that they’re not generally going to appreciate. It essentially rips the rug out from under them when they have nothing else to go on. So it’s like a forced trick that they didn’t have any choice in. They thought the story would have all these monsters and twisted scenes only to find out that it’s not that kind of story at all. It was just a nightmare the character had, and the rest of the story — while perhaps using the dream thereafter metaphorically for the inner character struggle and even using it well — isn’t the one readers thought it would be.
   
   Brain science insights reveal that it’s probably better to set readers on a somewhat predictable path. Let them start to see hints of where things are going (really going—not framed through a dream or similar) and add surprising twists and immediate stakes to keep things feeling fresh and not boring. It’s also generally better to give readers more information rather than withholding it. More information leads to more questions and interest to find out how everything (because readers see everything they read as being important to the story) relates to the main storyline. Obviously, the character serving as the reader lens will not know everything, and that will help with keeping some crucial surprises from being revealed too early. But most of the time, what the character knows, the reader should know.
   
   But if you start readers in a tense scene and then drop them into a relatively uneventful situation such as with the character waking up (and, essentially, you are doing this to readers because they are experiencing the story vicariously through the lens of your character) with the “Gotcha!” reveal that they were never in that exciting sequence of events at all, that might rub them the wrong way — even if not all readers will be able to put their fingers on what doesn’t feel so good about that opening.
   
   It also, in effect, may betray reader trust in what is happening in the story. Unreliable narrators and that whole area of it aside, we generally want our readers immersed in the story so well that they aren’t pulled out of it to analyze what’s true and not true on a more meta level. We don’t want to break their suspension of disbelief and take them out of the story. We want them to stay in that immersion (and they’ll be processing the story in the same way as their brains relive their own memories—isn’t that so cool?!) as much as possible for their best possible experience of the story. That’s how they care. They care about themselves, and so as long as they can keep experiencing the story through the character lens, the act of processing the story won’t become too conscious and take them out of it—which might cause them to not care enough to keep reading.
   
   I know these effects aren’t any author’s intent, and such openings do make for intriguing ideas with all sorts of layers of meaning—I think that’s why this type of opening has been used so often!—but when approaching it from a cognitive perspective looking at the effects of story on readers, it’s a little clearer why these kind of openings generally aren’t in favor.

So what can you do instead? Here are a few quick tips to put you on the path to a stronger opening that hooks readers and won’t let them go so easily:

• Start deeply in character.

• Show the inner conflict (begun prior to novel action’s starting timeline).

• Make a hard-hitting statement (that the reader at least subconsciously understands as foreshadowing the end).

• Create a dilemma that forces readers to pick a side (and root for your main character).

• Generally start to dig behind the whys of the character motivation.

• Infuse a sense that things are about to change and escalate quickly.

• Introduce some immediate stakes.

But these pointers don’t mean that your novel’s opening absolutely has to be super action-packed or plot-heavy. It doesn’t need to have something there for shock-value. Likewise, mystery is good, but not at the expense of understanding motivations or getting to know the character. So use just enough mystery to pique interest and intrigue if you use it at all. Your opening might be or contain these things, but know that it’s not necessary.

Relatability to a character is what’s necessary. This relatability comes with understanding why the character does the things she does. Lots of action doesn’t provide that understanding by itself. That’s why digging into some inner character conflict in the first lines can stoke fires of tension even before much action happens.

So use these points to make the most of your novel’s opening. And, if you can focus on starting readers immediately in a character’s point of view, you’ll be well on your way to casting a gripping spell on readers from your very first lines.

***

In case you missed it, I touched on similar points in my post on prologues (link: https://www.inkybookwyrm.com/blog/three-problems-with-prologues). Prologues often fall into the category of my fifth point, so if you’re planning to have a prologue in your next project, or if you’re wondering what to do with a prologue in your revision, be sure to check it out. Happy writing and revising!

Categories: story structure