What Makes a Great Story? Let's start at the very beginning

Plus, a Spotify List and craft exercise

There’s a lot to be said about making a really good beginning to your novel. That opener? It needs to be strong. That way it can captivate the reader and keep them involved from page one, right?

So, you want to create a hook that creates interest and then keeps the reader involved and questioning.

And there are some things that you can avoid to keep the reader from getting too lost or too bored in our society right now.

• Don’t start in a dream where the character is living the dream.

• Don’t start with floating dialogue.

• Don’t start with just your main character all alone and nobody to interact with.

• Don’t start in a crowd scene/fight scene where it will be super confusing to understand who is who.

• The weather. Don’t start with it.

• A funeral.

• Travelling.

• All exposition or all internal dialogue.

• Waking up (I’ve totally broken this rule).

• Super purple prose.

• Way too much backstory.

• No conflict. (See all those other items above, really).

A key thing to remember is that you want to have a beginning that allows you to set up an interesting, resonating ending—an ending that keeps your reader reflecting on the journey they just took with your characters.

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SOME LINKS BEFORE WE MOVE ON

I wrote a long(ish) post on a whole bunch of methods back in April. That’s here.

How to Start Your Novel

And a paid post here.

How To Write A Great First Paragraph and Opening Scene

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QUICK NOTE AGAIN ABOUT CHANGES BEFORE WE HEAD INTO THE PAID-ONLY POST

The first step begins in February where I’ll post quick daily writing prompts for paid members for the month. The members will be able to share and support each other in a chat (if they are into it).

Basically, I’d love for Write Better Now and Living Happy to be a place that helps us all write a bit more confidently and joyfully while also building community.

And I’m going to share twice a week regularly (one paid post, one free post) while building out those community tools, too. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you’ll still be able to see the top half (like now).

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BEYOND THE PAYWALL

This rest of this post is going to be a bit about common things to do and not do (right now in the U.S.) for your novel, a quick exercise involving a playlist I made, and some links to help.