Beginnings are the Bane of My Existence

If you’ve been around the writing blogosphere for a while, you’ve probably encountered the same classic bits of advice I have about beginning a story:

Never start with a character waking up…
Never start with an action scene before a reader is invested in the characters & aware of the stakes involved…
Never start with a character gazing at him or herself in the mirror…
Never start with backstory…
Never start with a dream…
Never start with a character feeling deeply emotional about something when a reader has no reason to care yet…

Of course, I’ve read excellent exceptions to all the above rules (I’m thinking of SONG OF FIRE AND ICE, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, and DIVERGENT). In most cases, though, those are handy tips.

So what about the entire first chapter itself?

First off, let me say this: I hate starting stories. Hate it, hate it. I love middles, I love endings, but beginnings are the bane of my existence, mostly because if I screw up the beginning, it cripples me in writing the rest of the story. I inevitably find myself rewriting the same first chapter 20-30 times, because I need the beginning of a story to be pretty solid before I write the rest—this is something I’ve learned through cold, hard experience.

Now that I find myself in the curious place between line edits and copyedits with INSIGNIA, I find myself confronting questions about how to begin INSIGNIA II.

I’ve been considering several things that make the first chapter of a story work

. The big challenge I’m facing so far is reconciling tone of the scene to the subject matter I want to include. On one hand, I’d like a certain character to discover a very incendiary secret that was concealed from him in the last book, which naturally inclines towards a serious tone in the beginning. (It has to be serious; I love writing humor, but some scenes can’t be written in a light tone without cheapening what’s happening in them).

The serious tone is a problem, though. My goal is to keep the tone of the INSIGNIA II consistent overall with the tone I aimed for in INSIGNIA: a fast-paced, fun story with some moments of seriousness/darkness interspersed throughout. Starting the story with a serious scene makes me leery, because I suspect that might not be the best introduction to everything that follows.

So, with that said, I’ve been considering what makes a first chapter really work. A first chapter lays out the foundation for the story to follow. One analysis I’ve done is below. This write-up is mostly for my benefit (since, as I mentioned, I’m grappling with INSIGNIA II), but it might be interesting for other writers who perhaps struggle with the same aspect of a story. I’m going to deconstruct the strengths of a beginning I’ve always admired: THE DUKE OF SHADOWS, by Meredith Duran.

Note: I’m hardly an impartial party here, since Meredith is my sister. Nevertheless, I still maintain that this is a magnificent first chapter. I’ll list my reasons below. All quotes are taken from this free excerpt (Excerpt taken from this page)

My Opinion on Why Duke of Shadows, Chapter One, Works:

1) The first line immediately draws you in. It’s also short and to the point:

Julian first noticed her because she looked so bored.

2) And then the first full paragraph sets up the setting of the initial scene, and the male protagonist’s motivation in the initial scene:

Waiting for the Commissioner’s arrival had put him on edge. He stood at the top of the room, half-attending to the feverish chatter around him, his eyes fixed on the door. Rumors in the bazaar daily grew darker, and it was clear to him now that if Calcutta would not act, the local government must. Tonight he meant to exact a promise on that account.

3) Then the male protagonist sees the female protagonist for the first time. Given that a romantic story has one primary dynamic, this is a particularly important point:

He became aware of the woman gradually. It was her stillness that drew his attention. She was leaning against a wall, not ten feet away. Though several people surrounded her, sipping negligently at their wine and laughing, she seemed somehow apart.

4) The male protagonist becomes intrigued with the female protagonist:

She muttered something beneath her breath. Despite himself, [Julian] leaned forward. He could not quite make it out. Surely she had not said—
With a violent gesture, she splashed her wine into the bushes. “Pig swill,” she said clearly.

5) The POV switches here, and from the female protagonist’s POV, we see the larger setting of the story as a whole—the place (Colonial India).

Emma had only been here a few weeks, but she already sensed that India had taken hold of her: loosening her tongue, widening her eyes. Even now, when her mind should have been racing with the implications of Mrs. Greeley’s words, the gentle swaying of the trees and the parrots twittering in the branches above distracted her from thought.

6) The introduction of setting transitions to an introduction of the villain, Marcus. This part of the scene also establishes his dynamic with the heroine, and the heroine’s backstory:

As to why the cows were encouraged to wander through the streets, Marcus had told her that the Hindus believed them to be some sort of deity, but he hadn’t been able to elaborate. Marcus was often impatient with details.

This party, for instance. He should have told her, given her some warning regarding the people she would meet. Within five minutes it had become clear that Delhi society was no friend to her, that news of the shipwreck and her “dishonorable” rescue had tainted local opinion. But instead he’d let her march inside like a lamb to the slaughter, encouraging her to mingle with the sharp-tongued harpies whilst he conferred with the Commissioner.

7) This leads to the first interaction between the male protag and the female protag —and the moment tying the two POVs together so the reader can connect them in a solid timeline:

With a scoff she tossed the remnants of her bordeaux into the shrubbery. “Pig swill!”

The quiet laugh startled her, and she gasped, squinting into the shadows. “Who’s there?”

A form emerged from the trees, offering her a toast from a silver flask. “Pig swill indeed,” he said, and lifted the pocket pistol to his lips for a long swallow.

She relaxed slightly at the Oxford drawl, which complemented a deliciously low, rough voice. “Pray do not relay my sentiments to our hostess, sir.” Or perhaps do, she added silently.

8) And then we see the establishment of the dynamic between the male and female protag, as well as the first real stirring of Emma’s interest in Julian:

“Are we acquainted?” she blurted out—knowing very well they were not.
He gave her a faint smile. “No.”
When he said nothing more, she arched a brow, returning rude stare for rude stare.
…
Earlier, indoors, she had found herself looking at him, thinking his face begged to be sketched. It would take only a few economical strokes—sharp, angular slashes for the cheekbones, a bold straight line for his nose, a fierce square for his jaw. Perhaps his lips would take more time. They were full and mobile, and saved his countenance from sternness.

He was very tanned. Doubt flickered through her mind, quashed as she considered his starched cravat and elegantly cut tail coat. Of course he was English. The lazy grace with which he held himself made her aware of her own unmannerly slouch.

9) Which leads to the female protag speaking with the villain, establishing both the male protag’s backstory, and the male protag’s dynamic with the villain. It also establishes some of the racial dynamics of the time period:

“That—” [Emma] stopped, understanding. “That man is Julian Sinclair?”

“One and the same.”

She turned away from him, staring blindly toward the dancers. Marcus had written to her of his second cousin, Julian Sinclair. Sinclair’s father Jeremy had married a Eurasian, a woman of mixed English and native descent, when he had thought his brother the Marquess would have the dukedom. But within a short period, the cholera had killed Jeremy, and the Marquess had died in a hunting accident. That left Jeremy’s young son as heir to the dukedom—Julian, whose blood was one-quarter native.

Now Julian Sinclair was grown, and his grandfather, the current duke, had made sure through every legal means that his grandson would follow him in the succession. But Marcus could not accept the idea that a man of mixed blood might inherit the title, when Marcus, pure-blooded English and in line after Sinclair to inherit, might himself wear the strawberry leaves so well.

10) Several paragraphs later, the larger danger of the story is introduced from the heroine’s POV. It also ties back to the hero’s motivation in the scene as seen in the beginning of the chapter (as his motivation there was to try to talk the Commissioner into taking this threat seriously):

[Marcus] slanted her a sharp glance. “I’m not in the mood for your cheek, Emmaline. And for your information, the man’s a threat to the Crown. He’s been stirring up talk of a possible insurrection, trying to goad us into abandoning Delhi. Thinks our native troops might turn on us.”

“Gracious! Might they?”

He waved a dismissal. “It’s treason to even think it. No, of course they won’t. We give them the bread their families eat in the morning. Just because of some silly nonsense at Barrackpore—”

Yes, she remembered that. It had been all the talk in Bombay upon her arrival in the port city. A sepoy, a native soldier, had turned on his British officers. He had shot two of them before he was stopped by his superiors; what had been so alarming, if she recalled correctly, was that none of the other natives had attempted to disarm him.

11) The chapter concludes with a promise of what’s to come with that larger danger:

So what, then, could account for this sudden foreboding? It slid like a shadow between [Emma] and the brightly lit room, leaving her with the odd conviction that she stood apart, watching a great panorama like those they sometimes displayed in the British Museum. This room seemed like Pompeii before the volcano eruption, or Rome before the fall: a civilization on the edge of disaster.

12) And then with a promise of what’s to come with the hero and heroine:

A shiver slid over her, and she glanced away, starting as she found herself locked in a vibrant emerald gaze: Lord Holdensmoor, coming in from the gardens. His face was expressionless as he stared at her. In defiance of both Marcus and her own gloomy reverie, she offered him a smile.

His own was rakish and swift, the effect of it on his aloof, aristocratic features dazzling to behold. And then he too was gone, his tall, broad form swallowed up by the crowd in a cloud of crushed silk and waving peacock feather fans.

Honestly, I think this is a great example because it sets up the foundation for the story— the hero and heroine, their motivations, their backstories, their dawning interest in each other, the villain, the villain’s motivations, the setting, and the larger danger faced by them all, and then it hints of things to come both in the hero/heroine’s plot, and in the world as a whole. It also does so in a manner that avoids the dreaded info dump.

All of this leads me to wonder if perhaps I should reconsider the idea of launching INSIGNIA II with the revelation of that dangerous secret, given the tremendous responsibility of a first chapter in establishing tone/ situation/hero/motivation/ conflict…

Some great links related to beginnings:

Agents Tell How to Start a Story Right

Writer J.A. Konrath on How Not to Start a Story

And thanks to Stina Lindenblatt for this link:
You Can’t Hook Readers with a Yawn

Any thoughts from you guys on what you like to see in the first chapter of a story? I’d be glad to hear any comments, or add in any links to any related articles. Thanks!