The Indie Novella Writing Course
From Lesson 1 - Openings
This first session is about where to start when it comes both to editing and to writing a novel. Let’s begin at the beginning. Your opening pages should exemplify all the essential elements of novel writing – characterization, point of view, style, structure etc. – and within those pages, you lay out what your novel is and where the novel is going. This is what the reader will use to ask the all-important question; do I want to read on?
What makes a memorable opening?
Consider 5 novels; Julian Barnes The Sense of An Ending, Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home, David Nicholls’ Us, Celeb Azumah Nelson's Open Water, and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. All contemporary literature, all either listed for prizes or million sellers, and all with their opening chapters on Amazon with the Look Inside option.
The Sense of An Ending begins with the phrase, ‘I remember’, followed by a series of bullet points, and the paragraph ends with the phrase, ‘This isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.’ Hence the concept of the unreliable narrator is hit home while also, very briefly, laying out some information that we assume will have relevance later in the story – hooks. What it also does is allude to what the novel is. Memory and time, and the concept that what we remember may not be what actually occurred.
Eleanor Oliphant on the other hand begins with ‘when people ask me what I do I tell them I work in an office.’ The first page uses this phrase to sum up who Eleanor Oliphant is – characterization made clear right from the get-go – and the first page ends with the reader coming away knowing Eleanor is in her early thirties, has had something of an abusive past, and considers herself as quite anonymous to those around her. This effectively lays out what the novel is about – Eleanor Oliphant and her character arc.
Swimming Home initially begins with a short passage, out of time, and the contradiction of a threat verses a declaration of love – ‘When Kitty Finch took her hand off the steering wheel and told him she loved him, he no longer knew if she was threatening him or having a conversation.’ A car is swerving, an affair has taken place, and all both parties want is to go home safely, though the reader is immediately asked the question what Kitty believes home to be.
In Us, we see that the first page is also the first chapter. David Nicholls uses an alternative structure with numerous short chapters, the first lasting only a few paragraphs beginning with the narrator being awoken to begin a hunt for burglars in his home only to return to bed to find out that he had actually been woken by his wife because she wanted to ask him for a divorce.
In Open Water, the novel begins with a prologue. Prologues are common in detective or suspense novels, but here Caleb Azumah Nelson uses it as a tool to drop the reader into something, as he puts it. There is an intensity about the writing, and a little mystery. 'You two are in something.' 'You told her not to look at you.' There is something happening, or something has happened, and we are given clues and snippets of what this something is that we are in.
So, to answer the question what makes a memorable opening, you get an idea of what the book is about. After only the first page, you know what story you are in. But to be more precise, the reader experiences something of the central conflict.
Conflict
Each of our five novels introduce conflict early on. Barnes, the conflict of memory and the importance of those out of context bullet points. Levy, the beginning of an affair and what could be a car crash – figuratively and literally. Nicholls, not just an impending divorce but how the narrator chose to mishear his wife and search the house for burglars first. In Open Water we are in the midst of that something. Honeyman’s, Eleanor herself and internal conflict of who Eleanor is.
There may be no rules when it comes to writing, however bringing your reader’s attention to conflict straightaway is definitely a skill. We use these four examples to demonstrate this pattern. Sometimes we, as authors, believe we need to fill our opening pages with backstory or characterization in order to lead our reader to the conflict – the heart of our novel – but being able to introduce it during your early pages is attention grabbing and has your reader taking the next step in their journey and reading on.
A couple of words of warning, however. A significant amount of contemporary fiction introduces conflict early by essentially giving away the ending before starting at the beginning. SJ Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep is an interesting example as it takes you into the story immediately – a woman remembers going to sleep in her twenties and wakes up thirty years later with no recollection of where she is or what has happened in between. Watson uses the technique of jumping straight in at a point in time close to what is actually the end of the novel and after the opening chapters, moves to back the start. This has become a very successful literary technique as it also introduces suspense and tension early on. However, it may not be appropriate in all situations and building the tension so early and then asking the reader to essentially start again can be somewhat off-putting. Again, there are no rules in novel writing. Some readers love this approach, others don’t. We chose our four examples largely because of how quickly they introduce their story and then set about telling their story. Always do what suits your novel, but do remember, conflict in some form is important in opening your novel.
The All Important First Page
Breaking done your novel’s opening even further, we should not under emphasise the importance of the first page of your novel. Unfortunately, this could be all a potential reader ends up reading of your novel especially if you are a debut writer. This is a truly dreadful thing to say as writers, especially when they are starting out, want their audience to read the novel in its entirety to experience all the hidden gems and slow reveals. However, even as authors, we have all done it – pick up a novel in a bookshop, glance at the blurb and read the opening paragraph to see if it clicks with us. Therefore, with only a few lines at your disposal to make an impression, the first page needs to both somehow reflect you as a writer and what your novel is in just a few paragraphs. We hate to put the pressure on, but your first page should in reality be the last page you write. It is the page you save until all the rest has been tied up and you can devote attention to making sure your writing is the best it can possibly be.
So, if your first page is aimed at that Waterstones reader picking up and putting down books at will, what do they want from an opening page? Like I said, we as authors can be fans of the slow reveal however without the luxury of word of mouth or a large publicity machine to endorse our writing, we need to address the following:
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Who – we need to introduce our characters or at least the key ones.
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Voice – the first page needs to establish you as a storyteller, therefore your tone and voice needs to come across clearly and come across well.
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When and where – you are allowed to retain some subtlety, however an indication of which time period your novel is set in and the location will help the reader picture the setting. Alternative, signposting the time and place in the chapter title is also effective e.g. Berlin – 1942.
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Meaning – something in your opening page needs to hint at what your story is and what your central conflict will be.
If you feel your story doesn’t really start until beyond the first few pages, then do not be afraid to cut those pages out. A reader would ideally want to be dropped straight into the action and the best way to hook them is if something is happening on that first page. The Inciting Incident is defined as the event which incites your main character into motion, hence kicking off the story proper. This does not need to be an earth-shattering event, and could quite easily be something quite subtle such as a stare they receive from another character. The point is, the reader should feel that something has happened and their journey has begun.
Also, though the first page is where you get to exhibit your writing to a reader, do not be afraid to keep it simple. You may be a good writer but readers usually only pick up the great authors if they want to read good writing. The majority of readers will pick up your novel because they want a good story so don’t worry too much about crafting that all important first sentence. Instead pay attention to making that first page intriguing enough for the reader to turn the page.
Ask An Agent
Each week the Indie Novella Writing Course features discussion and input from literary agent and industry expert, Laetitia Rutherford (UK literary agency, Watson, Little). This week Laetitia answers our questions on the opening chapters of a novel and what stands out for her.
What are you looking for in the opening pages of a novel or submission? Is there anything in particular that really grabs you straight away?
I’ll be reading the first sentences because of the description I’ve already read, so that will drive my expectation. And also the title – the title has an influence as well. Sometimes you don’t have a title at that stage, but I love titles and they can go a long way to sell a book. Sometimes the title comes born on day-one and this is a sign of the author having a strong vision, and sometimes it takes a huge brainstorm – and I love those brainstorms – and it can really make a novel and identify it in the world. Then it’s those first lines.
We can probably think of favourite novels that have a fantastic opening line and fantastic opening page. Small Things Like These, the Booker shortlisted novel by Claire Keegan is a very short novel with such a beautiful opening that ranges over this wintry city and you get this sense of her gathering her audience around the fireside, and about three paragraphs in she names the character. You know exactly where you are. You can feel the atmosphere. You can feel the whole environment and the world building is beautiful and sensitive, and then you know who the story is about very quickly.
With more commercial works, such as with crime fiction, the prologue can be such a powerful tool. Alex Marwood writes a brilliant prologue and crime fiction can use it so cleverly. One of Alex’s novels, The Darker Secret, she wrote the whole manuscript and then just at the last minute she produced this brilliant email that was the prologue. The email got into the mystery of this thriller straight away and blew open the window on the questions that were going to drive the novel.
Very often the whole meaning of the novel, in a tentacular way, branches out from those first sentences. I reread Giovani’s Room, the James Baldwin novel, recently and the whole meaning of the novel is contained in those first sentences. With Sally Rooney’s Normal People, you’ve got a boy from here, a girl from there, and they come together and that is what will drive the novel. You can be drawn in very powerfully if you have a strong premonition that this might be one for you.
How important is it to be getting to the central conflict in the opening, straightaway? Do you mind a novel taking its time to build?
It really depends on the novel and the genre. For crime fiction, it is very common to put the crime, the body, or whatever it may be, on the first page, then the rest of the novel is unravelling, going forward or going backwards into how it all happened.
A literary novel, on the other hand, will be about many things. So it's a balance of the two, because you’re going to do something upfront which hooks the reader, but then you want it to go places as well and explore more layers, bringing more in.