Complete rewrite - first chapter

[N J Sturgess]

Hi all,

I've been tending to start a first chapter with a different set of characters in order to set the scene and tell an essential part of the story, bringing in the MCs in chapter two.

I just want to know your views on this before I go for a total rewrite based on feedback. Is it a good idea or a bad idea?

Thanks in advance,

Nick

 

[Rich.]

Hi Nick,

I've been "guilty" of this, starting off the story with a bunch of set-up characters. I was told by two agents and several other writers that this kind of thing works well on film and TV -- the pre-title set-up -- but not so well in books. Readers want characters they're going to bond with over hundreds of pages, and they want the most important right there on page one.

All opinion of course. But I'm inclined to agree.

 

[N J Sturgess]

Thanks Rich.

I felt it did work fairly well, but then I obviously have a natural bias towards what I write and it's only now that I'm questioning it do I realise it might not be right.

For my rewrite I think I'll drop it and start elsewhere.

 

[Rich.]

I felt it did work fairly well, but then I obviously have a natural bias towards what I write...

Ain't that the truth! I always think the first draft of something I write is the best thing since the invention of speech. Then I read it next morning...

 

[N J Sturgess]

I've written book two in my series.....part of the reason I want book one redone and the best it can be is that book two is in need of major surgery. Looking back at it and I wonder what I was doing at time.

 

[Barbara]

I agree with Rich.

Personally, I would always start with the protagonist (and the antagonist - although the antagonist might not be present - but I think we need to know who or what the MC will battle against even if it's just talked about).

I think the first scene is just as crucial as the climax and the ending, and therefore needs to read as such. So if you start the novel with side characters the readers might think it's their story. In my view (and I have no idea if I'm correct here) I believe that the beginning, the climax and the ending are your goal posts where you measure your main character's progression and the story arch; as in: This is who and where the MC is in life, and now the MC is going via this (climax) to end up here (ending). Starting with side characters fogs that up.

One of the main things I do, is make sure the first page introduces the reader to the MC's story quest; introduce the big question; the story question which will be answered if the readers read on. In my view, side characters would get in the way of that as they have their own journeys.

Any side characters slot in.

 

[CageSage]

I like to read a story where the main character is the first person I meet on the page, and if there's a hint of intrigue or underlying tension, all the better.

 

[Carol Rose]

Agree with the others. It’s best to start with your main character(s).

 

[N J Sturgess]

Thanks guys. I'm rewriting it now and it seems to me (biased though) a much better version. The characters seem more in depth this time and it's easier to get to know them.

 

[RK Wallis]

I agree with everyone too, I like to connect right away with who I'm taking the journey with. That's a preference, doesn't mean I won't try something else BUT if it's a different person at the start, I only read them from established authors. That's just my reading habit.

Have a look at how your favourite (current) books do things.

 

[Steve C]

As well as introduce your MC have something happen in the first two pages. Like in your first chapter perhaps your spaceship flying blind in the smog crashes into a meteor or something. If not a happening then some emotion. At my first shot at this writing lark I used about thirty pages before I got to the point. Someone here pointed out that's where I should start. It was a bit of a wrench ditching 30 pages of brilliant writing but it was the right thing to do.

 

[Robert M Derry]

When reading, I always assume that the first named character/POV is the main character and get annoyed and confused when the first character introduced isn't the protagonist/antagonist.

Start with your main characters!

 

[Geoff]

When reading, I always assume that the first named character/POV is the main character and get annoyed and confused when the first character introduced isn't the protagonist/antagonist.

The little devils have minds of their own and change them regularly.. We, as their scribblers, have to pander to their demands.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

This thread surprised me, for I’d never thought that a story should begin with the protagonist. I don’t recall seeing this practice being given as advice by writing gurus.

Of the five Cornish Detective novels I’ve written, all feature the victim in Chapter 1. Three begin with the person about to be killed, one with a sinister ex-detective listening to radio chatter about the finding of a victim and, in the first story, with a witness discovering a corpse on a beach. In all these books my protagonist appears in Chapter 2.

That was my strategy from the start: here’s the innocent victim followed by here’s their avenger.

Admittedly, my protagonist copper appears in Chapter 1 of my work in progress, the sixth story, but I felt compelled to do this, as I’d left him in a coma at the end of Book 5.

I currently have five novels on the go, reading Patrick Gale’s Take Nothing With You, Niklas Natt och Dag’s The Wolf and the Watchman, Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust, Mick Jackson’s Yuki Chan in Brontë Country and Jane Gardam’s Old Filth. All begin with the main character, though the latter starts with a prologue discussing his death.

Intrigued by this, I had a look at the first chapters of five paperbacks acquired from my local charity shop. Mark Billingham’s The Burning Girl begins with a prologue, but his protagonist appears in Chapter 1, Kerry Wilkinson’s Down Among The Dead Men starts with the protagonist, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde opens with the doctor’s lawyer, but Mr Hyde appears in Chapter 2, Tom Rob Smith’s The Farm starts with the protagonist and in the first person, while Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres has the main character describing his family’s farm of that size.

It looks like I’ve been breaking the rules again!

I wonder if it will work….

 

[Barbara]

This thread surprised me, for I’d never thought that a story should begin with the protagonist. I don’t recall seeing this practice being given as advice by writing gurus.

Of the five Cornish Detective novels I’ve written, all feature the victim in Chapter 1. Three begin with the person about to be killed, one with a sinister ex-detective listening to radio chatter about the finding of a victim and, in the first story, with a witness discovering a corpse on a beach. In all these books my protagonist appears in Chapter 2.

That was my strategy from the start: here’s the innocent victim followed by here’s their avenger.

Admittedly, my protagonist copper appears in Chapter 1 of my work in progress, the sixth story, but I felt compelled to do this, as I’d left him in a coma at the end of Book 5.

That's interesting. I wonder if crime is different. I don't know. Every now and then I watch Columbo, and they always start with the victim as well as the antagonist (I guess it could be considered the 'set up' for the protagonist). Columbo then trundles in in his usual fashion. Maybe screenwriting is different too. Like I said, interesting.

 

[Dan Payne]

It will depend on genre. What about books in which there is no defined "main character"? Ensemble dramas, genre fiction with a cast of thousands - or even just a dozen? Game of Thrones, anyone?

(Actually that's an interesting example. Because the story opens (effectively, after a prologue) with Ned Stark, people naturally thought he was the MC. While a bunch of other characters got equal billing in terms of pages, plot development etc., you could still imagine Ned being the character to defeat the Big Bad enemy at the end of the series. Well, we know how that turned out.)

I read lots of fiction that doesn't open with the MC, if there even is one. Murder mysteries are, as Paul mentions above, often a case in point. Starting with the victim and his milieu is hardly an unusual approach. Grand science fiction / space opera would be another genre that comes to mind, where the first character on the page is probably important, but arguably no more so than any of a dozen others.

 

[Rich.]

Maybe screenwriting is different too.

It most definitely is! What works visually often doesn't in words.

As for opening off the protagonist, for me it comes down to the strength of the writing. If I pick up a murder mystery and it opens with the murder, it had better be exceptionally well written or I'm going to be bored. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, this person dies. Now, where is the sleuth? When is this story going to start!"

Only my opinion, of course.

@Paul Whybrow, why don't you put up a couple of chapters in the Writing Groups and see what reaction you get?

 

[KateESal]

There certainly are some notably successful novels that don't open with the MC, it's true. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone (I often advise young readers to skip Chapter 1 because of this...) and Anne of Green Gables come to mind. Although I enjoy reading them, a modern editor would have firmly advised their authors to start the story a good few pages later than they did.

In fact, now I come to think of it, several of the Harry Potter novels don't actually begin with Harry himself... Goblet of Fire, Half-blood Prince (Harry doesn't appear until Ch.3!) and The Deathly Hallows.

Of course by this time, we are so invested in the series, we read on anyway. I'm not surprised it took a while for someone to pick up Book 1, though. I wonder how the first 700 words of Philosopher's Stone would have fared on Pop-up Subs?

 

[CageSage]

the story opens (effectively, after a prologue) with Ned Stark

I seem to recall the main story started from Bran's POV, not Ned's. That's what led me to the main thread of the story-line and how it would likely end. Half my investment in a story is trying to envisage how it will all come together as the story progresses - I was almost right with this story.
How? Reading through the stories, even with the cast of thousands, there are more scenes/chapters with the Stark family members. They, as a group, are the 'main character'. This epic story is their journey.

When is this story going to start!

that's what matters to me - if there's story that doesn't have the protag, who do I (as the reader) invest in? I'll forgive a short section with another viewpoint, but if the main character/protag isn't in there early on in my first reading of the story, what's to stop me getting too involved with the character that is first met? There's a risk in not having the main character very close to the beginning.

 

[N J Sturgess]

I think it's very easy to write it as if it's a movie and thus fall into the screenwriting trap. I've definitely done that but now I've changed it about a bit it actually flows a lot better. Or I think it does anyway.

 

[RK Wallis]

They, as a group, are the 'main character'. This epic story is their journey.

And when you consider this may be what GRRM intended, minus the prologue, he did start with character. But there was still something gripping from the very first line of his prologue.

Regardless, for me, whether we start with the character or not, I'm a tough reader, and if I'm not interested in some way in the first page (and sometimes that can be just the interesting way words are twisted together on the page), I'll stop. There are just so so so many books to read, I need to be invested in some way to keep reading. And how authors weave that magic always fascinates me.