How To Write A Strong Start For Your Novel

Summary: I revised my Civil War novel Hearts of Stone many times before selling it to Dutton Children's Books. My editor only had one major suggestion: Consider a new beginning. If you're revising a novel, considering the first scene should be one of your last steps. It's hard to know how best to begin until you're sure how the story ends. And although everyone needs to revise in a manner that works for them, writers who perfect every sentence along the way can fall in love wit...

I revised my Civil War novel Hearts of Stone many times before selling it to Dutton Children's Books. My editor only had one major suggestion: Consider a new beginning. If you're revising a novel, considering the first scene should be one of your last steps. It's hard to know how best to begin until you're sure how the story ends. And although everyone needs to revise in a manner that works for them, writers who perfect every sentence along the way can fall in love with sentences or scenes that ultimately don't best serve the story. Skilled novelists convey character, conflict, setting, and voice in the first page, paragraph, even sentence. It's a tall order! But here are eight strategies that command readers'-and editors'-interest. 1. Grab readers' attention. Katherine Paterson begins Lyddie, one of my favorite children's novels, this way: "The bear had been their undoing, though at the time they had all laughed." Or how about this, from Richard Peck's A Long Way from Chicago: "You wouldn't think we'd have to leave Chicago to see a dead body." Who wouldn't want to keep reading? 2. Begin with Action. Here's Walter Dean Myers powerful opening of Monster: "The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help." Action can also be quiet, as in Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle: "Keith, the boy in the rumpled shorts and shirt, did not know he was being watched as he entered room 215 of Mountain View Inn." 3. Arrive mid-conversation. E.B. White's Charlotte's Web begins like this: "Where's Papa going with that axe?" Lisi Harrison uses dialogue to start The Clique: "'Massie, wipe that confused look off your face,' Massie's mom, Kendra, said. 'It's really very simple-you're not going.'" Both opening lines convey conflict. 4. Begin with an omniscient passage. Occasionally, skilled authors begin high above their protagonist before zooming in and continuing with a more intimate point of view. Swallowing Stones, by Joyce McDonald, is about the repercussions a teen faces after he discharges a rifle and accidentally kills a schoolmate's father. In the book's beginning, readers travel with the fatal bullet: "There is no stopping it; the bullet rips through the hot summer haze, missing trees, houses, unsuspecting birds, coming to roost, finally, like an old homing pigeon