It’s a fact of modern life that most literature is treated more or less like a throwaway commodity. Of course, people value literary experiences – a great novel can change the way people see the world. But, these days, they make their decision about the value of a novel increasingly quickly.
The publishing industry has been incredibly good at creating opportunities for people to start reading a book on impulse. It requires no investment of money to read a few pages using the preview feature on Amazon, and if you’re a subscriber to Kindle Unlimited, you can read as much as you like without paying anything on top of your monthly subscription. This kind of thing has made us voracious starters of books. But it has also made us ruthless abandoners. As a result, it is more important than ever for authors to grip their reader from the word go.
To grip a reader at the start of a novel you need to think on three levels: first sentence, first paragraph and first chapter. Below I’ve provided tick lists for each level, trying to make them as relevant as possible for all genres of popular fiction.
Sentence
- The first sentence should launch straight into action that is appropriate for the genre.
- It should not be dialogue or description.
- It should have an emotion associated with it that relates to the emotional journey you will be giving the reader – that could be fear for a thriller or loneliness for a romance, for example.
Paragraph
- The first paragraph should not be about waking up or walking into a room or other such inconsequential transition moments.
- It should introduce the main character.
- It should set the tone of voice – this is a big part of what readers get hooked by.
- It should evoke a problem or challenge that is appropriate for the genre, although it doesn’t have to be the one that’s going to preoccupy the main character long term.
- If it doesn’t directly relate to the challenge that will preoccupy the main character long term, it could foreshadow it.
Chapter