Craft a Stellar Opening Scene for Your Novel
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Welcome to part 10 in my series on scene writing!
If you’re just joining in, here’s a quick recap of where we’ve been: I started with an introduction to the basics of scene writing. You can read that here. Then, I worked through the eight essential elements of a scene (listed below) and some specific considerations for each one.
You can check out each of those posts at the links below:
1. Character Goals – who will be there?
2. Setting – where are they?
3. Goal – what do the characters want to accomplish?
4. Event or Situation – what is happening?
5. Action – What will each character do or say?
6. Emotion (Reaction) – How will each character react to what is done/said? Why?
7. (Incomplete) Resolution – How will the event/situation end? What will make readers want to keep reading onward?
8. Purpose – How does this scene move the story forward, develop characters, and/or add to the conflict?
Now that we’ve covered the essential elements of all scenes, we’re going to talk about three types of scenes that require some additional consideration: opening scenes, closing scenes, and battle scenes.
To start, we’re going to talk about the scenes that cause even experienced writers to cower in fear: opening scenes. Don’t worry, opening scenes require special attention, but they don’t have to be overwhelming .
Today, I’m going to walk you through the special approach that you can use to make each of the eight elements work for your opening scene.
Your first chapter doesn’t need to tell us everything about the characters or their world. Just give us enough information to make the important details clear and leave us wanting more in chapter two!
What Makes Openings Difficult?
Let’s start with what makes opening scenes so intimidating. After all, they’re just like any other scene, built out of the same essential building blocks, right?
Er…yes and no.
Yes, your opening scene will have the same basic elements as any other. But, opening scenes carry a special burden. They’re your first impression, they get the most scrutiny (from readers and editors alike), and they can make or break your sales. After all, the opening scene may be the only part of your novel that a prospective reader considers before making the decision to either buy your book or walk away from it forever. (Okay, that’s a little dramatic… but, seriously, sometimes you only get one chance to sell someone on your book).
Think about it this way: your opening scene serves an important persuasive function. It has to convince readers that your book is a worthwhile investment. It has to show them that you’ve created a world, a character, a concept worth following for 300+ pages (or 500+ pages for those writing epic fantasy). And you only have a few hundred words with which to make that argument.
Let’s get one thing straight: each scene in your novel should be crafted with care. I am not saying that you should spend all your time on the first scene and ignore the rest. You won’t build a successful writing career if readers DNF (do not finish) your books. What I am saying is that the first scene does a lot of the work to draw readers in and keep them turning pages. As such, it warrants extra care and attention. Even if you think your story’s real selling point comes in the middle or at the climax, you have to start with good stuff, otherwise readers will never get to the great stuff.
Let’s dive in!
Just FYI, the rest of this post references the eight essential scene elements I’ve described over the past two months. If you’re not sure what any of the terms mean, check out the previous posts in this series by clicking on the name of the scene element in question.
Writing the Eight Elements in Your Opening Scene
Element #1: Character
The opening scene introduces your character, warts and all, to the reader. This introduction is crucial!
You’re asking your reader to stick with this character for an entire novel, so give us a reason to follow them. That doesn’t mean your character has to be perfect—far from it. There are many ways to make a character likable or at least intriguing enough to follow. In your opening scene, think about what makes your character unique and interesting. Think about the qualities that will appeal to your target audience most. Those are the characteristics to put front and center in your opening scene.
Element #2: Setting
Establishing the setting is crucial in your opening scene. Especially when you’re writing fantasy and need to orient readers in a world unlike our own.
Now, one important caveat to this point: you do not need to introduce the entire world at once.
You might be tempted to dump every juicy little world building tidbit into your opening scene. Don’t. It can wait. Seriously.
Instead of trying to get everything across to your reader, give them the flavor of the world. Showcase some of the fantastical, futuristic, or unearthly elements in your opening scene so that readers know what they’re getting themselves into. Again, the goal is not to give them the entire buffet of weird, whacky, wonderful world building. Just give them a taste. Think of it as an appetizer. Just enough to wake up their taste buds and leave readers hungry for more.
Element #3: Character Goals
Goals in the opening scene are a little tricky. Sometimes writers are taught that they have to convey the main character’s story goal in the opening scene. Sure, you can do that. If the inciting incident happens on page one.
If the inciting incident comes later, the character’s main story goal will be introduced then. Not on the first page. And that’s completely okay!
But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. You still need to give your character a goal in the opening scene, just not the one that will drive the majority of the narrative. It can be small and simple, just make sure it’s clear and meaningful to your character.
Element #4: Event or Situation
Writers are often told to start with the character’s normal world. That’s great advice. We should see what the character’s life is like before the inciting incident so that we can comprehend the gravity of what’s lost or changed at the inciting incident.
But when trying to convey the character’s normal world, writers sometimes go a bit too far. They don’t just show us “normal” they show us mundane. They follow the character waking up, eating breakfast, scratching their bum and jetting off to work.
Here’s my take: instead of showing us the normal, uneventful world, show us a normal conflict within the character’s world.
What does that mean?
Start with a conflict or tense situation that your character thinks of as normal. It could be something they’ve been worried about for a while, something that they’ve finally resolved to accomplish, something they’ve been hoping for and are finally going to get, or a representative example of a nuisance that pops up over and over again. Start us there, let the situation unfold, and then work your way toward the inciting incident.
Element #5: Action
The action in your opening scene isn’t all that different from the action in your other scenes with one key difference: everything is new.
Every decision your character makes is giving your readers information about who they are as a person. Everything they do in the future will be measured against this first impression as either “in character” or “out of character”. So, ask yourself: are you creating the right impression for your character? Are you setting the stage for the change that you want the character to undergo? Or, are their actions giving readers a false impression that will leave confused when the character starts acting like themselves in chapter two?
Element #6: Emotion
Just like their actions, the characters’ emotions are all new to your readers in the opening scene. As you introduce their thoughts and feelings, make sure that the internal dialogue, reactions, and sensory details all point toward the correct first impression for your character.
The emotional state that you introduce now is going to be contrasted with their emotional state at the end. Make sure you’ve set the stage for the change you want your character to undergo and that you have created an accurate first impression so that your character’s future actions feel appropriate to who they are at each stage of their inner journey.
Element #7: Resolution
The incomplete resolution of each scene is a hook into the next scene. That doesn’t change. But your first scene needs to have a hook on steroids. Why?
Just think about that potential reader, standing in Barnes & Nobles, or hitting the “Look Inside” button on Amazon. They’re deciding whether or not their book budget is going toward your novel or someone else’s.
They’re deciding whether to add you to their overflowing TBR pile or to spend the evening watching Netflix instead.
You have to give them a reason to read onward. Make it compelling. Make it irresistible. Make the sale.
Element #8: Purpose
This one is simple: your opening scene’s purpose is to set up the world, introduce the characters, and sell readers on the rest of the novel. It’s a tall order. But it’s doable. Need proof?
Let’s look at an example!
Sample Scene Analysis
From The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
This is the opening scene from Stewart’s debut novel and it does a great job of developing each of the eight essential elements. Check it out below!
Father told me I’m broken.
He didn’t speak his disappointment when I answered his question. But he said it with narrowed eyes, the way he sucked on his already hollow cheeks, the way the left side of his lips twitched a little bit down, the movement almost hidden by his beard.
He taught me how to read a person’s thoughts on their face. And he knew I knew how to read those signs. So between us, it was as though he had spoken out loud.
The question: “Who was your closest childhood friend?”
My answer: “I don’t know.”
I could run as quickly as the sparrow flies, I was as skilled with an abacus as the Empire’s best accountants, and I could name all the known islands in the time it took for tea to finish steeping. But I could not remember my past before the sickness. Sometimes I thought I never would—that the girl from before was lost to me.
Father’s chair creaked as he shifted, and he let out a long breath. In his fingers he held a brass key, which he tapped on the table’s surface. “How can I trust you with my secrets? How can I trust you as my heir if you do not know who you are?”
I knew who I was. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter. I shouted the words in my head, but I didn’t say them. Unlike my father, I kept my face neutral, my thoughts hidden. Sometimes he liked it when I stood up for myself, but this was not one of those times. It never was, when it came to my past.
I did my best not to stare at the key.
“Ask me another question,” I said. The wind lashed at the shutters, bringing it with it the salt-seaweed smell of the ocean. The breeze licked at my neck, and I suppressed a shiver. I kept his gaze, hoping he saw the steel in my soul and not the fear. I could taste the scent of rebellion on the winds as clearly as I could the fish fermentation vats. It was that obvious, that thick. I could set things right, if only I had the means. If only he’d let me prove it.
Tap.
“Very well,” Father said. The teak pillars behind him framed his withered countenance, making him look more like a foreboding portrait of a man. “You’re afraid of sea serpents. Why?”
“I was bit by one when I was a child,” I said.
He studied my face. I held my breath. I stopped holding my breath. I twined my fingers together and then forced them to relax. If I were a mountain, he would be following the taproots of cloud junipers, chipping away the stone, searching for the white, chalky core.
And finding it.
“Don’t lie to me, girl,” he snarled. “Don’t make guesses. You may be my flesh and blood, but I can name my foster son to the crown. It doesn’t have to be you.”
So, how does this scene address the eight elements. Let’s take a closer look at each one:
Character:
What a great introduction to both Lin and her father. Stewart’s narration is genius. I mean, we learn SOOO much about Lin in just two pages. From just this sample, we know that Lin is driven, she wants to prove to her father that she isn’t broken, she is willing to rebel against him but also smart enough and self-controlled enough to know when doing so will work against her goals.
We also know that her father is harsh and unforgiving. We know that he demands excellence and that he isn’t afraid to let Lin know when she’s failed. We know that there is a tight bond here—after all, Lin does care what her father thinks and he takes the time to work with her—but there is also extreme tension here. It’s a combustive mixture and the conflict is about to explode!
Setting:
We don’t get a ton of information about the setting here, but we get just enough to make us curious about the rest of the story world. We know that Lin’s father is Emporer of a place called Imperial Island. We know that he needs to choose an heir and that he’s holding that title over his daughter’s head. He can choose his foster-son or his daughter which tells us that gender isn’t an issue in this world and they aren’t particularly strict about bloodlines either. That’s about it.
We don’t get much description of the world in these pages, and that’s okay, we don’t need to know more at this point. We’ll learn everything else about this world as it becomes important!
Goal:
Lin wants to prove to her father that’s she’s not broken by answering questions about her past. That’s it. We don’t know why and we don’t know what kind of sickness caused this problem, but we know it matters to her and we know what the stakes are if she fails—she could lose her spot as heir. At this point, we don’t know if this is her overarching story goal. It could be or couldn’t be. Right now, it doesn’t matter because the goal stands on its own as important, meaningful, and tense.
Event or Situation:
This scene is simple. A father and daughter sit at a table and talk. What makes the scene dramatic is the meaning behind their conversation. There’s a lesson to be learned here: action doesn’t have to be brash and loud. Nothing needs to explode or break. It just has to mean something to the characters, or in this case, everything to the characters.
Action:
The action in this scene is primarily dialogue. Lin tries to answer her father’s questions and tries to hide the fact that she is lying to him by controlling her facial expressions. On the other side, Lin’s father communicates his displeasure nonverbally and tries to test Lin’s memory to see if she has regained some knowledge of her past. Again, the actions are simple, but the subtext and stakes make them more meaningful than they would be otherwise.
Emotion (Reaction):
Lin’s interiority is beautifully crafted here. We get to know who Lin as a person AND we get to see how she truly feels about her father. Lines like “hoping he saw the steel in my soul and not the fear” do a great job evoking Lin’s strength and show us how she is truly feeling beneath that tough exterior—terrified that she will never be good enough for her father.
(Incomplete) Resolution:
I didn’t give you the full scene, and I don’t want to give any spoilers here, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say that yes, this scene hooks us into the rest of the story with some gnarly magic and with the protagonist getting caught in a potentially dangerous situation. [But don’t take my word for it. You can check it out for yourself by grabbing the book from Amazon or Bookshop.org].
Purpose:
Stewart has hit every one of these goals. She’s introduced a bit of the world, started to develop the characters and shown us their goals in the context of a dramatic scene. Most important, she’s created intrigue and conflict that hooks us into the rest of the story. I, at least, was drawn in and couldn’t stop until I’d read the entire book!
There you have it, an approach to hitting the eight essential elements of a scene in your novel’s opening.
This was a long post, but your opening scene has a lot of work to do. You won’t go wrong if you put some extra time & effort into your novel’s first scene.
When you publish a book, you’re asking for your readers’ time, money, and attention. Make sure your opening scene shows them exactly why you’re worth the investment!
Thanks for joining me! I hope you come back next week—I’ll be talking about closing scenes.
In the meantime, happy writing!
Resources / References
Still not sure if your opening scene is pulling its weight?
Olivia can help!
Learn more about my developmental editing & revision coaching services!
P.S. Did you know I offer FREE sample edits to all prospective customers? If you’re curious to see how your opening scene stacks up—you can start the sample edit process by clicking here!
FYI: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. For more information click here and thanks, as always, for your support!
