Writing Advice Unpacked: Should You Start with a Character Waking Up?
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I love learning, especially learning about writing.
Craft books & classes.
Webinars & workshops.
I’m a sucker for anything that promises to improve my understanding of the writing craft. My experience with writing education has been overwhelmingly positive—that’s why I keep coming back for more. But I have noticed a troubling trend—the propensity for well-meaning writing teachers to boil nuanced craft advice down to bite-size bumper sticker phrases.
I understand the impulse. Simplicity is a gift. But oversimplifying can be just as bad as making things too complicated.
Writing isn’t easy, and when writers get oversimplified advice, they can get stuck trying to make one-size-fits-all advice fit their unique style and project goals. Think about—a novel is hundreds of pages long—how can one pithy little statement truly capture all of the complexity involved in crafting a project of this magnitude.
That’s where this series of blog posts comes in.
For the month of February, I’m going to explore the trite phrases and heavy-handed advice that gets misused and misinterpreted in the writing community. Breaking down what writing teachers say and what they actually mean when they say it.
To start, I’m going to start with some misinterpreted & misapplied advice about—what else—beginnings.
Let’s dive in.
Here’s what they say: “Don’t start with your character waking up.”
Sounds simple enough. Except that’s not the full story.
Here’s what they actually mean: “Don’t start with a boring introduction to your character. Instead, throw us into a unique situation or problem that will intrigue readers until they get to the inciting incident.”
Yeah…that’s a little bit more complicated isn’t it? But don’t get overwhelmed yet—I’m here to help!
Let’s Unpack
Imagine you’re sitting in a writing class and hear that phrase—“Don’t start with your character waking up.”
If you’re lucky, the instructor will go into a little bit more detail and explain that you shouldn’t start with the character waking up, brushing their teeth, getting ready for work, and going about their normal day.
In other words, you don’t need to show us “a day in the life” for your protagonist. Instead, you should start at the point where the story really starts to get interesting.
And in some cases, that moment happens when the character first wakes up.
Don’t believe me? Here are a couple of examples.
First from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, arguably one of the most popular YA books of the last decade, with 42,524 five-star ratings on Amazon.
“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.”
Why it works:
This one little paragraph tells us so much about the characters, the world, and the situation. It’s no ordinary day, and even though we have no idea what “the reaping” is, we know that it is something horrible—or at least bad enough to give Prim nightmares and make her seek comfort from mom.
Readers will immediately want to know what the reaping is and how it relates to Prim and the narrator. Clearly, that opening intrigue worked. Thousands of people read the book, saw the movie, and turned Collins’ work into a global intellectual property empire.
But worry not, you don’t have to be a superstar author to make this opening work. Here’s an example from Paradox by A.J. Paquette:
This is how she wakes. There is heavy pressure on her chest and a dull weight in her legs. Her mouth feels like cotton and the air is stale. Her eyes are glued shut.
No…not glued. She thinks they might open if she tries.
She tries.
Her eyes are open now, but she can’t see any difference. The room—is it a room?—is pitch black, a solid wall of dark.
Flash!
A pulse of red light explodes in the darkness. She clamps her eyes shut again, but the brightness scours the back of her lids. She takes quick, shallow breaths as the burst of light fades.
Flash! Another takes its place, then another.
Why it works:
One word, intrigue. Sensing a theme here?
We have no idea who the main character is, no idea where they are, and no idea what is happening to them. But we want to find out. This opening chapter follows a prologue in which we find out that humanity has found a habitable planet, but they have no way to get there because the trip would take thousands of years. By connecting that information with the narrator’s circumstances, we can make an educated guess that she is on a spaceship headed to this other world, but we aren’t sure. We also don’t know what she’ll find if she is in fact headed to that other planet or what life will be like for her and others on the ship. For me, at least, that’s a compelling mystery.
What if you’re not opening on a unique, science-fiction or dystopian world?
Worry not, here’s an example from Mary Renault’s historical fiction Fire from Heaven: A Novel of Alexander the Great.
The child was wakened by the knotting of the snake’s coils about his waist. For a moment, he was frightened; it had squeezed his breathing, and given him a bad dream. But as soon as he was awake, he knew what it was, and pushed his two hands inside the coil. It shifted; the strong band under his back bunched tightly, then grew thin. The head slid up his shoulder along his neck, and he felt close to his ear the flickering tongue.
The old-fashioned nursery lamp, painted with boys bowling hoops and watching cockfights, burned low on its stand. The dusk had died in which he had fallen asleep; only a cold sharp moonlight struck down through the tall window, patching the yellow marble floor with blue. He pushed down his blanket to see the snake, and make sure it was the right one. His mother had told him that the patterned ones, with backs like woven border-work, must always be let alone. But all was well; it was the pale brown one with the grey belly, smooth as polished enamel.
Why it works:
That’s one kicker of an opening image—a small child, in bed, with a snake wrapped around him. We immediately want to know why, if this is normal, if he is in danger, and where the adults are who should be keeping snakes away from children.
We already know that this child is most likely Alexander the Great, or at least he will be someday. We’re already primed to give the author some leeway, because we want to know how he turns into the man we’ve chosen to read about. But even if we didn’t know that, we’d probably be hooked by that opening image alone.
And a fourth just in case I haven’t convinced you already:
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.
Why it works:
Two words—giant bug. Perhaps you, like me, were forced to read this book for school. Even if you don’t love Kafka’s style, you have to admit, you want to know why this man has been turned into a bug and what he’s going to do next.
The takeaway
Just because a character wakes up on your first page does not mean your opening scene is boring.
Boring actions (or lack of action) makes a scene boring.
If the character wakes up to a unique, dangerous, or intriguing situation, readers will be right there with you, eager to figure out what’s going on and what the character will do next.
A matter of structure
Clearly, you can start with your character waking up and still have a successful opening scene.
So where does this advice come from in the first place?
I think this advice is a response to misunderstandings of story structures like the hero’s journey. We’re sometimes told to start in the main character’s “normal world.” To give readers a glimpse of what the character’s life looks like before the earth shattering change-up of the inciting incident.
So what do well-meaning, rule following writers do?
They take us through a normal day in the character’s life. The show us what happens when the character gets up, wanders through their morning routine, goes to work like they always do…
And the whole thing is capital B, BORING, for readers.
Here’s the thing though—boring doesn’t happen because you showed the character waking up. You can have a boring opening if you start at the character’s job, or the grocery store, or even on the moon.
What determines a boring opening? Lack of conflict and intrigue.
Start us off with a mystery, a question, an irritating or dangerous, but not quite earth-shattering problem that sets the stage for the true inciting incident.
There are many ways to create an engaging opening, even if your main character is just waking up from getting their beauty sleep.
Not sure if your opening measures up?
I’m here to help!
Get a free sample edit of your opening chapter (up to 10 pages) 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!
