And So It Begins

I bet Moses spent more time recording Genesis Chapter 1 than any other chapter from Genesis to Deuteronomy.  And he had Divine help.  If you find yourself struggling with your first chapter, you’re in good company.

Because you may not get the help Moses did, I’ll give you a hand. Listed below are the nine essential ingredients for an outstanding first chapter. But don't worry about them. In fact, ignore them entirely until after you’ve written your first five chapters or so. By then you’ll have a better sense of how to go back and fill in the good parts.

If you tried to do it at once without the experience gained from writing your subsequent chapters, you’d be like 12-year-old Jimmy, who decided what his entire life would be like before dating Tabatha. Or you’d be like the poor soul who turned to stone after glancing at Medusa, thinking she was Tabitha. You don’t want to be like those guys.

Instead, write your story with your mind free from the badgering of a thousand would-be mentors and let your tale see the world until it has matured beyond its adolescence. Then, with some wisdom of the ages in your calloused hands, can you revise your first chapter with a better-seeing eye.

Let your subconscious have a turn

You believe you’re the master of yourself and of everything around you. However, according to your subconscious, you're an aimless wanderer desperately trying not to screw up everything you touch.

If your story truly comes from your soul, you may find that your first chapter already contains most of the nine elements, if not all of them. You must write from within yourself, where your deepest anxieties, anticipation, and urgency reside alongside powerful evil characters lurking untethered.

I’m not suggesting that you write about yourself.  I’m suggesting that you create new plots and characters driven by what you believe and feel when your emotional armor is removed, and your deepest parts are exposed to the world.

Nine elements for an outstanding Chapter 1

With all this in mind, make sure that ultimately all nine elements listed below are found somewhere in your first chapter:

1. Introduce a character.

2. Include emotions.

3. Include genuine urgency.

4. Have a character make a decision.

5. Provide a visually discernible scene.

6. Include internal conflict.

7. Show opposition.

8. Provide a micro-quick backstory.

9. Establish a theme/story that relates to the story title.

What about the first chapters of famous novels

Grab some of your favorite novels from your bookshelf and read through their first chapter. Enscribe lightly in pencil a small number 1 through 9 in the margins where their first chapter meets each of the nine requirements. I believe you'll find that they'll fare well.

Let's try this with the first chapter of the novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I hope she won't sue me for using small bits from her novel for educational purposes, especially since I'm complimenting her work.

The first chapter of The Hunger Games consists of about 5,200 words over 18 pages. But we'll use only the first 5 pages (numbered 3 through 7 in the text). That should be enough. I'll indicate the element number (1 through 9), then provide the related text. Notice that Ms. Collins includes the nine elements nearly in order, which I find quite interesting:

1: Introduce a Character

When I wake up... (page 3)

My real name is Katniss... (page 7)

2,3: Include emotions and urgency

She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping. (page 3)

The first five pages of Chapter 1 provide little emotion or urgency. This isn't because they're not there. It's because the narrator, Katniss, has learned to bottle up her feelings all her life. By not voicing her emotions, she's screaming them out for all to hear and feel.

The edgy sentence, "This is the day of the reaping," is expressed as if it's the first day of school. The reader doesn't yet know what "the reaping" is, except that it's probably the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.

4: Have a character make a decision

The last thing [a cat] I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. (page 3)

A seemingly small decision, but it sheds light on Katniss' character and foreshadows her care for her sister, Prim, throughout the story.

5: Provide a visually discernible scene

Separating the Meadow from the woods, in fact, enclosing all of District 12, is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire loops... [The district was] usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces. But today the black cinder streets are empty. Shutters on the squat gray houses are closed. (page 4)

6: Include internal Conflict

Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal, and poaching carries the severest of penalties, more people would risk it if they had weapons. (page 5)

"Internal conflict" is when a character wants two things at the same time but cannot have both and must choose between them. Again, Katniss tells her story in an unemotional manner because that's how she was raised. Even though Katniss does not express much emotion in the first 5 pages, readers feel it anyway.

7,8,2: Show opposition/micro-quick backstory/emotion

But most are not bold enough to venture out with just a knife. My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others that I keep well hidden in the woods, carefully wrapped in waterproof covers. ...My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run. (page 5)

It's clear that venturing out into the woods is both dangerous and illegal. This is expressed with few words. Katniss also provides some history about her father, and his making hunting bows and how he perished, giving insight into how Katniss became skilled at archery.

9: Establish a theme relatable to story title

The Hunger Games are mentioned by name on pages 6 and 7. The first five pages of Chapter 1 show that the people in District 12 are oppressed and that something called The Hunger Games looms over them. Readers don't yet know much about the Capitol or the Hunger Games, yet they grow anxious because the characters dread them.

In one paragraph

If you thought the first five pages of The Hunger Games was impressive, Ray Bradbury practically includes all nine elements in the first paragraph of his short story, The Pedestrian:

To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o’clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do. He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of sidewalks in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar.

Why would he venture out at night when it's cold? Why is the town quiet? Why do the buckling sidewalks have grassy seams?

And so it begins

Your story will fare well as you ensure that the nine elements are included in your first chapter.

I could provide more insight, but you're itching to get back to your first chapter to make sure it includes what your readers want. Giving them what they want is the most important part of writing fiction.

To quote the late Zig Ziglar,

"You can have everything in life you want if you'll just help

enough other people get what they want."

-- Zig Ziglar