The first five pages are crucial
You may have heard people say the first ten pages of your book are the most important. In truth, it’s the first five. When submitting to literary agents and editors, this is where they’ll stop reading if you can’t draw them into the characters and story with well-crafted prose. Not just agents, readers who leaf through your book in a store or online have to be wowed or they won’t buy.
Authors must write for their time. In the 19th century, novels could begin with pages of description and setting. Both are important, but readers today want to be immersed in characters and action from the beginning.
Here’s how I began the first draft of the opening of Half Awakened Dreams, the second volume of The Carandir Saga trilogy. I was just getting ideas out and exploring how I wanted to present the characters and story, Here are the first four paragraphs.
The wind rarely stopped blowing fine dust across the high desert plain on the North Continent east of the Carandir border. It was caught in the brambly branches of the low thorn bushes, parched now in the summer heat. It had been two months since the flash floods of a short spring had temporarily filled the dry washes and ravines to overflowing, bringing with them a surge of life as dormant plants sprang into bloom for a few weeks in a colorful display of flowering spectacle. Insects waking from hibernation pollinated blossoms that dropped their seeds on the barren soil to wait for the rains of the next season.
Shara rode in one of the seven wagons the Dharam exiles had been given. She suckled her infant son, Dhamar, unknown and illegitimate son of Ryckair, now King of Carandir and the Western realms.
The exiles from Dharam, headed by the deposed king, Masalta, had been given nine wagons filled with grain, dried meats and barrels of water. After a year, they had nearly run out. Shara’s body was leaner than before, yet she was allotted extra provisions to produce enough milk for the baby to suckle.
The relentless wind blew against the wooden sides of the wagon as she remembered her fine rooms in the palace at Kackar when she was a princess of the Dharam and where she had first entertained then Prince Ryckair. He had arrived like the answer to a wish, a strong leader, still unsure of himself, who she could molded to oppose her father, Masalta, and give her the Dharam throne as queen. Even the frozen wastes of the Fadella camp where she had seduced Ryckair and taken his seed after her father had discovered her plot was better than the broiling desert that stretched on forever.
The first paragraph is poetic, in the way many 19th century novels begin, but who’s point of view do we see the wind through? The omniscient narrator is telling readers about it rather than having it shown through a character’s experience.
A character isn’t introduced in a scene until the second paragraph. We know Shara and her fellow Dharam are exiled to a desert, but not what she wants or what the stakes are. All readers see is the situation as it might appear in a news story.
Extraneous descriptions of the desert weather and vegetation, along with exposition detailing the past, may be interesting, but they can stop the story. These details can be bled in once the characters and their problems are established. It also took up 302 words.
Here’s the opening of the published novel.
Shara cut her red hair short in an attempt to find relief from the heat of the eastern desert on the North Continent. She rode in one of the wagons of the exiled Dharam. Her father, Masalta, still claimed the title King of Dharam, though his subjects now numbered less than two hundred former officers, ministers, courtiers and supporters.
She suckled her eight-month-old infant son, Dhamar, the unknown and illegitimate son of Ryckair Avar, now King of Carandir. Her breasts were once gorged with milk, before the provisions they were sent into exile with ran out. The infant’s name was drawn from the tongue Shara’s ancestors spoke before they adopted the Carandirian language. It meant, “The people’s leader.”
The babe began to cry. Shara took him from her breast and rocked him. “Hush, my darling. You are the heir to Carandir, both the north and south continents. You will wear the dragon-crested crown one day, my dear one, but first, you will kill your father.”
The book starts in a scene with a visual image and action. The setting is still there, yet woven into the story. Readers know immediately who is present, what they want and what the stakes are. They see the wagon and a description of Shara with enough background to understand the characters’ plight, all in the first four paragraphs and 165 words.
Authors must write for their time. In the 19th century, novels could begin with pages of description and setting. Both are important, but readers today want to be immersed in characters and action from the beginning.
Here’s how I began the first draft of the opening of Half Awakened Dreams, the second volume of The Carandir Saga trilogy. I was just getting ideas out and exploring how I wanted to present the characters and story, Here are the first four paragraphs.
The wind rarely stopped blowing fine dust across the high desert plain on the North Continent east of the Carandir border. It was caught in the brambly branches of the low thorn bushes, parched now in the summer heat. It had been two months since the flash floods of a short spring had temporarily filled the dry washes and ravines to overflowing, bringing with them a surge of life as dormant plants sprang into bloom for a few weeks in a colorful display of flowering spectacle. Insects waking from hibernation pollinated blossoms that dropped their seeds on the barren soil to wait for the rains of the next season.
Shara rode in one of the seven wagons the Dharam exiles had been given. She suckled her infant son, Dhamar, unknown and illegitimate son of Ryckair, now King of Carandir and the Western realms.
The exiles from Dharam, headed by the deposed king, Masalta, had been given nine wagons filled with grain, dried meats and barrels of water. After a year, they had nearly run out. Shara’s body was leaner than before, yet she was allotted extra provisions to produce enough milk for the baby to suckle.
The relentless wind blew against the wooden sides of the wagon as she remembered her fine rooms in the palace at Kackar when she was a princess of the Dharam and where she had first entertained then Prince Ryckair. He had arrived like the answer to a wish, a strong leader, still unsure of himself, who she could molded to oppose her father, Masalta, and give her the Dharam throne as queen. Even the frozen wastes of the Fadella camp where she had seduced Ryckair and taken his seed after her father had discovered her plot was better than the broiling desert that stretched on forever.
The first paragraph is poetic, in the way many 19th century novels begin, but who’s point of view do we see the wind through? The omniscient narrator is telling readers about it rather than having it shown through a character’s experience.
A character isn’t introduced in a scene until the second paragraph. We know Shara and her fellow Dharam are exiled to a desert, but not what she wants or what the stakes are. All readers see is the situation as it might appear in a news story.
Extraneous descriptions of the desert weather and vegetation, along with exposition detailing the past, may be interesting, but they can stop the story. These details can be bled in once the characters and their problems are established. It also took up 302 words.
Here’s the opening of the published novel.
Shara cut her red hair short in an attempt to find relief from the heat of the eastern desert on the North Continent. She rode in one of the wagons of the exiled Dharam. Her father, Masalta, still claimed the title King of Dharam, though his subjects now numbered less than two hundred former officers, ministers, courtiers and supporters.
She suckled her eight-month-old infant son, Dhamar, the unknown and illegitimate son of Ryckair Avar, now King of Carandir. Her breasts were once gorged with milk, before the provisions they were sent into exile with ran out. The infant’s name was drawn from the tongue Shara’s ancestors spoke before they adopted the Carandirian language. It meant, “The people’s leader.”
The babe began to cry. Shara took him from her breast and rocked him. “Hush, my darling. You are the heir to Carandir, both the north and south continents. You will wear the dragon-crested crown one day, my dear one, but first, you will kill your father.”
The book starts in a scene with a visual image and action. The setting is still there, yet woven into the story. Readers know immediately who is present, what they want and what the stakes are. They see the wagon and a description of Shara with enough background to understand the characters’ plight, all in the first four paragraphs and 165 words.
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