Activity

For those doing NaNoWriMo, this could be helpful for you. And even for those who aren’t.

There are a few things you need to make sure you have in your first few chapters. I’ll go into a little more detail on some of them in subsequent weeks, but for now I’ll just go into a couple of quick things you want should include.

• Plant an irresistible hook – See topic #20 for more details on this.
• Give readers a reason to care what happens – The story shouldn’t just be an entertaining tale, you’ll want to make sure the characters are relateable so that your readers will want to keep reading.
• Introduce the overall tone – If the story is going to be a dark thriller, the beginning should not open with something that is super happy and sunny.
• Introduce the setting (time and place), conflict, and theme – You do not want your readers to be wondering through the whole book about where the story is in the world (or what kind of world you have created for them) and especially if it is historical fiction, you want to make sure they have a sense at least for the era you are writing in. You also want to introduce the coming conflict–or at least hint at it–and start hinting at or introducing the theme.
• Introduce your characters – I’ll go into more detail on this next week.

What are you doing with your story to include all of these things? Is there a favorite book of yours that does this well?

@fawxofthecomics @martina @dragongeek @sleepwalkingmk @sam-kowal @christianna-hellwig  @natalie-marie @gabrielle @jenwriter17 @law0413 @libby @child-of-god @katherineh @serenity @brookewolf @millennium-m @miriam-smith @anna_b_cole @dekreel @kay @storyseeker @h-jones @storyjoy @bookcrazygirl