11 Terrible Ways to Start a Novel 

"Don't introduce too many characters at once." Gandalf, Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Thorin, and Bilbo walked into a bar.

I am going to break all those rules and succeed.

In a way it is kinda sad that attention spans have gotten so bad the simple unfolding of a story gradually is seen as the writer wasting the reader's time

The alarm clock opening I think is writers not realizing they’re writing a novel instead of a TV show, where in 30 seconds of screen time you can get some decent visual world building in and go from there, as a viewer can clearly see where the story’s world differs from the real world. Writing it out, it ends up being Chapter 1: Hero’s Personal Hygine where we learn more about the protagonist’s colon function than the plot

Turgeniev started his books with side characters. Always. Tension was created by atmosphere 'It was a sunny day in the outskirts of the very pretty village X...' and a hunch of a conflict - 'He wanted tot talk to her, but didn't dare to'. The main story and the main characters start somewhere in chapter 2. You will not feel cheated, you will feel friendly carried away in the world of the story, before something important happens: the arrival of a stranger. It's classical, old fashioned 19th century storytelling, but by no means boring.

"Don't introduce 10 characters and don't front-load..." (proceeds to read Hyperion)

I could not agree less with that first point. Yes, not all stories need several chapters of set up but some do. Allowing the reader to spend at least SOME time getting to know the world and the characters before the adventure starts is what allows the reader to care about the adventure right at the start.

the story i'm making begins with a dream sequence and the main character waking up- but that's because dreams in my story are actually re-caps of events from an alternate universe, making them "real" in that world so i guess the best way to incorporate dream sequences is to actually have them be relevant to the plot

I agree except that many mysteries start with a focus on the victim and their POV, before bringing in the sleuth to solve the murder. Such as The DaVinci Code for a famous example.

The modern view of writing is to dump your character into the story, then go from there. There are advantages to that, but tension and conflict are not the same thing. Conflict is about obstructed goals. Your MC wants something, the antagonist wants something mutually exclusive. Voilá, conflict. Tension is the sense that something is going to happen and it may not be good. Hitchcock's bomb under the table shows tension, but no conflict. What I see a lot is people thinking they need physical conflict at the beginning. This isn't bad, I have a few books that begin with fight scenes, but it could be non physical conflict: the MC wanting breakfast and someone has eaten the last of the cereal, or some kind of rejection of the MC. Beginning with tension is different. There is some kind of limit set, and the character, knowingly or not, needs to accomplish something within that limit. I also have a problem with the 'don't start in the ordinary world' advice I see a lot. Unless the character has no attachment to the world they live in, we need to get at least a hint of their world before the inciting incident etc breaks it. If we jump into the new world right away, we don't get the sense of loss from the character that the familiar is broken. Imagine Harry Potter starting with him walking into Hogwarts. This doesn't mean that there is no conflict or tension in the familiar world. It shouldn't be boring, or there isn't much reason for the MC to want to stay there. So create your throughline here. What question will the character answer by the end of the book? How can you first ask that question in the start. I have a character in my newest draft who makes up challenges for himself, but they are physical challenges, he doesn't pay attention to the personal drama happening around him until he starts losing people and he realizes that's he's a bit of a jerk. Cue quest to become less of a jerk etc. It needs lots of work, but that quest to define himself and pay attention to others instead of his own needs will echo through the story in a variety of ways.

Nothing wrong with starting the book off in a dream sequence as long as it's done correctly. A great example is if you have a character who can see the future in their dreams, and if you open the story with the line, "John dreams of (blah blah blah)" you're setting up the world you're building, in addition to foreshadowing things that may or may not come.

Good video. I liked the idea that writers have to ‘find their beginning’. Sorting those most relevant details from those which can come later is some advice I can really use

I also hate dream sequences, because they NEVER look like any real dream anyone has. They are always super obviously symbolic, the character always wales up with a start before any real revelation, and they never go to their friends and tell them “I had the weirdest dream “!

This video was so helpful- I subscribed ✅ Thank you for giving it to us straight, no chaser. Love "getting right to the point" advice. And yay for the, "little dance" 👯‍♀️💃🏻🙌

my new favorite youtuber to get writing advice from, legit getting inspo whilst watching this, thank you sm! you will be seeing me more in the future, once again tysm for being super helpful, --- also love your sense of humor, makes me laugh ---

Love your videos. Appreciate you sharing the recurrent missteps, so I can avoid them. Or look for them.

Another great video! Thanks for the tips!

Excellent! All very smart points. Thanks

I definitely think the start the conflict immediately advice depends on the genre. I think in the case of horror your audiance is buying into the idea of build up and it benefits showing normalcy first for a contrast later. For sci fi and fantasy where you have these complicated or weird worlds, it benefits to show what normal looks like in this world to ground the reader, thats not advocating description or lore dumping at the start but i think conflict often requires some set up. If you immediately have two armies fighting with no stakes, thats also bad.

Such a good video - quick, succinct, has personality

Great summary. Like the visuals. :)

Love your videos! I feel like examples would've been great this time. Especially for something like point 7 or 11.

Cool advice, I'm about halfway through my novel, and it makes me glad to know I'm not making these mistakes.

I'm glad I found this channel.

So helpful, thank you!

Using this as a check list against stories I have already written. So far I'm not terrible. Thank you!

This is going to be that comment. Don't hate me. "Points of view." Plural on the "point." Thank you for your consideration.

I have a bunch of books with the same pov but the focus character changes fairly often. The fact that it's third person doesn't mean it has to be the same person all the time.

From someone who is 9 books into Wheel of Time (a 14 book series), the journey is far more rewarding than the destination. I love organic and natural development in characters, worldbuilding, and story. The journey makes the destination that much more enjoyable and even bittersweet. It’s sad we can’t get beyond the first chapter of a book.

Your advice on 3 things to do when introducing a character changed a lot on my first draft and helped me avoid almost all of these terrible ways to start my novel. So thank you very much. I will now go back and start my fourth revision on my prologue/chapter 1 soon. Wish me luck.

Great list. Crisply communicated. Thank you.

This advice is better than 90% of advice I get on RU-vid. Solid and to the point.

I definitely used to do #1 a lot. And the little dance was nice. ;)

Great advice. Appreciated

Great video! My MC wakes up to a rooster's crow, but "it was the cry of a phoenix that rang in his ears." I don't show the nightmare, but I use it to show the MC lives in a world where he is powerless.

Given number 8 you've clearly never read The Sound and the Fury before. The switch to the omniscient Dilsey section at the end is genius and feels so rewarding after making it through the first three sections.

I introduce five characters in my first chapter, but quickly kill most of them off.

I've been writing for a long time and one thing I have always had a hard time dealing with in how to enter a scene in a new chapter when it is action oriented or fast and set in a new location. You have to balance all of it and keep pace. So what you are saying here is actually good advice for the start and each separate start afterwards.

Best youtube writing channel. Love this video. I don't do any of these as I am a simple person so like a simple opening.

Hello Your videos are fascinating. Thank you so much ! Could you address the subject of storytelling tenses? Present tense, past tense, their advantages and disadvantages? Thank you so much ! Lionel, from Paris - France

How about we start with an alarm clock not going off? Or like Groundhog Day, the same alarm clock, every day.

Thanks for the advice. Something I’ve been trying to navigate is characterization. It’s something I’m struggling with and there isn’t a whole lot of information or videos on this topic that cuts to the point. Any suggestions?

What if the character always oversleeps and he finally bought an alarm clock? That's an unusual day!

I think we know the beginning when the ending snaps into place.

I think you can do a swap. 95% of My book is from first person on the mc. But when it does swap another character (an entire chapter on them) I use third person limited

I hate this modern trend that Im supposed to "hook readers attention" like I have to submit myself to their will. Its manipulative. I like what Gass did in The Tunnel, where he made the first few chapters way harder than the rest of the book to weed off the weak

Two words: THANK YOU 🙏

Thanks Bookfox

I would make a distinction between confusing a reader and presenting an intriguing mystery.

One of the books with various POVs in it that I love is Wonder by R. J. Palacio. They’re broken up into segments so it flows nicely, and it allows us to understand the character when we see them one way through someone’s eyes, and then see them through their own eyes.

I personally like, as a beginner, to sometimes think with a summary as a type of just in case for me not to forget important things. Plus, one of my favorite novels, Heaven Official's Blessing, starts with a summary of the life of the protagonist. And in the end of the first chapter we already know how much he f-ed up in life. So i love that personally.

You actually have a really good background behind you for your thumbnails, especially since it’s kind of dark/dim on either side of you. I bet if you just edited over your normal video as a thumbnail image you’d get more views. Very HD camera

... Aren't rules 7 and 11 kind of directly contradictory?

Just today a friend told me my opening chapter was ambiguous and not that interesting. Then I saw this video. Uncanny timing. I have some rewrites to do now, but some solid ideas here. Thanks.

Yas! 👏 too many characters on the page is so confusing 😅

Another excellent video. I'm checking off each point you make against my in-progress SF novel. Thank you. A question for you about POV. One of my protagonists (maybe a "good guy"... maybe not) is a self-aware AI that runs an alien civilization. This Ai is pretty-much omniscient due to being linked up all surveillance and all electronic devices. These links includes the advanced AI brain implants that most of the aliens have (and use as personal assistants). Since each implant communicates directly with its host (essentially telepathically) this even allows the AI to know many of the actual thoughts of individuals with implants. So, my SF novel's POV is 3rd person omniscient (the boss AI) with many forays into knowing the thoughts of both implants and individual characters. My question is, first, what are your thoughts on this, and second, how would you guard against reader confusion? Also, is there any damned way I could hire you as a beta reader when the novel is finished? Because, based on your videos I seen, I'd make book on any suggestions you had. FYI, the novel category is YA. Target FK is 10.7. At 80% completion, projected word-count is 185,000-200,000. Structure is two-plot (framing/framed, cf: Princess Bride). The two plot lines progress in alternating parts, and merge in the quickie Epilogue, which bookends the short "alien raid" Prologue. The title is The Voyage of The New Beginning (A Cautionary Tale). It's a simple tale of mass alien abduction, space pirates, spy-balls, out-of-control pets, robots with personal agendas, and the unintended consequences for everyone involved... including that boss AI.

Its funny how a lot of the best novels break a decent portion of these rules lol

Many great books break these rules

I always underestimate my writing. It's just never enough, and that enabled me to see the cracks right below the surface. Because there's just something about writing that's more than just sewing words and paragraphs together. You know there's always has to be deep levels of philosophy that people kinda stick around with. There's moral lessons to be dissected, there's dialogues that need analyzing, that sort of thing. I just don't have enough concentration to really grasp the concept that I intend to explore in my works. It's more than just explaining it in a way. Don't know how else to describe it.

So, I am writing a book (first one) and the third paragraph is just explaining the situation of why the main characters need to deal with monsters and stuff. It is meant for worldbuilding, but is also necessary to understand the context. Should I delete it for it being an info dump or keep it to explain stuff? Also, I am planning on switching perspectives half way through the book, saying that the first part has this narrator, and the second has this one. Is that a good idea? I would write in one perspective if I could, but it would make more sense for the first narrator to narrate, since the second is not in a lot of conflict with ‘the villain’ of the story. That being said, I have a hard time writing in the first narrator’s perspective and really wanna get the readers hooked onto the second one. Should I stick with the plan, or change it up?

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="97">1:37</a> Emily Rodda did do that in her book Rowan of Rin, but she did it well. Sure she introduced like, 8 characters in the first chapter but they're only in it for the first or second chapter.

But harry potter started with calm introduction of the dursley family.

I did like that little dance there.

Anna Karenina was introduced like 12 chapters into her own book…

How about the James Bond opening? Where you introduce your protagonist in an exciting scene that accurately reflects what much of the book will be like, but is a self contained mini-story that doesn't start the actual plot... I like the dream sequence in the beginning of Darkness Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane. But he's really clear that the protagonist is dreaming, and the dream sets up a bunch of stuff, both back story and character wise. I also like the surreal dream sequences that Alan Moore put into swamp thing, foreshadowing stuff in clever absurd surreal metaphors. Couple of the writers did that with Hellblazer too, because John Constantine suffered from chronic nightmares and had glimpses of precognition in them. Neal Stephensson breaks a lot of conventional rules. The first chapter of The Diamond Age introduces a person who looks like a protagonist in a cheezy cyberpunk story, only to kill him off and go on to the real protagonist in chapter 2. But that might be a bit like the rule "Don't start your story with a hundred page infodump; unless you'r Neal Stephensson." Also, I remember a friend who was really annoyed that this cool edgy protagonist was a red herring. Cheers

"Danger," "tension," "mistery": why are those the only essential values to a novel? Hundreds of novel do not have that. This is not good advice. Not even advice: it is prejudice. Not all novels have to be the first step for a TV show.

No. 4 almost made me put down The Way of Kings . . . it was literally 30 pages in before Kaladin showed up, and even then the scene was shown from the perspective of some random soldier who immediately got killed. And then all of a sudden Kaladin was a slave and I was finally hooked. I'm glad I kept reading but still. Good grief.

In my current work, the only one of these that I'm breaking (knowingly, anyway) is introducing too many characters. I've got 5 in my first chapter, but, knowing this could be a bit much, I've tried to "separate" them so to speak. One is the protagonist. The next is the main love interest, who is introduced in a bit of a cold open "flash-forward" sequence and isn't seen for the rest of the chapter. It then snaps to the present and introduces the protagonist's aunt. After a few pages it introduces the last two of what I consider the main cast, but they're largely just named here and not really explored until the next chapter. If necessary, I could probably move the last two into chapter 2 instead. I'm not sure, though.

Yeah I had the first problem but in reverse🤣🤣. My editor asked me to start 3 chapters before the first chapter.😅

mean… harry potter doesn't open wih him, he appears at the end of chapter 1

I’m still writing my rough draft, but I was inspired by Gaunt’s ghosts traitor general novel, where the character feels conflicted at where he’s working in a dystopian city and the first chapter ends with a tragedy.

Dang. I think I started my novel too early 🫣

this rules are applying and on mystery/ suspense/ detectives books genre (like Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books, i mean)?

I’m starting my novel and intend to have multiple POVs? It’s a mystery, and not all relevant characters have enough info/perspective to accurately portray the entire story. That’s why I have a variety of peoples viewpoints showing essentially who knows what. Ideally this will flip back to the main characters pov every other chapter. Thoughts?

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="364">6:04</a> I see you too are also very much educated in reading classics like Kafka

I'm just writing fanfiction for characters or ships that have not enough fan fiction content for them. I wanna write a good structure that I myself like reading

My first novel does begin with a dream sequence. However, I did this intentionally because my main character is suffering from what she thinks is a sleep disorder. it turns out to be more than that. My book is a fantasy story and in the first few chapters her dreams are a big part of the conflict she is facing. so do you still think it is bad?

Genuine question, I'm starting my book with a dream (I know, I know, hear me out) but the dream is from a character with the gift of prophecy, and the character is a prophetess. This dream starts the whole conflict of the book and ultimately the prophecy comes true and the dream is fulfilled. Is it ok to start the story that way?

I'm more curious where the 25% comes from.

Straight to the point and clear. That how every writing video should be.

I can't tell you how many times I have put a book down because there are too many names to remember (or names that are annoyingly weird to pronounce) and how many times I put a book down because there wasn't much happening.

It’s a good list for a certain type of book. I’m writing a more lotr style book with a huge focus on realism, history, and world building. The story itself isn’t very centrally focused and I don’t really have a protagonist. There is no one “main character”. There are a few, and each of them are connected in a large complicated plot that involves politics, military strategy, and historical context. As such, I thought the best way to open my book would be like the Hobbit. Present the information like you’re talking to someone. Not like a newspaper, or info dumping, but more like talking about what’s happening, and then explaining whatever the reader wouldn’t understand briefly, and then going back to the exposition. It requires patience and a good attention span to truly find interesting, but that’s the audience I’m trying to cater to. It’s not overwhelming or boring, but it’s still a lot of necessary information presented in the most entertaining way I could think of.

I can't find the video on good ways to start a novel mentioned at the end

The dream one is tricky. Kung Fu Panda started with a dream. But it was a dream about him bring what he dreams to be. Perhaps a story starting in this way, showing the character's greatest desire is not bad. Also, LOTR the two towers, the movie started with a dream. What do you think?

While these are good pieces of advice, I think they’re not really for everyone. There is more than one way to hook a reader than to drop them right into the inciting incident. In fact dropping me right into the middle of something with little explanation turns me off as much spending too much time putting the inciting incident off can. How long the prelude needs to last really depends on the story being told and the ability of the writer to create a world that a reader wants to know better.

I read many books, that deosn't started with the main-event, that started the story of. I think more important is to hook the reader with something. It deos not need to serve anything later, if the hook is telling you something about the character or the world, that defines youre story, by example. There is a huge difference between the hook in the first chapter and the inciting incident. It can be the same, but deos not have to be.

When I begin, only the main character or the villain is introduced. The protagonist or the antagonist. Their 3 most important interests are then described. The rest is after. Next, you determine the mentality of your characters - fixed or growth based. Then, introduce the secondary main character. Now you have the story line. Write it first, keep it simple.

I'm writing a novel which starts with the protagonist waking up to their alarm clock, knocking it off the nightstand and then telekinetically catching it before it hit the floor. Which kinda works since they didn't have telekinesis yesterday and the setting is the mundane world of today where no one is supposed to have telekinesis.

What about the beginning of A Game of Thrones (the novel, not the TV series)? The first chapter introduced a bunch of characters that are all dead by the end of the chapter. It does however introduce the main villain of the series.

I enjoy reading dream sequences at the beginning of novels...if they provide foreshadowing for the plot or character insight.

Dang, and I thought I was being clever and creating mystery by having my character wake up from a nightmare to start the story. In my defense, I don't show the nightmare. I just show the character waking up in the middle of the night, and then the nightmare recurs later on. Should I revise that?

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="117">1:57</a> What about with supernatural horror stories?

keeping the read curious is good but don't confuse them since I'm writing a Middle grade right now questions like why the boy doesn't want anyone to recognize him while wandering around the fair what's so important about the booth he was looking for and why he went alone to the fair are good but if i would have started it by him walking to the fair it would be boring

Why did I think you meant that the book radio silence started badly

Tho sometimes you can do random characters, aka, Game of Thrones (tho it introduces the true Villians, The Others)

I started one of my stories with the main character waking up, but it was to be as boring as possible. He then got up, had a coffee, put on clothes, etc, everything was bland and ordinary, and himself was very obviously not interesting. And then he goes out to work, and there's flying cars and three suns, but here he is, boring and ordinary in the middle of a sci fi setting. It's a bit like in H2G2 (wich I read after, it wasn't an inspiration at first)

“Or they wake up and they’re a cockroach.” Metamorphosis had to be one of the most boring books I had ever read.

I'm not saying that you're wrong about starting your story with the main character, because I think what you mean is keep it simple and don't waste the reader's time. But there are ways to make it work, it just has to convincingly tie back to the main character. Like Tolstoy in both of his most iconic novels introduces main characters through the POV of side characters, "War and Peace" does it through a party hostess in which we get her perspective on Pier and "Anna Karinina" introduces Levin through Anna's sleazy brother in law. Lots of books do this but are sure to relate it back to the main character. "Ivanhoe" introduces his lover, friends, and father first so that the plot twist of his grand entrance hits harder; "The Stand" introduces the plague victims that essentially caused the death of the world in the inciting incident; "The Way of Kings" shows us Kaladin through the eyes of a wide eyed youth to give him this grand aura, so when it hard cuts to him as a slave and we get his POV it hooks us and makes us wonder why. So, what I think you mean is that we should make sure all of this is relevant and don't waste the readers time with plot and world building details that have no affect on the main character, right?

'The night was dark and stormy...'

If there are more than 4 main characters in a story, I wish authors would just take a couple pages at the front of the book with a paragraph for each character for their description because it is too easy to get mixed up and then lose interest in a story with too many characters introduced in a short time, especially when multiple of them have the same vocabulary and mannerisms. I also like names that are easy to pronounce and that sound distinctly different for each character.