6 Tips for Writing The First Scene of Your Book 

"These aren't full scenes because I didn't want the video to be a thousand years long." Yup, I don't think anyone would mind that.

I think I speak for the entire universe when I say we want a Day in the Life of Saya

I like the idea that a reader who skips my prologue will have a different experience reading my trilogy than others. I also ALWAYS read the prologues.

I was expecting to need a cry session after this video and I am pleasantly surprised. Thank you for editing my thing. Twas very educational. ❤

That shirt is everything

Every time you mention that most readers will skim or skip the prologue I shout "Why??" at the screen. This is not me defending prologues. But as a reader I have never once thought "A prologue? Heh, let's skip that shit."

So many good things packed in 14 minutes, you are great at getting to the point and giving useful information.

The commentary during the reading had me rolling. 🤣

people dont read prologues??? thats a thing i could have been doing this entire time??? also as someone who knows dick all about crafting stories, your patrons stories slap pretty immediately.

Yess please do this again it’s so satisfying to watch

Love the singing at the begining 🗣️🎙️🤩😁

You know... I think maybe monthly, first scene edit videos would be a huge hit. You could do them like a sweepstakes kind of deal, maybe getting patrons voting on them by their concepts? Sorry, my marketing experience kicked in there for a moment. Great video.

I love the fairy lights behind you! The background is nice

I love your shirt so much.

Great video Hannah. Time to take a flamethrower to my opening scene...

Literally the first video I've seen from you and you already made an iconic vine reference. You got yourself a new loyal subscriber. LMAO.

A wonderful and helpful tutorial, as always! Novel writers like me really need this.

this is so helpful honestly, very blunt and straightforward. Honestly considering removing my prologue cause while it does bring action and relation to the story, and like each book will have a prologue that has the same scene, maybe it's unnecesary? idk BUT THANKS FOR THIS VID has me considering my first chapter more

Top 3 was no problem for me as I'm writing my novel in the form of a journal by the main character lol. Love your videos btw!! So helpful

I super love your new haircut! It's really nice. I clearly am here for the writing videos 😋

Hey Hannah, I just came to your channel from Jenna Moreci's channel, which I love, and you hooked me in right away and your videos are super clear, interesting, and helpful. Thanks so much!

Love seeing how you tighten the prose. 👍

My story starts with me mentioning people shopping in the marketplace then the protagonist arrives with a goal

Oh, I love stories when you don't know where you are! Especially if I start reading without any prior information. Some of Kafka's short stories are like that. That being said, I don't think I will start on Kafka's level, lol. So your tips are very helpful.

Hi! Thanks so much for this video :) you’re so cool and I love your channel

This video was awesome!! P.S. you look very beautiful, hope your day is going amazing :)

Bookmarking this video for future use in thinking about opening scene writing! Definitely some interesting things to think about here. I liked how you talked about settings and characters. I think a goal I would strive for is getting the readers to either like/fall in love with the character or the setting. Ideally both would be great, but for a writer at my skill level I think going for one is best.

Loved this Hannah!! Thank you for the tips!! ❤️❤️

I just found your channel and I fricking love it

Good job, Hannah, Miah (I hope I’m spelling that right), and Rilie! 👏

Great advice for the writing but I'm surprised you would say that the witcher for the first example. I found the first episode very disorientating from the mixture of heavy exposition(I'm particularly looking at Stregabor talking with Geralt) mixed with rapid action with characters we know very little about.

I've been wanting to mold a story around a group of detectives who have to solve a series of cases in a relatively short amount of time. The ending idea being that all the cases are later revealed to be linked in some way. Is there a good story structure for a novel that might be episodic like this?

Useful things

I found the prologue in The Secret History absolutely grabbing and continued to read the book thirsting to hear more about it, which you do towards the end, so I don’t agree with the avoiding prologue advice. Alfred Hitchock said that creating tension is like having two people sit at a table with a bomb underneath and the audience can see it but the two people can’t. Prologue is an excellent way to do that although perhaps only if the tension is extreme enough? For example, it would not work so well with romance. It may be suited more to dark stories.

I love your shirt! great tips. New and beginner writer. Any tips on how to write an opening scene?

For the Witcher what did you think of the flashbacks in the way the story was told out of order in some ways because of how Gerald's mind works? I was able to follow it fine because of knowing the character through the games but my brother found it a bit hard to follow at times.

Your Drinking from a Mason Jar, that's a plus ten to your badass level. Love your work. Thank you for your work you and Jenna Moreci videos have help me a lot

How late should I start writing my story? Like the there isn't much action in the beginnig not in the typical since anyway

Very interestingly information and great writing advice, I really needed it for the opening scene for volume 1 of the paranormal horror and mystery series Mysteriarch Mythos that I'm working on writing the outline drafts for. Here's what I outlined for my storys opening scene concept that takes place when my storys main character Mercia Hawkins had just pulled into the parking lot of a retro shop called Retron Bargainers in the new suburban district known as Ferásh district for a errand told to him by both his father Thomason Thatcher and one of the teachers at the towns school called the school of Joy/WindFall school campus that's located in downtown Faron, which is Mercias hometown. What do you think of the opening scene concept for my story, is it good or does it need some work?

“She thicc and she gay” I am so glad I found this channel.

The mountains become white before winter comes.

I disagree with telling the reader everything about the magic at the beginning. If you set specific rules to your magic and stick to them, the reader can be learning things till the end. I really enjoy as a reader learning rules about magic along side characters. Even if they have no idea about the powers for the first part of the series. It feels more genuine to me, when a character's magic does something new and surprises us both. Edit: I am someone who is totally fine with seeing a new aspect of the magic, 3 books in.

Very informative video, still learning, I wonder do you do correction or edit writings?

Whenever you fall asleep and you appeared somewhere else in your dream without knowing how you got there, and you just get on with this story before you. It is basically the same idea whenever you try to start your story in writing.

The Witcher stories are amazing. They're intense and the readers are gripped by the eyeballs :)

Hey Hannah I have a question in my novel. The first time we meet my character is when she is practising for her middle school basketball tryout. There’s two weeks skip to when the sheet is announced in the school should I keep it out or should I keep her For her practising at home on her basketball court or go straight to her not making it on the team? If you could answer, that would be great.

A good example of losing a reader's trust by suddenly introducing new information= extended animes 😂 heck Bleach started peeving me lol

Maybe read "The Wheel of Time", you would hate that series.

Is that a ZZ plant? 👀

"Yall shes THICK" That made ny entire life vro

You’re my little hero. 😂😊 No, honestly how old are you? (Keep in mind, im a new subscriber)

This aggressive editing got me.. a little turned on but like in the way a cup of coffee does lol

Wasn't a fan of the Netflix Witcher. If you're a gamer you should check out the Witcher 3 it's much better.

_a child_

She looks so young

FIRST COMMENT

During the editing part of this video I wanted to jump back to see the edit again, so what did I do? I pressed Ctrl Z. Dumbass.

Stop using Microsoft, MS Office and definitely MS word. Non compatibility, racist and sexist, boycott this company.

One of my biggest pet peeves for books- is immediately introducing the STUPIDEST names you can ever possibly try to pronounce. You don't want to have the audience immediately stopping and going "how the hell do you say that?" I struggled to get into the Dune series because of that fact- throwing around fantasy terms right away for no reason- having "Gorthlob Ganbork" and nonsensical names- but then next sentence be like, "Yo Paul, get over here." is so annoying. Just give your characters normal names that won't be pissing off the audience trying to read them. I remember reading the Twilight series and not even realizing I was mispronuncing "Charlisle" I kept reading it "Car-Lee-Sul" cause who the hell is named "Charlisle" but still that's a fairly normalish name, but when people start getting into these fantasy names it just makes my eyes roll. Marten did it well- none of his names were beyond reasonable. "Eddard became Ed" Catlyn- Cat. Cersei is just a nice name. Arya- perfectly reasonable." Simple to say names avoids alienating your audience. I swear half the time I put placeholders for every name because its pointless when writing. I plan on writing my entire book with just "The Boy" because that expresses distance from the character because that character has distance with everyone else- having a name personalizes- but its the actions not the name that causes that connection to form. You can fall in love with a character named "Groot" for example and all they will say or do is the same Pokemon actions- but still fall in love if they were named "Tree" A character by any other name would still be the same character- if you have to force too much information with just a name that tells me the rest of the story is likely going to be filled with in your face symbolism and not so subtle subtext. Telling the reader what to think/feel instead of encouraging/showing them. So keep the Zanthorp Squiggles character to a mininum and if you HAVE to make distinct names keep them one or two syllables and make sure they flow.