Susie Helme
Your first 100 words are the most important words in your novel. Often these are the only bits an agent/publisher will look at, before tossing you onto the Reject pile, so it’s worth making an extra effort. If you haven’t grabbed the reader’s attention by then, they will move on to pick up the next book at the bookstore or scroll to the next selection on Amazon.
Your first sentence is the most important sentence in your novel. It should comprise words which the reader has never read before. It should jump out sizzling with energy—the ‘hook’. ‘First sentences are doors to worlds’,[1] wrote Ursula Le Guin. When we open the door, it needs to smack us in the face.
Certain elements must be there in the first 100 words, ideally in the first sentence. We need to meet the Protagonist and see through their eyes their status quo, the world from which they will venture to change their life. So, a description of the world, some beautiful words on Setting, is possible, but the description had better be outstandingly gorgeous. If you want to Show us the beautiful beach, have your Protagonist walking along it.
We also need a hint as to what they want to achieve and why. Who is their enemy? What is the Conflict driving them and what do they want to do about it (which they can later discover to be a wrong path if you like)? . We should also get a hint, just a hint, as to the Protagonist’s Fatal Flaw or Core Need—what demons they are going to have to face—the ‘stakes’—in order to achieve their Big Goal.
The first 100 words should establish genre and set the tone. Will it be literary, tongue in cheek, Gothic, horror? We should know where we are and when we are. (Don’t Tell us; Show us by what she’s wearing, etc) We need to hear the Protagonist’s Voice.
Think of your first 100 words as the opening scene of a movie. First, the camera is up close, focussed on your Protagonist in the midst of their daily life. Then the camera pans out to give us a wider angled view of the world they live in, what problems are they experiencing, what do they want out of life, what people do they interact with? Then the camera pans back in close up to see perhaps some conflict, supporting characters, some more character development of your Protagonist, some Setting description, some subsequent action. Ideally, we should get a picture of the world, whatever is remarkable about that world (eg ‘the temperature hadn’t dropped below 90 degrees all summer’).
It needs to weave a blend of:
- intrigue
- information
- promise[2]
The most important of those elements being promise. The reader must be eager to read your next 100 words. Editor Alyssa Matesic calls this ‘having strong momentum’. ‘You need to propel the reader forward into the rest of the novel.’[3] Your Intro must pose some question or questions the reader wants to read on in order to answer. Will she escape from her abusive father? Will she find the treasure?
This can be achieved by your Inciting Incident, by introducing your Conflict or by ‘teasing the reader with bits and pieces of the story’.[4] You can end the paragraph in a mini-cliffhanger. If it’s a crime novel, thriller or horror story, suspense is essential, but every novel should have some. You not only want the readers to keep reading; you want them to care.
Once you get to Chapter 2, it’s ok to start exploring other characters, other things happening in your world, the ramifications of the Conflict, stick in some gorgeous Setting description, give us some backstory, etc.
Opening with your Protagonist in the midst of some action is a good device. While you’re taking them from Point A to Point B, you can gradually squeeze in some supporting characters, some backstory—widening the camera angle.
It is perhaps debatable, but the first 100 words should probably contain your Inciting Incident. What happens to disrupt your Protagonist’s status quo and set them out on an adventure of change?
Here are some other possibles:
- a strong visual image
- some scintillating dialogue
- a sentence (usually not more than one) of internal monologue or narration that says something outstanding (‘I’ve always wanted to kill my brother’)
- a peculiar question
- a peculiar character (either Protagonist or someone Protagonist is looking at)
- a famous adage or prophecy (one we’ve never heard before)
- a really good joke (one we’ve never heard before)
- some catastrophic or historic event the Protagonist is drawn into (without info-dumping)
- some remarkable characteristic of Protagonist (she has only one arm, she sees dead people)
- a very short sentence which jumps out at you (Harry Bingham’s first sentence in This Thing of Darkness is ‘Rain.’)
Basically, anything that grabs our attention and takes our viewpoint right down into the world and makes us see it through the Protagonist’s eyes.
No-nos include:
- clichés (a dark and stormy night)
- a long internal monologue before we’ve been introduced to the Protagonist
- a long passage of introspection on the meaning of life, etc.
- some tangential plot involving a minor character
- an exposition of backstory (you can work this in more organically through dialogue etc as and when the information becomes necessary)
- a long description of Setting (especially if it’s one already familiar to us)
- a history lesson
- a long description of Protagonist’s job (you can work that in later when needed)
- something boring and ordinary about Protagonist (eg that she is 32 and married)
It’s sometimes OK to break those rules if you begin with a Prologue, but that is something I need to do more thinking about, and warrants a dedicated article.
Assume the reader of Chapter 1 is an ignoramus. This is not the case. What’s really going on is that it takes the reader a little while to get stuck in. We need to see the Protagonist or Narrator before we can begin to see the world through their eyes.
I think it’s OK to introduce unanswered questions. If she can’t breathe, is it because her world has no oxygen, because she’s been running, because someone’s just punched her in the chest, what? The best writing, in my opinion, sets up these questions in the reader’s mind, keeping us eager to read the next paragraph. But you should not go on too long before answering basic character or world-setting questions.
By Chapter 2 or 3, we should be fully immersed in your world and seeing it through your Protagonist’s POV, and you can afford to widen the camera angle as much as you need to. That does not mean we want a whole chapter on the history of whaling. It still needs to specifically relate to your hero’s journey.
To summarise, within the first 100 words we need:
- protagonist
- status quo
- voice
- genre/tone
- where and when
- inciting incident
- conflict
- core need/flaw
- big goal
- question
To boil it down to 3 basics, we need:
- voice
- hook
- conflict[5]
[1] Ursula Le Guin, The Fisherwoman’s Daughter
[2] Google AI
[3] https://www.alyssamatesic.com/free-writing-resources/novel-opening-hooks
[4] ibid
[5] Amanda Saint
Bounds Green Book Writers 