1st chapter - excitment or protag?

tko · Nov 3, 2011

I have a little dilemma. I have two possible opening chapters in my suspense/thriller novel.

In the 1st variation, I have a relatively exciting opening in which a computer programmer is killed because he has a mysterious source of income. Exciting, gets the story moving, and manages to get in some hints about what the threat/conflict will be. However, my main protag is nowhere in sight.

In the 2nd variation, I have my protag introduced right away. But it isn't very exciting. He's an ex-MIT student who's being called back to MIT to investigate a mysterious computer virus. Hard to make chapter really exciting - computer virus's don't kill people, and this virus isn't very scary at the start.

I could put either chapter first. Each chapter takes place an ocean apart geographically. Anyone reading the 1st two chapters should understand the tie in. The order probably isn't even that important to someone who's committed to read the entire novel.

But, the 1st chapter might be critical when sending out queries to agents. So, which one do I pick - introduce the protag, or introduce the threat?

(if I was writing a new novel I'd probably work on doing both. But with this novel it's a little late for that. Lesson learned: write you 1st chapter first, and write it like it's going to sell your novel.)

ironmikezero · Nov 3, 2011

Personally, I like the first version better; I find it more engaging.

However, I'd recommend providing some sort of bridging link to your yet to be introduced protag - like unanswered calls made by the decedent to the protag mere moments before his death (cell phone records). This engenders curiosity and speculation re: any relationship between the dead programmer and your MC.

Your subsequent chapter can introduce your protag as he is contacted and interviewed by the investigation. The distance (ocean apart) wouldn't be much of an impediment; collateral leads/requests in homicide cases are common examples of international cooperation. Some rise to Interpol involvement.

knightrunnermat · Nov 3, 2011

ironmikezero said:
Personally, I like the first version better; I find it more engaging.

However, I'd recommend providing some sort of bridging link to your yet to be introduced protag - like unanswered calls made by the decedent to the protag mere moments before his death (cell phone records). This engenders curiosity and speculation re: any relationship between the dead programmer and your MC.

Your subsequent chapter can introduce your protag as he is contacted and interviewed by the investigation. The distance (ocean apart) wouldn't be much of an impediment; collateral leads/requests in homicide cases are common examples of international cooperation. Some rise to Interpol involvement.

I like this, it ties it in beautifully. These are little things that I need to incorporate into my writing too.

JanDarby · Nov 3, 2011

It doesn't have to be exciting; it has to be interesting, it has to give us a character to care about.

The problem with starting with someone other than the protagonist has to do with the reader bonding with the character. Generally, you want her to bond with the POV character, but if you then immediately kill the person the reader has bonded with, that's a problem too. So you maintain a little distance, and then the reader either dislikes the character or doesn't bond with the character, and if that happens, then the reader won't ever get past the first scene. In the other enc of the spectrum, if the reader DOES like that pov character, as soon as the character dies or the reader realizes the story is about someone else, then basically you've got to start over to hook that reader from scratch (really, worse than from scratch, because the reader is already irritated with you, because you've inadvertently misled her into caring about the wrong person), to convince the reader to care about your protagonist.

That said, it's not uncommon for mysteries to start with the victim. Personally, I dislike it, and an author has to be really, really, really extra-brilliant to get me past that opening. There's a CS Harris book (the first St. Cyr mystery) that starts with the victim, and I was really annoyed at the end of the scene when I realized the POV character was about to die, and I liked that character, but I knew going in that the character wasn't the protagonist (the victim was female, and the books are the "Sebastian St. Cyr" series, so I knew the protagonist was someeone else, so I could withold my bonding a little bit). I'm not sure I'd have been so forgiving otherwise.

For me, it's just too risky. It's a little like prologues -- regardless of any other reasons for/against, you're basically writing TWO beginnings, which means you've got TWO chances to lose the reader, and you've got to have TWO really compelling "first" chapters, instead of just one.

I think it's a mistake to think that if a reader is grabbed by one character, then she's going to keep reading after that character is dead. You'll need to have just as strong a beginning for the protagonist as you did for the victim, and it almost has to be STRONGER if it's not the first scene, because you've set the bar so high.

It's all about the character. Not exciting, so much as a character we can care about.

ETA: I should say that I'm glad I got past the beginning of the Harris book, because I think the series is wonderful. But I could easily have missed out on it, because I was irritated by the exciting, but non-protagonist first scene.

Logan! · Nov 3, 2011

ironmikezero said:
Personally, I like the first version better; I find it more engaging.

Agreed.

thothguard51 · Nov 3, 2011

Having read your first version, I like that one for a starter chapter, compared to the second version you suggest here.

Maybe, make the second version the 2nd chapter and make sure to give the readers something to link to in the first version. This way, while chapter 2 may not be as exciting, the readers have some knowledge the MC does not have and they will be waiting for it to catch up to him/her...

Does that make sense? Is that workable? Just a thought...

cbenoi1 · Nov 3, 2011

This is one of those questions whose answer falls into the 'it depends' bin.

My suggestion is to ask your beta readers for feedback on this question. They will have read the whole thing and can better provide you with hints as to which on works best and why.

-cb

grizzletoad1 · Nov 4, 2011

Had/having the same dilema. I started out with a chapter that seemed to be bland. I spiced it up by switching the opening to my victim. This put the protag out of the picture until Chapter 2. In an effort to put the protag in the lead where he belonged, I wound up building a Prologue around him. This after having a Prologue built to draw the reader in. You know what happened? I'm right back where I started, with my protag waking up with a hangover! And that's where my ms is going to begin. Guess you should always go with your first instinct. That's what your gut is telling you is the right way to start YOUR story. It may not be the most spectacular or exciting, but if the story is sound and the character inspires interest, a less action filled opening could work just as well as one with guns blazing, blood flying everywhere and characters getting offed just when the reader is getting to know them.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 5, 2011

I'm greedy. I want both.

cwfgal · Nov 6, 2011

I'm contrary, I want neither.

That comment was meant to be funny but it's true in a way. Is there a way you can use chapter 3 as your opening? Some scene that brings dead person (who can die offstage...we don't necessarily need to see it happen) and protag together? Is protag getting called to MIT relevant to the plot beyond providing some background info about him and his knowledge/skills? If it's just to establish his background and/or skill set, that can be done in other ways and woven in throughout.

If you don't open with chapter 3, then I think the choice might depend on the type of book you are writing. If it's a cozy mystery, I'd open with the protag. If it's suspense/thriller, the death scene might be better.

Beth

AlienGirl · Nov 6, 2011

I'd start with the more exciting one and tie in the protagonist in a way that shows his importance to the story to be bigger than the person who dies, but that's just my personal preference. I don't really look for anyone to bond with within the first few chapters, but I am looking to be drawn in and hooked with an interesting premise.

RobJ · Nov 6, 2011

Seconding JanDarby. It doesn't have to be exciting, it has to be interesting.

Either version could be written so that it's interesting.

MarkEsq · Nov 6, 2011

AlienGirl said:
I'd start with the more exciting one and tie in the protagonist in a way that shows his importance to the story to be bigger than the person who dies, but that's just my personal preference. I don't really look for anyone to bond with within the first few chapters, but I am looking to be drawn in and hooked with an interesting premise.

Feedback from agents and editors leads me to believe that this is what will get your story into print.

tko · Nov 6, 2011

interesting stuff

Obviously there is no right or wrong. And you know, if you're an established writer you can get away with putting your protag in the 3rd or later chapters because your readers (and agent) trust you.

I've decided to keep my "exciting" chapter up front, but move my protag's entrance to the 2nd chapter, and then put in some strong hints about how they're linked. Seems a standard thriller opening.

Again, most likely the agent only reads one chapter. A thriller w/o a major thrill in the first chapter may be at a disadvantage for a first time author.

tko · Nov 6, 2011

mystery as a character

It seems to me that in a good suspense story the mystery is it's own character. In the first chapter you might kill off a flesh and blood person, but hopefully the mystery lives on, to continue and grow. Make the reader bond to the mystery, not to the dead person.

Still, I agree. The best opening is going to be a combination of your protag, a mystery/dilemma, and something exciting. I didn't realize that when I started writing. I actually wrote the opening chapter last, because how can you write an effective opening when you don't know what your book is about yet? I didn't realize how I was boxing myself in.

In a way it's a shame. I lot of thriller/suspense novels are following standard opening formulas, because there are only so many way to kick off a thriller in a way the grabs the agents eye. You can either be totally brilliant writer and do your own thing, or you can be a decent writer and follow the standard genre openings. Once you start with a standard opening, the rest of the novel tends to fall into place as well (the best way to stay out of a rut is to never enter it.)

Many of my favorite mystery/suspense/thrillers (and my reader goes way back) probably never would have gotten published in this day and age.

JanDarby said:
That said, it's not uncommon for mysteries to start with the victim. Personally, I dislike it, and an author has to be really, really, really extra-brilliant to get me past that opening. There's a CS Harris book (the first St. Cyr mystery) that starts with the victim, and I was really annoyed at the end of the scene when I realized the POV character was about to die, and I liked that character, but I knew going in that the character wasn't the protagonist (the victim was female, and the books are the "Sebastian St. Cyr" series, so I knew the protagonist was someeone else, so I could withold my bonding a little bit). I'm not sure I'd have been so forgiving otherwise.

Jamesaritchie · Nov 6, 2011

"Interesting" is a word without much meaning. Sure, an opening has to be interesting, but what does this mean? I find reading about weapons interesting, but if I'm reading the opening of a novel I don't want to read about a weapon unless I'm also reading about story, and a character I give a damn about.

Story and character interest readers. Pretty much everything else, interesting or not, will make them look for another book.

mirandashell · Nov 6, 2011

If it's a thriller, I'd open with the thrills.

The agent will only read the first couple of chapters when you query. Start with the stuff that shows off how good you are at writing the thrills.

Bufty · Nov 7, 2011

grizzletoad1 said:
Had/having the same dilema. I started out with a chapter that seemed to be bland. I spiced it up by switching the opening to my victim. This put the protag out of the picture until Chapter 2. In an effort to put the protag in the lead where he belonged, I wound up building a Prologue around him. This after having a Prologue built to draw the reader in. You know what happened? I'm right back where I started, with my protag waking up with a hangover! And that's where my ms is going to begin. Guess you should always go with your first instinct. That's what your gut is telling you is the right way to start YOUR story. It may not be the most spectacular or exciting, but if the story is sound and the character inspires interest, a less action filled opening could work just as well as one with guns blazing, blood flying everywhere and characters getting offed just when the reader is getting to know them.

Gut instinct isn't worth diddly squat unless it's based on a knowledgable assessment of the risks/benefits in using each of the available options.

No matter what you open with the reader has to find the reason to turn the page. A reason you put there. The fact that there is something written on the next page is not enough.

From what I read in the opening paragraphs or couple of pages of a thriller I have to be so absorbed that I want to turn the page to see what is going to happen next. I have to have some sort of empathetic connection with the character and sense that change has or is just about to wreck his day and send him and me off on a thrill ride for a few hundred pages.

There is only so much background and set-up that a reader is going to tolerate before tossing a book aside.

Everything we dwell upon in the opening is assumed by the reader to be relevant and of some importance. If we drown the reader in background and set-up and the opening leads nowhere, we are dead.

quicklime · Nov 8, 2011

JanDarby said:
It doesn't have to be exciting; it has to be interesting, it has to give us a character to care about.

.

this.

you CAN start with a bomb or axe-murder or anything else, it has certainly been done, but you don't have to, and sometimes people will resent it as a gratuitous and ham-fisted way to manipulate the audience. Depends how well you do it.

On the flip side, a character intro minus the explosion doesn't have to be boring, either. Read the first twenty pages of Watchers, It (starts with a killing, but he takes his time getting to the monster in the drain), etc. and you will see many examples where folks don't start right off with a bang. they start off with character. In Watchers, we get a sad-sack hiking and looking to recapture some of the happiness of his youth. Then (it is a Koontz book) we get a dog. THEN we get something scary in the sage.

Read some old pulps, or The Kite Runner, or The Lovely Bones. The Kite Runner and Lovely Bones both start out with heavy foreshadowing, but little happens for some time after the initial foreshadowing......instead we get to meet the character. In On Writing King steals the opener from some old pulp that begins

"It was eight-thirty and I was already at work. I was clean-shaven, dressed to the nines, and sober--and I didn't care who knew. I had a paycheck to collect."

I never read the book, and probably butchered the opener re-quoting from memory, but nothing is happening or set up to happen for some time. At the same time, we are getting a pretty solid, and interesting, introduction to the character, from what he says and what he doesn't say.

you don't need things to explode by page ten, but you (ideally) need to grab your reader by the end of paragraph 1. the explosion is just one possible way to do it.

DeaK · Nov 8, 2011

I like your opening with the kill-off character. The only reservation I have is that I'm worried the bad guys in chapter one are not be The Big Bad.

It's much harder to intro an ominous mystery than to intro the flesh and blood antagonist (in every suspense or thriller novel I've read that use your structure, the bad guy in chapter one has been THE antagonist). The virus in your novel, at this stage, without bad guys behind it just isn't scary – and probably can't be presented as such, either.

In short, I guess I'm just not sure. If the bad guys from chapter one come back to try to kill your protagonist, then great! (I think you can make them seem even more evil, though. Right now they just come across as greedy-evil). That said, from all I've read about your novel, I'm pretty sure that the virus is the true Big Bad, and that means your first chapter introduces neither the antag or the protag. Not good.

How's that for a non-answer?

tko · Nov 8, 2011

it's a good answer

Your thoughts aren't that different from mine. I just went off and wrote a novel, not thinking about getting it started. As I've said before, it's hard to make a virus interesting at the start. Sure, by the end the world is falling, but what can a virus do in the first chapter? Steal your granny's savings?

So maybe I've ended up w/a cliche 1st chapter that doesn't really go anyone, and that's why I'm having problems getting partial requests.

Next time the opening is going to be integrated into the novel from the beginning. So is the query. Live and learn.

DeaK said:
I like your opening with the kill-off character. The only reservation I have is that I'm worried the bad guys in chapter one are not be The Big Bad.

It's much harder to intro an ominous mystery than to intro the flesh and blood antagonist (in every suspense or thriller novel I've read that use your structure, the bad guy in chapter one has been THE antagonist). The virus in your novel, at this stage, without bad guys behind it just isn't scary – and probably can't be presented as such, either.

In short, I guess I'm just not sure. If the bad guys from chapter one come back to try to kill your protagonist, then great! (I think you can make them seem even more evil, though. Right now they just come across as greedy-evil). That said, from all I've read about your novel, I'm pretty sure that the virus is the true Big Bad, and that means your first chapter introduces neither the antag or the protag. Not good.

How's that for a non-answer?

wonderactivist · Nov 9, 2011

Hey tko, I'll throw out some thoughts. I'm no expert, but enjoyed reading this thread and learned from everyone's ideas.

I remember reading your opening a while back. It was well-written. Seems like you could weave in some tantalizing tidbits about the stakes of that virus like you did the details of the car. Specific. I remember asking for someone to be named and nobody else seemed to think it necessary--but maybe what I needed was something to latch onto and didn't know how to express it.

You brought up DaVinci Code. I loved the prologue, in fact I just pulled it up on Amazon to reread it (under "Surprise me!") The situation has some things in common with your opening: a man being killed because of a secret. There's a simple trail of italics through that prologue that latches the hook into my brain {sorry if I missed a couple parts, just hand-typing from the sample):

I am still alive.
How could he possibly know that?
The others?
It cannot be.
If I die, the truth will be lost forever.
I must pass on the secret.
An unbroken chain of knowledge.
I must find a way...

He gives up just enough information in the prologue that we have to find out his secret.

Your protagonist also has a secret, the virus, but at this moment of death he isn't telling us much about it. He gives them only a vague threat, but maybe he could think in detail about what the virus will do--not a lot--just enough that we have to figure out how to stop it.

But there's one more thing: nobility. The victim in Brown's book is striving to be noble--what about your victim? Is there anything noble in there? If he's just a wimp, why? Can he give us some reason to latch onto?

I'm sure you'll find the right opening.

Best wishes,

Lucie

tko · Nov 9, 2011

good thoughts

My first version of the chapter was terrible because I gave the reader so little to go on.

My current one is better because I give the reader a lot more. Now I introduce a mystery (the virus) and a threat (the wife.) Better but not great.

But I agree. I tend to play it too tight to the vest. Readers aren't mind readers. They need real facts, real meat, something to sustain them. Each time I look at it I see ways to strengthen the hook, give the reader more facts, increase the threat. The character dies, but the mystery, the hook you've set up, goes hon.

You've given me some good ideas in this direction, thanks.

wonderactivist said:
Hey tko, I'll throw out some thoughts. I'm no expert, but enjoyed reading this thread and learned from everyone's ideas.

I remember reading your opening a while back. It was well-written. Seems like you could weave in some tantalizing tidbits about the stakes of that virus like you did the details of the car. Specific. I remember asking for someone to be named and nobody else seemed to think it necessary--but maybe what I needed was something to latch onto and didn't know how to express it.

You brought up DaVinci Code. I loved the prologue, in fact I just pulled it up on Amazon to reread it (under "Surprise me!") The situation has some things in common with your opening: a man being killed because of a secret. There's a simple trail of italics through that prologue that latches the hook into my brain {sorry if I missed a couple parts, just hand-typing from the sample):

I am still alive.
How could he possibly know that?
The others?
It cannot be.
If I die, the truth will be lost forever.
I must pass on the secret.
An unbroken chain of knowledge.
I must find a way...

He gives up just enough information in the prologue that we have to find out his secret.

Your protagonist also has a secret, the virus, but at this moment of death he isn't telling us much about it. He gives them only a vague threat, but maybe he could think in detail about what the virus will do--not a lot--just enough that we have to figure out how to stop it.

But there's one more thing: nobility. The victim in Brown's book is striving to be noble--what about your victim? Is there anything noble in there? If he's just a wimp, why? Can he give us some reason to latch onto?

I'm sure you'll find the right opening.

Best wishes,

Lucie

brianjanuary · Nov 15, 2011

No matter how you construct your first chapter, you need a strong hook to engage the reader. I can't tell you how many books I've put down quickly just because the first chapter is all description or doesn't drag me into the story, etc.

Brian J
http://amzn.com/B005WM0HN6
anuary

1st chapter - excitment or protag?

tko

just thanks fore everything

ironmikezero

practical experience, FTW

knightrunnermat

JanDarby

Logan!

thothguard51

A Gentleman of a refined age...

cbenoi1

grizzletoad1

Plodding around into things.

Jamesaritchie

cwfgal

On the rocks

AlienGirl

RobJ

MarkEsq

Clever title pending.

tko

just thanks fore everything

tko

just thanks fore everything

Jamesaritchie

mirandashell

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

DeaK

tko

just thanks fore everything

wonderactivist

tko

just thanks fore everything

brianjanuary