Now that I’m firmly back into writing a new draft of Toric, and have just wrapped up part 1, I wanted to discuss perhaps the most significant reason for why I needed to rework some things. Simply put, the beginning wasn’t working.

This revelation didn’t come as a surprise for me. Before I had my previous draft reviewed, one of the last things I did was redo the first ten pages, for what felt like the fifth or sixth time. Yet, when it came time for me to face the music, it was the same exact song and dance. I had to face the facts, my beginning was broken.

So, let’s take a step back and examine what the beginning of a book actually is. Your goal as an author is to capture your reader’s attention. You need to leave them wanting more. Well doesn’t that sound simple? If only things were so easy. I needed to go deeper to understand why my previous attempts at beginnings were falling flat. I needed to understand the mechanics behind what makes an effective starting point.

Before I go any further, I’d like to credit this episode from the writing excuses podcast with helping to put my thoughts in order as I planned this latest draft of my book. I’ve been a long time listener of the podcast, and I’m sure there are a number of episodes I’ve absorbed over the years about introductions, but this was one that stands out in particular.

Secondly, a quick disclaimer. There are any number of different ways to approach things like this. What works for one writer’s style may completely fall apart for another’s. I’ve attempted to make this as generic as possible, but don’t feel like this is a recipe you have to follow to the letter. These points are simple meant to get the creative juices flowing and help you to examine what might and might not be working well for you.

So, with that out of the way, let’s break down the key components of what I believe makes a good beginning into 5 concrete points.

1. Include appropriate promises to the reader
2. Ground the beginning in a compelling setting
3. Introduce interesting characters
4. Ensure there is a sense of dynamism throughout
5. Leave the reader with compelling questions that drive them to want to learn more

I’m planning to break this down into a few different posts, so I can properly dive into each of these points. In this post, I’m going to cover only point number 1. That of making promises. Promises are arguably the most important thing you need to be aware of when approaching a proper introduction.

What is a promise? In a nutshell, your promises are what you tell the reader they can expect from your book. This is both in a narrative sense and in a more meta/fourth-wall sense as well. If a romance fan picks up your book and sees page one of your book is about an intergalactic robot rebellion, well you are making a promise to them about what they can expect from the rest of your book, for better or for worse. If this is someone you want to grab, maybe because you are writing steamy robot erotica (not that I would know anything about that), make sure to make that clear right from page 1. 

You want to lead early on with what sort of book to expect. Don’t try to rug pull genres or anything else tricky like that. Perhaps if you are a well established author someday, then you might play around. But as a newer author, it’s best to be very up front about the type of book your reader has picked up.

From there we can get more specific with the nature of these promises. I have always been fascinated by heist stories, and I knew Toric would feature thief and rogue-like characters and that my climax would be a sort of heist job. It made all the sense in the world then to drop the reader into a heist in progress in chapter 1. This lets the reader see how I approach this kind of storytelling, and to see if the tone resonates with them.

Tone is a big one. I almost included it as one of the key points above, but ultimately rolled it into the promises point. Some readers may not want a heady and philosophical narrative, while others may crave it. Ensure you properly represent the different sort of tones up front as well, just like genre.

In the Writing Excuses podcast episode linked above, they discuss an author they knew who was struggling to pitch a middle grade book. The problem ended up being that the beginning was somewhat lighthearted about a goofy kid, but then the book gets into its actual story as a dark and brooding adventure novel. By doing this, the people who wanted that dark and brooding adventure never made it past your beginning, and the fans of the goofy beginning will feel somewhat betrayed as that’s not actually what the meat of the book is like. Setting the stage immediately with the proper tone is extremely important.

Lastly, you can make promises about topics within your book. Do you have magic? Find a way to show that. Is there interplanetary travel? Probably should be mentioned. Can animals talk in your world? Let us know this up front.

When I think about my previous versions of Toric’s beginning, and specifically the promises that were made but never fulfilled, and the promises that should have been made but weren’t, the reasons for my unhappiness with it start to come into focus. The old introduction told the very standard story of a group of thieves slipping into a city unnoticed to assassinate a king. It focused mostly on the characters, and had very little else in terms of promises. No wider world or plot relevant things were mentioned. It was a play by play of a scene straight out of every D&D campaign ever.

Now, that’s not necessarily a problem, if I was writing a D&D style group adventure story. But I’m not. Not really. The story I am trying to tell is one I hope that will be continent spanning, eventually. I plan to have lots of factions and races and powers pushing against each other, with my characters feeling a little like they are leaves caught in a hurricane at times. I’m planning on having a fantastical world full of interesting and eye catching magical spectacles. By focusing so narrowly on a few thieves for as many pages as I was, I wasn’t doing a good job of setting expectations for the story I wanted to tell. The first time I cut away to mysterious demi-gods plotting mysteriously, it must have been extremely jarring for a reader going in blind.

So how did I end up rethinking my promises with the beginning then? I looked at what I thought was the strongest part of my previous draft (the climactic heist job my characters end up attempting), and tried to think of ways I could get that same feeling across, in miniature, to craft an effective beginning. A teaser, if you will, for the great parts to come. I even crafted my beginning scenes in a small three act format, hoping to mirror the magic of the strong ending that it would eventually lead to.

I remember thinking in previous drafts that I needed to start simple, and slowly build up to the big reveals about the world and the conflicts facing it. But, I no longer believe that to be true. My opinion now, and the driving force behind this latest iteration of Toric’s beginning, is that I want to craft a spectacle using every tool in my toolbox that I possibly can. I want wild magic. I want incredibly powerful beings. I want to show off some of the coolest ideas I’ve had for weapons and combat. I want to blow the reader away with alien and otherworldly settings. Why hold these things in reserve? Lead with them. Show the reader that this is the kind of story you are dying to tell, and that they should be dying to read.

So, by the end of the beginning, the reader should fully understand exactly the type of book they have picked up. That doesn’t mean they understand all of the nuances of what is going on. We’ll talk more about effectively utilizing a sense of mystery and wonder to keep the reader guessing and wanting more in a future post, probably the one in this series that covers point 5 above about prompting compelling questions.

There’s a ton more I could say about promises. I think they are among the most important things you can keep in mind when crafting any one of your introductions. Whether that is the beginning of the book, or any other moment that fits the idea of an introduction (new characters, settings, subplots, etc…).

However, I’ll let this topic breathe for now. In the next post in this series I plan on covering character and setting, and once again discussing where my previous opening scenes for Toric failed, and what I have done to hopefully remedy those issues.

Until next time!