The challenge for novelists is to find ways to bring to life a scene rich with sensory detail and introduce a compelling character (usually the protagonist) that readers will be intrigued by all on the first page.Ī tall order? Sure. While this was a common practice and acceptable decades ago, readers today want to be immediately immersed in the present action. Sadly, way too many novels begin slowly, with excessive narrative, summary, backstory, and explanation. Regardless of genre, all novels need to start off with a bang, and readers open to a first page with a sense of anticipation, hoping the author will deliver on the promise of an exciting beginning. While novels don’t have to have every one of these checklist elements on the first page, usually the more they do have, the stronger the opening. This week, in our examination of first pages of best-selling novels, we’re taking a look at a best-selling teen fantasy novel by Marissa Meyer called Cinder. We’re using my first-page checklist to go through each author’s first page to see why and how it effectively draws the reader quickly into the story.
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