We’ve all read them: books that stupify the senses for the first few pages or — ack! — the first few chapters. Like the literary troopers we are, we wade through those mind-dulling pages, meanwhile muttering incantations, It will get better . . . Any minute now something wonderful will happen . . .

If even the pros fall prey to such yawningly slow beginnings, how much more susceptible is the novice writer? Very, as it turns out. Often novice writers begin their stories thinking that they have to tell us everything up front in order for us to understand what’s going on. I’ve read middle grade manuscripts in which twenty or more characters are introduced in the first chapter alone, not because those characters were necessary to the chapter, mind you, but because the writer was under a “can’t-leave-anything-out” evil spell. The irony is, these tell-all openings are less intelligible than if the writer used a “need-to-know” approach.

So where should you begin your story? The general rule of thumb is to begin your story at the moment your character experiences a dramatic life change:

• On the day the girl’s father mysteriously disappears.
• On the day the high school valedictorian opens the letter from Harvard, declining him admittance.
• On the morning of the fire.

You would be surprised at how little information is really needed before the story is off and running. The Newbery Honor book, HATCHET, by Gary Paulsen, makes a great example. Chapter one opens with the teen character, Brian, the sole passenger aboard a single engine plane bound out of New York. Already we know something unusual is happening. Where is Brian going and why? Soon we discover his parents have divorced; it was messy and there is a secret involved. Paulsen doesn’t divulge the secret, because keeping secrets creates suspense. So we keep reading . . . We soon learn that Brian is headed to his father’s home in Canada for the summer. We’re flying over northern Canada now and, even if we hadn’t read the back cover, we have a gnawing sense that something bad is about to happen . . . Paulsen uses the escalating suspense as an opportunity to feed us tidbits of information. When we have enough information to understand Brian’s situation, the endless custody battles, to feel sympathy for Brian as a character, sure enough, the pilot has a heart attack and we are, henceforth, riveted . . . in it together. We crash-land in a freezing cold lake with a dead pilot beside us. It’s a fight for survival and no one knows we’re here . . .

Note that Paulsen begins the story on the day everything changes for Brian — the day the plane crashes, leaving him stranded in the wilderness. Note also that Paulsen frames his beginning– who his character is, why we need to care about the character, what the character is doing and why — within the context of a scene. We learn all this while Brian is flying, while a cold certainty comes over us that something bad is about to happen. Present scene, overlayed with backstory, creates a perfect balance for a perfect beginning. Once the plane has crashed, Paulsen continues to weave backstory into the present survival story.

Now, just so we’re clear, the beginning didn’t have to work this way. Paulsen could have thrown you immediately into the action: the plane crashes. The challenge for Paulsen would then become how to introduce Brian and make us care. It can be done, but it’s tough. Or, Paulsen could have had just the plane ride, followed by the crash, followed by the backstory. All or nothing: action / inaction. The challenge for Paulsen would then be to avoid stupification. To pace the story appropriately so that it had a compelling balance of action, thoughts, dialogue, and narration. So while the beginning didn’t have to begin the way it did, it was nevertheless perfectly written, a suspenseful scene interwoven with need-to-know info, all quickly leading to the one event that changes Brian’s life forever.

Hope that was helpful. Let me know if there are other beginnings you admire.

Next week? Story questions and hooks. Stay tuned . . .