The terrible first chapter

I have previously mentioned I am on version number three of my first chapter. By that I mean that not only did I start again from scratch, I was also telling a different story in a different place. I invented a whole new scene.

I was trying to get to the action faster.

Obviously I haven’t done a very good job at that, since my second version started with suspense, but then nothing happened, and I still can’t get the words right for version number three.

I read once that your first chapter has to be brilliant because you need to stop the reader from putting the book down (and never picking it up again). But then the next chapters need to be brilliant too so that the reader carries on reading. I have my next chapters, they're ok (I think). So what’s so bloody hard about the first chapter? Why am I struggling so much?

Sometimes I feel like one of those parents in the movies who tell their kids, ‘Why are you so difficult? We have no problems with your brothers and sisters!’

What it is, I think, is that a great deal is expected of them. A bit like the eldest in a family: they come first so everything relies on them.

This is a list that I compiled from various sources on the internet. Unfortunately I did this a very long time ago so I don’t have the sources anymore. It shows all the things a first chapter is meant to do. Perhaps once you have read it you’ll feel a bit sympathetic towards me.

An effective first chapter needs to:

- introduce a story-worthy problem

- establish the rules of the story

- introduce key themes

- introduce graphic imagery

- have action

- intrigue the reader with a character

- give the reader a puzzle to solve, something to worry about

- make your reader ask themselves questions – but not for too long

- make us care about your character

Just that, eh? Oh well, better get cracking then.

I once read a chapter that tried very hard to tick all the boxes of the traditional ‘hook your reader’ guidebook. The opening sentence showed someone about to get shot. It doesn’t get more tantalizing than that. A fight ensued and the person didn’t die – in fact they were the protagonist and narrator. The chapter then tried to make us care about the character by telling us what he had just gone through. It had action. It had references to period clothing (graphic imagery). It was trying to intrigue us with this injured highwayman who was actually a girl. It had characters with intriguing pasts.

It was dull as dishwater.

Sisyphus and his... mash?

I pushed through, and the book tried its best to keep me hanging, but 100 pages in I still found it boring and I gave up. I couldn’t explain why and still to this day all I can say is this: I didn’t care about the characters. If they died, well… so what? But why didn’t I care?

I started analyzing the first chapters of books I loved or thought had effective beginnings and took some notes, but I still find the first chapter a Sisyphus-like ordeal: I try, I try and then when I think I’m there it rolls back down again.

Then I read books like Robin Hobb’s, which are brilliant but hardly have fast-paced action-packed beginnings, and I wonder: maybe a strong beginning isn’t all it’s cracked-up to be. After all, I first gave up on Harry Potter, only to be obsessed with it five years later. I stopped after two chapters and had to start again for His Dark Materials, also on my favourites list. And let’s not talk about Assassin’s Apprentice: it took me weeks to get through the first 50 pages.

But each time the book came with a recommendation, and so I didn’t give up. Perhaps books are like people: sometimes the good ones deserve a chance to be better known. In this case, I should give my first chapter a break and just let it make some friends.

And that’s why you’re here, right?