Just as important as knowing how to begin your novel is knowing what not to do.

No one reads more prospective novel beginnings than literary agents. They’re the ones on the front lines sifting through inboxes and slush piles. And they’re the ones who can tell us which Chapter 1 approaches are overused and cliche, as well as which techniques just plain don’t work. Below, find some feedback from experienced literary agents on what they hate to see in the first pages of a writer’s submission. Avoid these problems and tighten your submission!

FALSE BEGINNINGS

“I don’t like it when the main character dies at the end of chapter one. Why did I just spend all this time with this character? I feel cheated.”
– Cricket Freeman, The August Agency

“I dislike opening scenes that you think are real, then the protagonist wakes up. It makes me feel cheated.”
– Laurie McLean, Fuse Literary

My guest columns usually discuss the business of writing, but today I’d like to try a thought on writing craft, specifically, a guideline on how to start your novel.

One of the most common reasons why agents and editors stop reading sample pages is that the story starts too slowly. Gone are the days when a book could “get good on page 12.” We also can no longer compare our writing to classic works or even books written 30 years ago that started slow and found marketplace success. Today’s novels — especially debut novels — must grab readers from the first page, the first paragraph, even the first sentence.

Despite the fact that the importance of starting strong appears to be well known by most aspiring writers, people still have a hard time with it. I was freelance editing a client’s first 15 pages last year and was dismayed to see that all 15 pages simply described a mystical woman walking across the desert heading for task at a faraway location. There was no question that the writer had talent — this was good, descriptive writing. But it was also boring as hell. 15 pages of essentially nothing happening. That is kind of an extreme example, sure, but this problem — starting too slowly — also exists in smaller, more subtle forms.