How to Start Your Novel: What The Movie TRUE LIES Taught Me

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.

This past summer, I sat with two literary agents on a “Literary Idol” panel at a writers’ conference, where people read their first page and we would raise our hands when we would “stop reading” the submission, as if we were considering a real page one in the slush pile. I specifically remember two participants and the agents’ similar feedback to both. One story started out with a man stewing in his apartment about something. At the end of the (fairly boring) first page, there was a great, jarring line about how the man set down his gun on the windowsill — a gun that we did not know he was holding. The two panel agents both told the writer that this mention of the gun should be the book’s first line. The second memorable submission had the same issue. A fantastic potential first line — something like “I was forced to grow up at such an early age that I have no true memories of my childhood” — was pushed too far down in the text.

These great opening lines were buried — all because of the fact that writers simply do not start their book with the best, carefully chosen words and hook us immediately. Then it hit me: Holy cow. Maybe examining the start of James Cameron’s TRUE LIES could help writers understand a simple fix to their problem. I discussed my thoughts then and there on the panel, and want to share them with you here.

How TRUE LIES Figures Into All This

This is how the 1994 film TRUE LIES begins (I’ll be a bit broad): It’s dark. We see tall dark trees at night. So it’s not just dark — it’s nighttime, outdoors. More specifically: an empty wintery landscape. White snow everywhere. In the distance is the only real thing to see: a big mansion — a grand chateau with warm yellow lights seen from a distance through the windows. The moonlight reflects off the white surface (snow) everywhere. Closer to the mansion now: There is an iron gate that seems to run alongside a river or lake. That water is frozen over. Patrolling the snowy grounds near this gate are guards — but a closer look reveals that the guards have machine guns, and some of them walk with snarling guard dogs. Away from the guards along the ice, the frozen top of the water cracks in a tiny spot as a very big knife cuts through the ice from below. From the tiny hole in the ice pops the head of a secret agent in black scuba gear.

This is how the movies get to start a story. This is not how a novel should get started. A movie can go outside-in. A novel should go inside-out.

If this story were a novel and you wanted to get the audience’s attention, what would your first line or two be? I’d guess something like, “Harry’s knife cut through the ice from below. His eyeline ascended above the frozen water, and he could make out guard dogs in the distance even before the fog in his scuba mask cleared…” From there, once the audience is hooked, slowly move outward, engineering the beats of the movie in reverse. The whole start to your novel could look like this:
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1. Harry’s knife cuts through the ice / intrigue.
2. Harry secretly emerges from the freezing water / danger.
3. Mention of the guard dogs / more danger.
4. Mention of the men with automatic weapons / more danger.
5. Mention of the chateau (Harry’s desired destination).
6. Mention of the nighttime.
7. Mention of the snow, the reflection, the darkness, the beauty of an European countryside in the winter, etc. Perhaps here you would even mention that the location is actually Switzerland.

That’s how you take an opening and make it go inside-out. If you begin your novel with 2 paragraphs describing the trees and night and moonlight, then spend another 2 paragraphs describing the chateau and the yellow light and the winterscape, then the reading editor or agent will never even get to the semi-good part (the guys with guns) let alone the true “hook” line about the man/agent cutting through the frozen river on a secret mission.

I hope that my watching of James Cameron’s movies a million times over through high school & college has helped you somewhat. (Sidenote: ALIENS is awesome. It holds up so well.) Don’t forget to comment below for a chance to win a book! Happy holiday season, all!

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Attend a writers conference in 2025:

• Feb. 7-8, 2025: San Diego Writing Workshop (Online)
• Feb. 22, 2025 Las Vegas Writing Workshop
• March 1, 2025: South Carolina Writing Workshop
• March 7, 2025: Carolina Writing Workshop (Charlotte)
• March 7-8, 2025: Texas Writing Workshop (Online)
• March 8, 2025: Carolina Writing Workshop (Raleigh)
• March 14, 2025: Alabama Writing Workshop
• March 15, 2025: Atlanta Writing Workshop
• March 15, 2025: Writing Workshop of South Florida (Fort Lauderdale)
• March 22, 2025: Oklahoma Writing Workshop
• March 22, 2025: Chesapeake Writing Workshop
• March 22, 2025: Colorado Writing Workshop
• March 28, 2025: Connecticut Writing Workshop
• March 29, 2025: Boston Writing Workshop
• April 4-5, 2025: Ohio Writing Workshop (Online)
• April 5, 2025: Toronto Writing Workshop
• April 5, 2025: Minnesota Writing Workshop
• April 11, 2025: Florida Writing Workshop (Orlando)
• April 11, 2025: Sacramento Writing Workshop
• April 12, 2025: Writing Workshop of San Francisco
• April 12, 2025: Florida Writing Workshop (Tampa)
• April 25, 2025: Kentucky Writing Workshop
• April 26, 2025: Tennessee Writing Workshop
• April 26, 2025: Philadelphia Writing Workshop
• May 2, 2025: Arizona Writing Workshop
• May 3, 2025: Michigan Writing Workshop
• May 3, 2025: Writing Conference of Los Angeles
• May 9, 2025: Portland Writing Workshop
• May 9-10, 2025: Pittsburgh Writing Workshop (Online)
• May 10, 2025: Seattle Writing Workshop
• May 17, 2025: Cincinnati Writing Workshop
• June 13-14, 2025: California Writing Workshop (Online)
• June 21, 2025: Writing Workshop of Chicago
• July 26-27, 2025; New England Writing Workshop (Online)

This post by Chuck Sambuchino, freelance editor and lead director of Writing Day Workshops. Chuck is a former longtime staffer with Writer's Digest, editing the Guide to Literary Agents. He is the author of the writing guide CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM as well as the bestselling humor book HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK. His most recent books are all about pickleball -- daily tear-off calendars as well as the picture book GOODNIGHT, PICKLEBALL. He is a proud #GirlDad, movie geek, and guitar/piano player. Connect with him through WDW's Instagram and Twitter,

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