This week’s video uses an example from China Miéville’s steampunk fantasy Perdido Street Station to illustrate why it’s so important for your characters to grab readers right from the beginning of your story.
Video Transcription: The beginning of any story is a checklist of must-have elements. One of those elements is providing the reader with an immediate personal connection to the characters. In some stories, this can be difficult, since complicated plots and settings often demand the author lay down a foundation before exploring the human side of the characters. But even the most distant or plot-heavy novel will stand a better chance of hooking readers if it can open with its characters in a situation that will appeal on an emotional or gut level.
China Miéville’s lauded steampunk fantasy Perdido Street Station
is a complex book that winds its way through an intricate plot and an incredibly detailed setting. Miéville spends the first quarter of the book leisurely developing both the plot and the setting, but he was wise enough to know that, in order to convince readers to keep reading through even the driest and most difficult parts of his story, he first had to give them characters they could care about.
After a brief and poetic hook, Perdido Street Station opens with a very human element—two people in love. Even though readers know nothing about these characters at first, and even though this romantic relationship is a minor point in the story, utilizing this human element in the opening chapter gave readers something they could immediately relate to and grasp. Because they were given a reason to care about these characters, they needed little convincing to keep reading, even when Miéville was forced to turn his attention to less relatable and compelling material. By the time the scene is officially set for the catastrophes to come, and he’s able to return to his characters and their relationship, readers are already hooked.
Tell me your opinion: Does your story open with a human element?
Related Posts: Utilizing Character in Beginnings
Utilize Character in Your Opening Scene
Use a Question to Create an Unforgettable Opening Chapter
Video Transcription: The beginning of any story is a checklist of must-have elements. One of those elements is providing the reader with an immediate personal connection to the characters. In some stories, this can be difficult, since complicated plots and settings often demand the author lay down a foundation before exploring the human side of the characters. But even the most distant or plot-heavy novel will stand a better chance of hooking readers if it can open with its characters in a situation that will appeal on an emotional or gut level.
China Miéville’s lauded steampunk fantasy Perdido Street Station
is a complex book that winds its way through an intricate plot and an incredibly detailed setting. Miéville spends the first quarter of the book leisurely developing both the plot and the setting, but he was wise enough to know that, in order to convince readers to keep reading through even the driest and most difficult parts of his story, he first had to give them characters they could care about.
After a brief and poetic hook, Perdido Street Station opens with a very human element—two people in love. Even though readers know nothing about these characters at first, and even though this romantic relationship is a minor point in the story, utilizing this human element in the opening chapter gave readers something they could immediately relate to and grasp. Because they were given a reason to care about these characters, they needed little convincing to keep reading, even when Miéville was forced to turn his attention to less relatable and compelling material. By the time the scene is officially set for the catastrophes to come, and he’s able to return to his characters and their relationship, readers are already hooked.
Tell me your opinion: Does your story open with a human element?
Related Posts: Utilizing Character in Beginnings
Utilize Character in Your Opening Scene
Use a Question to Create an Unforgettable Opening Chapter
- August 31, 2011
17 Comments
- K.M. Weiland
- Posted in beginnings , Characters , Feature , SYN
, we find a perfect example of how to develop a scene so that readers are able to read into it as much as they take out. This particular scene involves the greenhorn narrator walking down Wall Street for the first time and observing the passing people. He sees several men with leather pouches strapped to their wrists and immediately decides the pouches are filled with millions of dollars.
gives a good example of how this is accomplished—and why it should be. His story starts with the most clueless of all characters—one who has amnesia. The character spends the first third of the book trying to discover who he is and how the book’s fantasy setting, the beautiful Kingdom of Amber, works. Because the character starts out at ground zero, just like the reader, the author is able to coach the reader through the need-to-know of the story without being obvious about it.
, it probably wasn’t), you may find yourself consciously chasing the market more with your second. If, on the other hand, your first book was a hit, it’s possible you’re under pressure—either self-induced or through your publisher—to repeat the formula with your follow-up. Market chasing and repetition are hardly the keys to good writing, so the result may be a second book that fails to equal the energy and innovation of the first. 
, Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory utilized this trick to break up half a chapter’s worth of narrative. Instead of just having their teenaged hero sit at a window and mull about his backstory, these authors crafted a scene in which the character and his tutor argue about the importance of his lessons and his refusal to pay attention.
