3 Tips for Writing the Opening Paragraph of Your Novel

Whether you’ve spent far too long starting at a blank document not knowing how to start, or just skipped writing an opening entirely, trust us when we say we’ve all been there. That first page is hard! Which is why we have Wrimo Anusuya Mukherjee with us to share her top three tips on how to write a great opening for your novel:

Writing the opening of a piece of writing, for a short story or even a novel, can be a challenge. It is the first impression that your story gives to its reader. The question that I ask myself when i start writing my story is, “How do I get my reader interested?” These are the tips I use when I sit down to write:

1. Engage the 5 senses 

When I start to write, I visualize the scenario in which the story is going to start. For example: 

On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there were mustard oil to pour into the mix. Ashima has been consuming this concoction throughout her pregnancy, a humble approximation of the snack sold for pennies on Calcutta sidewalks and on railway platforms throughout India, spilling from newspaper cones.

—The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

When you start reading this passage, you immediately visualize the character, where she is, and how she is feeling at that moment. It engages your senses. If I close my eyes I can visualize the character and it immediately gets me interested about what’s going to happen next.

2. Character introduction

You don’t have to immediately start with how the character looks; maybe start with where the character is, what they might be feeling. For example:

“Finally I get to take the week off!” Becca thought. There had been an intense amount of work at the office and she was happy to get the rest of the week off. She had been working towards getting some days off and doing overtime so she could take this road trip. She was going to meet up with her old friends from her intern days. All of them had struggled to be at the positions that they were today and sort of had lost touch with each other.

From this we realize the character is a workaholic, but she has friends. This makes you interested about what the character is interested in and you want to know more about her. I normally depend on character intros for my stories as i feel more connected to the reader that way. 

3. Set the Scene

Make sure your reader is able to visualize the scene, what can they smell, see? What stands out to them? For example: 

She sat at the window sill, waiting. It was the dead of night, and the humans were going out, as they called it, ‘trick or treating’ because it was Halloween. The moon shone from above and she was ready. It had been a long time since she had hunted and she felt breathless. Her grey eyes looked down to the ground.

You can imagine where the character is. What state she may be in and how the scene looks. You can picture the scenario in front of you. 

So take it as a challenge: your first paragraph doesn’t have to be perfect, but if it’s able to get the reader interested, they’ll be eager to read further.  Therefore, if you are able to engage the senses, give a killer introduction of the character you want the reader to focus on, and set the scene so the reader is able to picture it, you’ve already done half the work. Always remember to get yourself engaged in the writing, and the reader will automatically feel engaged too. 

Anusuya Mukherjee was born in India, but was raised around the world. She has been writing for the past eleven years and has published her work in a few magazines and websites. She has graduated from law school and is currently in Kuwait. She hopes to someday be able to publish her short stories and poetry. You can follow her on Tumblr and Instagram, or check out her past work.

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