10 mistakes to avoid when writing the 1st chapter

How to write the first chapter of your book

The reading experience can be made or broken by how the first chapter is written. It will determine whether the reader will finish the book or put it down. It’s crucial to grab the reader’s attention in the opening chapter.

Keep in mind that you’ll go back and rewrite the first chapter numerous times. Writing down the story as it comes to you is essential for the first draft. Just put pen to paper. But here are some guidelines on what to stay away from when working on the second draft, or “shaping the story” as I like to call it.

1. Introduce the main character’s daily activities
2. Make the world you’re introducing fascinating and interesting
3. Establish the narrative’s tone. (Funny or dark)
4. Include an inciting incident (such as the catalyst for your hero’s quest).
5. Make the reader want to turn the pages by creating a suspenseful hook.
6. Set the tempo. The pacing varies depending on the genre.
7. Give the character both internal and external conflicts. To keep readers interested, this mixture must be balanced such that there is just the proper amount of conflict.
8. Establish the viewpoint. (The person delivering the story may create completely different tales and include their aspirations, histories, and traumas to create a distinctive voice.)
9. “Show don’t tell”. I cannot emphasize this enough. For readers to care, significant events must occur on the page, not off the page, in a short sentence.
10. No need to ramble on in the opening paragraph. Don’t saturate your audience with facts about your brand-new world.

There is an invisible promise you’re making to the reader in the opening lines of your story. A promise to escape into a new world (for fantasy and science fiction). An escape to an exciting romance. An escape from the routine of their daily lives to a fast pace thriller. So, you better deliver.

What happens when that first chapter doesn’t deliver what it promised and doesn’t introduce a new conflict to solve in the next chapter? The reader gets bored and they put the book down. It’s not just the pace that needs to hook the reader but the characters too. If it’s just another Mary Sue isekaied to a yet generic medieval-themed world and she turned out to be the chosen one, frankly who wants to read it? It has been done to death.

Find the one hook that will completely flip the trope. Construct an entirely fresh universe. Give the main character weaknesses.

Here is one BONUS tip:

Don’t introduce a ton of characters at once with names that are so obscure you’ll need a spelling guide to pronounce them, along with a ton of fancy names for every street, castle, river, and magic system. At the very least, wait until the readers are somewhat accustomed to the world before launching into assaulting them with a thick dictionary yelling, “Please, like my world, I spent ten years crafting it!”

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