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about the heart of your story and the heart of your character. Once you find a way to put her heart right out there from line one, in a scene that throws her at odds with her world and shows how she reacts, you are on your way.
     
    Introducing Your Character in the Middle of Something
     
    One of the most important decisions you have to make is in picking just the right starting place to begin your novel. You want the story to start in present action, in the middle of something happening, with your POV character right in the situation and revealing her (or his) fears, dreams, needs, or goals and the obstacle that is in the way and presenting a problem.
     
    What to Focus On
     
    Your voice and style will have a lot of influence on that first scene—the way sentences are structured, the length of the chapter, the tone and pacing. But for the most part, you don’t need to concentrate too much on things like pacing and chapter length, for you’ll tweak and tighten those in your revisions. What you do want to pay special attention to are the things on the First-Page Checklist. It’s a great handy sheet to keep in your notebook next to your desk to refer to as you dig in to your first chapter or come back to rework it.
     
    Don’t Aim for the Mona Lisa
     
    I would suggest you think more about being a sketch artist rather than a detail painter as you write this first chapter. I recall reading an interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez that so impressed me. In the interview, he mentioned how he often spent months honing the first paragraph of a novel before writing any more, in order to get clear in his head all the major elements he wanted in that book—mostly in regard to tone, voice, pacing, and inciting incident. One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of my favorite novels of all time, and his opening paragraph is a great one that does set up all those things for the entire book.
    You may be like Marquez and feel you need to labor over that first page for a long while before taking off, but I think for most writers that will only be an exercise in stalling the inevitable—which is to get to work and start writing. Okay, since I’ve aroused your curiosity, here’s his first line: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliana Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” This is a perfect example of introducing a protagonist and jumping into the start of a great scene.
     
    Use a Pencil; Resist the Eraser
     
    I don’t mean this literally, unless you really do like to write your scenes with pad and pencil. What I do mean is that it helps to rough in the first chapter and get the basics down (remember those pesky ducks?), knowing you’ll revisit it many times throughout the writing of the novel to tweak it more in line with the developing voice, style, pacing, and themes you draw out and tighten along the way. My first chapters are always a little over-wordy and clunky, and rarely ever start out the gate with a brilliant hook and opening paragraph. I often come back later and hack about half of that chapter away, or just rewrite the whole thing. But your aim for this first scene should be to get those essential elements in at least in a rough way.
     
     
Think about . . . a novel you’ve read that had an amazing, powerful first chapter. It may not have the punch that Optimus’s special story had, but no doubt you can think of some novel that got you so excited you dropped everything to keep reading. If you can get a hold of that book and reread the chapter, then pay special attention to the details and elements that so moved you. Think how you can do something similarly in your first scene. Jot your observations down in your notebook.

    Whether you’re just beginning your novel or have a first or second draft you’re working on, think about your audience and how the tone and style of writing is suited (or not) to that readership.
     
     
     

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