Non Hughes

New year, new retrospective on my strengths and weaknesses as a writer!

In 2024, I made progress with plot, character arcs and incorporating themes into them. I learnt to dial up the environment and characters, and how to merge scenes so that they serve multiple purposes. I focussed on the climactic sequence and the resolution, aka how to end a book, and learnt about catharsis – the emotional release a reader feels when a book ends nicely.

This year, I need to work on my beginnings.

Looking over beta feedback I received for my last 2-3 books, there’s a trend I’ve largely ignored along the lines of: I loved the book, but it didn’t get going until chapter X. Considering that my sample pages aren’t likely to get to chapter X, I must open my novels with a strong pull if I’m ever to get representation from an agent.

(Note I did get my first ever manuscript request from an agent this week, so that’s big! Even in the likely event it leads to nothing, that’s progress compared to my last spell in the trenches.)

Looking at examples

There are lots of articles out there stating how to hook readers from the first sentence – starting in medias res, for example – but I learn by example more than generic advice. So let’s look at the first paragraphs of some books I couldn’t put down.

On the morning of its first birthday, a baby was found floating in a cello case in the middle of the English Channel.

– Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

One sentence, and I was fully invested. It’s weird because this breaks a lot of rules. It’s written in passive voice and starts the book with backstory – the opposite of in medias res. But it works.

Why? Because it drops a lot of questions into the reader’s mind. Who is this baby? Is it okay? Where are its parents? Was it abandoned? What’s with the cello case? How did it get in the middle of the English Channel?

This is especially effective because these are the very questions the protagonist spends the book trying to answer. The author puts the questions to us in the first sentence, and we’re hooked right to the end looking for the answers.

A lot of people dream of being buried by their money.

If these tunnels collapse, I might just get that wish, except none of the mica that’s packed into the walls of this mine belongs to me. With my teeth gritted and two hands around a shovel, I strike the dirt wall in front of me. The earth splits apart and crumbles to the floor like an offering, flakes of mica glistening in a pool of orange sunlight.

– Nura and the Immortal Palace by M.T. Khan

I don’t know if it’s my South Wales roots speaking, but child miners and child labour in general give me Feelings. We learnt about coal mining children in school, and the teachers really horror’d it up to show us how lucky we were to be bored in class rather than squashed by a cart. Combined with the injustice of working for the wealth of others, this brought me to Nura’s side immediately. I felt angry on her behalf.

Again, this beginning introduces the core themes of the book. Nura goes on a search for wealth to support her family and sees corruption and greed from those who hoard excessive wealth in both the human world and that of the Jinn.

Another reason I loved this intro when I first opened the book was lovely word choice. The earth splitting apart like an offering, bringing even the dirt to life, then the mica glistening in the sunlight. I could almost smell it. This is something M.T. Khan does really well, drawing me back to their books time and time again.

The student wouldn’t stop doing her homework, and it was going to kill her. Even after the doctors shot her up with tranquilizers, she bunched into a sitting position, fingers curled around an absent keyboard, typing and typing.

– Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

Another one that grabbed me in the first sentence. Dunno about you, but starting my homework was much harder than stopping as a student, so the opening statement casts a strong question: why? What’s going on?

The language is expressive and extreme. It’s going to kill her. The doctors shoot her up with tranquilizers, bringing to mind massive, raging creatures: lions, rhinos and elephants. The student is bunched and her fingers are curled. I could really feel that tensing inwards as I read it.

This paragraph also neatly sets off the main plot – a drug pirate running from the authorities when her illegally fabricated drugs cause obsessive side-effects – while also introducing the core theme, which is freedom. At the start of the book we ask, can this student be freed from doing her homework? And by the end, the question explodes: can anyone be free (under Capitalism)? What does it mean to be free?

The 12th of October was a good day for a killing. It had rained all week, but on this Friday, after the church fair, our good lord was in a kindlier mood. Though autumn had already come, the sun was shining brightly on that part of Bavaria they call the Pfaffenwinkel–the priests’ corner–and merry noise and laughter could be heard from the town. Drums rumbled, cymbals clanged and somewhere a fiddle was playing. The aroma of deep-fried doughnuts and roasted meat drifted down to the foul-smelling tanners’ quarter. Yes, it was going to be a lovely execution.

– The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Potzsch, translated from German by Lee Chadeayne

Banger of a first sentence, because to most people there is no such thing as a good day for a killing. It says a lot about the main characters of the story that they would think this.

I included the rest of the paragraph because on its own that first sentence might make you think, oh the character is alone in this. They’re a villain of some sort, getting ready to kill in secret. But then we find out it’s an execution, a community event, contrasting the life and joy of the fair with the darkness of death. It drew me in by raising questions (who is being killed? why is that good?), and kept me engaged by slamming me right in the middle of a cheerful scene that would ordinarily have nothing to do with murder.

Brianne Parker didn’t look like a bank robber or a murderer – her pleasantly plump baby face fooled everyone. But she knew that she was ready to kill if she had to this morning. She would find out for sure at ten minutes past eight.

– Roses are Red by James Patterson

It would be remiss of me not to include a James Patterson book in a post about engaging openings. I didn’t even like murder shows or detective books when I lazily, bored-out-of-my-eleven-year-old-mind’edly opened Roses are Red, but with a start like that I wasn’t putting this thing down. I went on to binge an amount of crime fiction that worried and alarmed the school librarian, and later wrote a short story in my GCSE English exam about a police officer kidnapped and tortured by her own boyfriend. It kills me to this day that I mixed up chloroform and chlorophyll…

Anyway, this is a great start to a novel. The reader waits alongside Brianne to find out if she will need to become a killer at the specific time of ten minutes past eight. We don’t know how far that time is from the present, but simply naming it makes it feel soon. Any time would be too soon for murder.

Patterns

Looking at those openings, a pattern emerges. Not a pattern of how best to start a book, necessarily, but of how I like books to begin according to this selection from my ‘favourites’ shelf.

I love a zinger of a one-liner. Something unusual or extreme. Each of the five examples begin with danger – a baby floating down the channel, people buried by their money, a student dying of homework, a good day for killing and a woman who doesn’t look like a murderer.

They raise mysteries or questions that are core to the book’s theme. How did the baby end up in a cello case in the English Channel and where are its parents? Why is this child working in a mine gathering riches for others? Will the student find freedom? Who is being executed after the church fair? And will Brianne Parker have to kill someone at ten minutes past eight?

I love contrast and specificity in the opening, making the world feel instantly rich. Mica shining in a pool of golden light, contrasting the gritted teeth and hard work of the protagonist. The 12th of October and ten minutes past eight are both more specific than necessary, yet that specificity lends reality to the story. It could be 12th of October in my world. It could be ten minutes past eight today.

What are my habits?

In order to change, I need to see where I’m at right now. Here are a few opening paragraphs from my own projects.

Coeth sat cross-legged on a flat circle of moss, watching ma smile at the dragonflies. They flashed iridescent green and blue between drooping willow branches, and a thin river of herb smoke trailed between them, stroking their wings with bitter leaves and lavender. Crickets sang to the clear sky, still bright despite the slowly setting sun.

– No Words for a King (YA fantasy, complete but not queried)

The woodlouse tickled Crawst’s palm with its antennae, butted against it twice and then turned away, pattering over the cracked mud to find some shade. She placed her other hand in its path and this time it turned without touching her skin. She moved her left hand to intercept its new path. It crawled a little faster, and she slowly placed her hands closer and closer together until it barely had a palm’s width to walk on.

– The Power of Gods book 1 (Adult fantasy, 90k incomplete)

Stepping into Gwen’s house from the forest felt like walking into the wilderness, not out of it.
The house was made of one big room, and Dad’s old projects covered every inch of it, so that Gwen had to climb over them just to get from the front door to her own little workbench at the back. Plans, parts and tools sat on every surface, along with half-forgotten inventions and fully-forgotten mouldy lunches. They spread up the walls like grey ivy and dangled from the ceiling beams, making the roof bow inwards like a cloak gathering water.

– How the First Skateboard was Invented (MG fantasy, 20k incomplete)

Welp, apparently I like to start with a lot of scene description, haha… Comparing these samples to the ones from published novels, it’s easy to see why beta readers (and probably agents) aren’t engaged from page 1.

I don’t necessarily think any of these are bad. They’re just not interesting. They don’t have delicious contrast and they don’t hint at the core themes of their books.

No Words for a King should start with the fact that Coeth’s sister is dead, or perhaps even that today is the day she’ll get revenge. The Power of Gods should start with a more succinct act of violence against the poor woodlouse, making space for the fact that Crawst is a soulless slave who can only punch down at insects – until she discovers that punching up is also an option. How the First Skateboard was Invented should show us Gwen’s arrogance and belief that she’s a better inventor than her father right from the start – or perhaps that he’s invented the world’s first toilet, which is disgusting and about to ruin her entire life when he presents it at the talent show tomorrow.

I’ll definitely keep these things in mind when writing/editing my first pages in the future. For now, thanks for coming along on this adventure with me!

Little Updates

• I got a manuscript request from an agent, yay! First time, so even if nothing comes of it, at least I can say it’s progress from my previous project!
• I am 8,000 words into my zero draft for The Willow Lynx – title will probably change, because I started studying the art of titles today haha…
• I finally finished reading Inkbound: Meticulous Jones and the Skull Tattoo by Philippa Leathley. I enjoyed the start and end of the book a lot, and am glad I worked through the muddy middle to get there. It’d make a great tv show or film.