How to create a good first chapter so as not to lose readers?

Question

How can I create a first chapter that is emotional and truly impactful? I want it to grab the reader's attention immediately. Do you have any specific techniques or strategies you recommend to make my opening chapter stand out and leave a lasting impression?

Answer 1

The common advice is that the beginning of the text should contain a "hook" that intrigues the reader.

This can be:

• the height of the action (beginning in medias res, e.g. the protagonist infiltrating the enemy headquarters in a spy thriller)
• your novel's selling point (the reason why your readers read this genre, e.g. sex in an erotic novel)
• a statement that sparks the reader's curiosity (e.g. a riddle or mystery: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.", a question: "Can a single act of kindness truly change the world?", or something unexpected: "Here is a small fact: You are going to die.")

Answer 2

There are a lot of ways to write a good introduction to a story, but I’ll talk about just one of them here.

Start with action and tension

This has been done in a lot of media, not just writing, but generally, introducing the characters and/or plot of the story at the climax, or a similarly action packed scene, works very well at grabbing an audience’s attention. It doesn’t strictly have to be a flashforward; it could just be the prologue to the main storyline. Regardless of how exactly you prefer to do it, it should make the reader(s) think, “How did we get here? Where exactly is ‘here’? Why are any the characters shown here important? Are they actually important?” among many other questions. A good example of this in recent memory would be the opening scene of All Quiet on the Western Front, the 2022 movie.

(Spoilers for All Quiet on The Western Front follow below)

The first real scene of movie is, as one may expect, an unspecified battle on the Western Front of WWI (shocking, I know). However, instead of starting immediately from perspective of the main character, who is later revealed as Paul Bäumer, the movie instead follows a different German soldier, by the name of Heinrich Gerber. They’re initially seen ‘hiding’ underneath a duckboard, but then he’s grabbed by the arm by an officer, and brought to the ladders. A friend of his, Hans, serves as the forlorn hopeforlorn hope, going up the ladders into no-man’s-land first, but as soon as they reach the top, they’re immediately killed by a sniper, and fall backwards into the trench right next to Heinrich. Seemingly uncaring, the officer grabs Heinrich again and shoves him directly into one of the ladders, ordering him to attack.With no other choice, Heinrich climbs up, and charges into no-man’s-land, dodging machine gun fire and artillery shells before taking cover behind a fallen tree. Shortly afterwards, not before witnessing the death of 2 other German soldiers right beside him, Heinrich equips his spade, charges forward again, and graphically brings it down into the shoulder of a French rifleman. The screen cuts to black. Later, although Heinrich’s death is not shown on screen, their body is seen being stripped for their uniform and boots, and we follow the journey of it sent back to the home front to be washed, repaired, and issued to another recruit; Paul Bäumer.

Just within these 5-6 minutes, we’ve been introduced to the setting, met a key character, witnessed that same key character be killed off, and now are at the start of the main storyline. Admittedly, not every written story is about WW1, or even involves warfare at all. But, if your story has action at all, this is a good way to secure the readers attention.

Answer 3

You open with a scene, you open with your protagonist (sometimes it works if you open with your antagonist, but for starters stick with the protagonist).

Your protagonist is active and trying to solve a problem.

A main killer for beginners is the "sitting on a bus" opening, as one of my agents called it -- any opening in which the protagonist is doing something or doing nothing and just thinking about their life, or events of recent days, or any "reflective" opening like that intended to cram backstory into the reader's head. Don't do that, in any form.

Your protagonist should be actively solving a problem in some sense; for example in one story set in medieval times we see the protagonist as a child teaching herself to throw rocks as a hunting exercise for small animals; birds, squirrels, rabbits, rats. With hits and misses. She is training, and in later chapters as an adult she becomes a warrior, and in the finale she saves the day with --- an expertly thrown rock.

I cannot stress enough (and I've said it in many answers), people that read fiction for fun do not mind reading.

But they want to read scenes, not a laundry list of history and self-description. If you have backstory to tell, tell it in scenes -- In the first Harry Potter book, it opens with a scene where Harry is a baby, all sorts of magical things go on, and then it jumps forward in a chapter with "Ten years later...".

You don't have to open with an incredible hook. You just need to open with something happening, your protagonist "solving a problem" or doing something interesting; or perhaps your antagonist doing something, putting a plan in place, causing a problem, or something similar.

A good first chapter immerses the reader in imagining an active scene with somebody taking action immediately. Do not provide background, if it must be provided do it in "real time", devise the scenes for it, and then skip forward in time. Or backward in time, just as good.

Or just take it for granted; the reader will figure out the way the world works by seeing it work, it should never be direct exposition from the author, because that does not engage the imagination -- it is just laundry list of facts they will not remember.

Do not give a "reflective" or "musing" or any other "sitting on the bus" opening. Open with somebody aiming to accomplish something that isn't particularly easy.

The first 1/8th of the story should be (through scenes) an introduction to the normal life of your protagonist and the world she lives in. The inciting incident (following the three act structure) will occur around the 1/8th mark, 12.5% of the target word count, give or take a few percent.