Christine Kelly Reads and Writes

I did a panel on first pages when taking pitches at Writing Day Workshop in Birmingham and Atlanta. I realized how much goes into the first page, and how much it’s a practice that you will perfect,. Once you do, it will become muscle memory. It’s a formula that you won’t think about following. For example, I have come a long way since my early novels. The first pages of SHINY PENNY are pale in comparison to what I have written in my new work.

Here are a few things that first pages need to keep readers reading, and pique agent interests.

1. Opening Sentences
   • Gina Banks has an amazing Substack about opening lines, and at the panel Ashley Hutchison was a MASTER at pointing out what should be or could be the opening lines. This immediately will hook a reader and can also provide curiosity seeds. Of course, every rule can be broken, but don’t sleep on this opportunity.
2. Stay in scene, don’t move timelines
   • If you are starting on a Monday, don’t do a flash back that takes us to the day before. If you do, make it a few sentences that can be voice-y to keep us hooked. You do not want to provide any reason for the reader or agent pull out of the story. You want them to stay immersed. Additionally, it can seem almost passive to say “after half the day”. I think first pages need to excel in the specifics.
3. Avoid info dumps, save back story for later
   • One of the things that I practice as a writer is I have all the action in the opening chapter. I limit the backstory and focus on the specificity of the scene providing only the vital information for the scene. Then, the second story I find a way to use that to add more back story to help frame the story and heighten stakes of why it is a big deal what happened did. If you focus keeping the back story for later, you’ll find that you will see how the opening pages will need to lean into the action and other details that help propels the story forward and keeps the reader engaged.
4. Curiosity Seeds
   • Don’t have too many questions that we’re left confused, but give us a few “seeds” to sew curiosity. Where we’re given details, but not enough to full see the picture. When you’re reading and there is a sentence like, “her coat was pink, just like Karen’s at the funeral.” I’m wondering, who is Karen and who died? Then, as we continue, the seed needs to watered to grow.
5. Surprise the reader!
   • I love when there is this set up that I’m *feeling* and I’m being led down a path in a certain direction and suddenly- BAM, we wake a left turn. A great example of this would be if a young student was eager for it to be announced that she most definitely was going to be the class President. But then out of no where, someone who just moved into town won. The momentum needs to screech for both reader and POV character, then pivots to the choices that come after that.
6. Establish stakes
   • This also goes hand in hand with establishing what someone wants to really give us a reason to root for the character and get to know them. Are you thinking, “dang this is a lot!”. It is. BUT, all of this doesn’t need to happen at once, but these are things that lure me in while reading the first pages. So choose a formula that works for the story you’re writing and you can take pieces of this list.
7. Ground us
   • I think this can be something that immediately the writer thinks of as writing. But it’s also grounding us in the moment in time in the characters life. We need to know WHY what is happening matters and WHY the character matters.
8. Voice
   • Voice is hard as it is for a overall story. But hooking a reader with the voice up front can be crucial to their connection with character and story. If you have found that feedback consistently talks about your voice, I’d suggest writing stream of consciousness to really pinpoint your character on many levels, but mostly voice. Voice is also something that can carry over from story to story for you as a author. it’s something can be distinct for you– so I really suggest working at it.