Opening scenes illuminate both strengths and weaknesses of a story.
So much fuss is made in publishing circles about writing a compelling first line. Conventional writing advice suggests that’s where you hook the reader and persuade them to keep reading. This first line focus obscures a story’s true make or break point. It is your entire opening scene rather than your first line that wins over a reader.
A skillfully written opening scene will engage the five senses while introducing key characters and their world. The best opening scenes let readers peek behind the curtain at a larger hidden picture. They foreshadow major plot threads, establish tone and setting, and introduce major characters who will drive the narrative forward.
Starting strong
I struggled with creating strong opening scenes in my early days as a writer. My instincts drove me to ramble on about backstory information not really central to the main plot or major subplots. This approach proved ineffective and bogged down the rest of my story.
An early rough draft of Alien People illustrates this problem. I originally opened with ancillary characters from NASA tracking a deep-space probe launch and droning on about its importance in the search for intelligent life before awkwardly transitioning to Calandra discovering the Earth probe in her home solar system.
An opening summarized in one word.
Boring.
Contrast that approach with how Alien People opens in the final published version. My revised opening scene starts with Calandra’s discovery of the probe and follows her efforts to identify its origin. The scene climaxes with her uncovering key data proving an unidentified alien race sent the probe. This opening scene became more compelling because it presented a mystery, and my protagonists slowly unraveled that mystery in subsequent chapters. Opening up with the original backstory dump on Earth would have robbed suspense from the narrative and sent my readers packing before chapter two started.
Opening scene essentials
Great stories envelop you in the first scene. Effective opening scenes introduce compelling mysteries for both the readers and the characters to solve. These scenes build suspense. They immerse you in a new world, sharing just enough brushstrokes to guide you as you paint the rest of the picture.
An opening scene fails when an author gets bogged down in a world building and character-building frenzy while neglecting the actual story. Each scene must move the story forward in a meaningful way while holding the reader’s interest. Trust me when I tell you that you will find few readers who are remotely interested in reading lengthy treatises on fictional politics, religion, economics, or history disguised as backstory information dumps.
I applied lessons learned from Alien People with subsequent stories in the trilogy. Dark Metamorphosis opens with Xttra pursuing a suspected thief and saboteur until he learns his target is an old friend who’s been framed. This initial discovery introduces a larger conspiracy that upends the lives of Xttra and Calandra. Among Hidden Stars opens with Xttra and Kevin destroying an underground lab housing genetically altered soldiers in stasis pods. This scene foreshadows a larger battle to overthrow a tyrannical ruler that drives the rest of the story.
Ultimately, a story’s opening scene should introduce characters and their world in an engaging and compelling fashion while opening a door for subsequent scenes to build on those elements organically and form a captivating narrative. Does this mean other scenes in a story should follow a similar formula as the opening scene? Without a doubt, the answer is yes. Every scene should serve the same purpose in driving the story forward. Focusing on relevant character, plot, and setting details alone will build on opening scene momentum through to the final chapter.
When a reader finds it tough to put a book down after only a few pages, this is the best evidence for an author that they’ve succeeded in crafting a great opening scene.