Five Cliched Chapter Openings. and How to Avoid Them
By: Amrita Chowdhury
Tags: Writing Tips, Writing, Novel Writing, Fiction, Writers Block

We’ve all been there — we’ll pour our heart and soul into a chapter, bleed onto the keyboard to come up with a first sentence and ultimately be extremely proud of our creation…only to have a reader or an editor or an agent, cringe the moment they start to read. And that’s the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario, they lose any relatability with the main character, or any understanding of the setting, and then they tear us apart with their feedback.

A good chapter start is crucial for a book to be memorable. Here are the most cliched starts, and what to do start with instead.

1. Weather

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

We will always remember Edward Bulwer-Lytton by his famous opening sentence. And we will remember George Orwell’s “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” from 1984.

But weather still makes a cliched topic to start a chapter with. Unless…if you’re actually writing a book about weather, or you’re…Snoopy.

To be honest, it’s not a complete no-no to start with a description of the sky and the day, and most top authors do it to establish the mood of whatever event is about to happen or to preset the mood of the main protagonist. But opening with weather is a practice that has been repeated the most and also the practice that has been done pretty badly. At this point, most agents and publishers balk at the sight of a chapter that opens with weather and the industry considers it to be a sign of bad writing.

What to do instead: Put weather in the middle or in passing. If you absolutely have to use it in the beginning, then use it to set the mood as a nod to what a character maybe feeling, rather than to set the scene. Better yet, pair it with something completely different. For eg., Sylvia Plath’s opening from The Bell Jar: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” In the sentence, the second and third statements make the reader curious to read more and yet have very little to do with the sultry summer.

2. Dream sequence

Starting with a dream sequence is just lazy. For that matter, ending with a dream is lazier. Yes, I’m aware that one of the most iconic books of all times did it — Alice in Wonderland (although it doesn’t start off with a dream). Which goes to say if you have a story that revolves around dreams, magic realism, sci-fi or fantasy which are intertwined with dreams as a main mode of communication, then it would probably be okay to start a book with a dream sequence (think Inception).

But apart from that starting with a character waking up from a reverie only means that you couldn’t find anything better to start with. The dream is not a direct action, it’s not a conscious activity that your protagonist or antagonist has chosen to take part in, and your laziness will show through. Daydreams are exceptions, of course, because they drive our lives more than dreams do in reality, so if you absolutely have to start with a dream sequence, try writing a daydream sequence instead.

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What to do instead: Unless dreams are part of the story in a major, MAJOR way, put these sequences in the middle, not as a way to drive the story, but as a clue to a character’s mindset or emotional health. You’d be able to say more and show more if you formulate the message as a dialogue than a dream.

3. Dialogue

Okay, in all honesty, starting with dialogue is not a bad thing. In fact, it might even be a powerful start. But this particular beginning is not suited to all genres. It would be understandable still if you start with an action sequence where the character has something important, unusual or urgent to say. Without that urgency, starting with a dialogue is again wasting the one important space in your story that could have been used to say something more important.

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Author Les Edgerton highlights a very good point in his book Hooked:

“The problem with beginning a story with dialogue is that the reader knows absolutely nothing about the first character to appear in a story. For that matter, any of the characters. That means that when she encounters a line or lines of dialogue, she doesn’t have a clue who the speaker is, who she is speaking to, and in what context. That requires that she read on a bit further to make sense of the dialogue. Then, at least briefly, she has to kind of backtrack in her mind to put it all into context. That represents, at the least, a speed bump, and at worst, a complete stall.”

What to do instead: Completely cutting out dialogue from the first few pages can also become monotonous. So use dialogue to drive the story further, preferably in the first two or three pages of the book, as long as your first sentence or first paragraph acts as a powerful introduction (to a situation or a character).

4. Eternal principle, rhetorical question, personal philosophy, or navel gazing

It’s tiring really, when you open a book and there’s someone stating a plain fact of life or some other annoying philosophical observation that has now turned into a cliche. As a workshop host and guide I come across pieces that start with such sentences: Life, as they say, will go on no matter what.

Well…firstly, we know, so thanks for the PSA. Secondly, think of what this sentence does. It takes up space that it shouldn’t. The first sentence of any book, fiction or nonfiction, is prime real estate. It should house a punch, instead of a tepid declaration that means nothing to no one. A story needs to start with someone that sets the tone, or a shock, or a piece of information, or at the very least, it should set the mood for what’s to come. Navel gazing or personal philosophy doesn’t do that.

The first sentence of any book, fiction or nonfiction, is prime real estate. It should house a punch, instead of a tepid declaration that means nothing to no one.

Rhetorical questions are the worst of the lot. It always makes me question what exactly is the author trying to prove. Are they trying to make the reader think from the very first sentence, despite the fact the reader knows absolutely nothing about the characters or the premise of the story or the setting?

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What would life be without the sweet scent of love in the air? I don’t know John, what does your hero think of that?

What to do instead: Start with a simple fact or paired facts instead. This can be a fictitious fact or a real one. Consider the opening sentence of Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin: “Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like his father.” This sentence is a fictitious fact related to the story, neither philosophical nor a rant. And it drops the reader right into the story.

5. World building or scenery description

I’m about to step into controversial territory here. Whenever I have a manuscript in front of me, especially one that belongs to speculative fiction genre, and it starts with world building, I cringe a bit. World building can be, and has been done beautifully in many books (I’m thinking of Our Holy Father J.R.R. Tolkien). And I never discourage my students or clients to start with world-building. The reason I have included this point in this list, is because it applies more to new or first-time authors rather than seasoned ones.

Contrary to popular belief, world-building does not advance a story, it supports the story and builds a base or space for it.

There is one problem that I find becomes unavoidable when a first-time author starts their book with scenery or world introduction: it goes on and on and on and the doesn’t end till the first chapter is over. Moreover, in most instances we don’t even get a glimpse of the main character(s) or understand what the story is about. And this is where the book fails to capture a reader. A whole lot of information about the world, without any substance.

Contrary to popular belief, world-building does not advance a story, it supports the story and builds a base or space for it. Again, your beginning should focus on the story or its main characters.

What to do instead: World-building is a brilliant thing to start with, if you can manage to temper the introduction, limit it to the most interesting parts, and ensure that sufficient introduction is given to the story and especially your main character(s). The best thing to do would be to intersperse elements of the new world in the first chapter, along with dialogue.

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In the end, there’s only one rule to a good book: it should hold a reader’s attention from start to finish. All the “rules” above are bendable, breakable, changeable. It’s only important to keep your goals in mind. Are you planning to hook a reader from the very first sentence? Have you planned a beginning that has been overdone and unoriginal? How unique is your point of view? Have you balanced the different story elements to create a robust, well-rounded chapter that’s interesting to read, or is it just a pile of info dump? Answering these questions will help you.

Happy writing!