Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Chapter 1 Continued #MFRWauthor #writing #PDF1

This post is written with help from Structuring Toyr Nivel: From Basic Idea to Finished Manuscript.

Exposition, description and narration belong in the first chapter. How much depends on how much information about the story and the characters the writer wants to give. There are times when using description is the most important setting. This is especially true when writing fantasy or a world or place the reader might not have information. How much of one element used depends on what the reader needs to know. Now revealing too much can stop the story. Using too little might have the reader scratching their heads.

The time element is something the reader may need to know. Does the book cover years, months, weeks or even days. This is easy to do in contemporary stories and historical stories. Often just giving the year at the heading of a chapter can do this.

Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Chapter 1 Continued #MFRWauthor #amwriting

More things that should be included in Chapter 1 - Sometimes life makes you feel chapter 1 is the longest in the books and often it is.

Introducing the major characters is a must in the first chapter. Now they may not all be present but there needs to be hints of the important people to come. Inromance the story often opens with the hero or heroine and maybe the antagonist is briefly scene. Thereder needs to know a bit about things like how old they are and their appearance. When looking at my own books I've shown various characters but always one of the main ones. If there are several scenes in the first chapter more than one of the main characters can be shown through action, observation and allow the reader to know who they are at least in the sense that the reader is learning a bit about a stranger.

In the first chapter let the reader know who will be telling the story and if there is more than one viewpoint this should be shown. Is the viewpoint going to be restricted or open. Will there be many characters telling the story. This can be confusing so the writer needs to establish the pattern the book will follow at the beginning. In several of my stories the first chapters are rather long because I want to show each of thecharacters who will have a viewpoint. The character needs to be established and given a voice during the first chapter. And the reader needs to know if the story will be told from one character or many and give the reader time to identify with each of the characters who will havea viewpoint.