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What do the first pages of a novel reveal?
opening
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May 18, 2026
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7 min read
McFadden’s titular intruder doesn’t appear until the end of chapter four. Why does she delay the inciting incident? And how does she keep readers turning pages until then?
Oct 19, 2025
What happens when literary fiction borrows speculative elements but keeps its slow-burn focus on character
Sep 19, 2025
How to establish stakes across multiple time periods
Aug 30, 2025
6 min read
How to layer character, theme, and story questions into a deceptively simple opening chapter
Jun 21, 2025
8 min read
Why leading with theme instead of the meet-cute can strengthen a romance opening
May 18, 2025
9 min read
Why powerful verbs, surprising juxtapositions, and unconventional choices create prose that wakes readers up
Apr 19, 2025
How multiple narrative frames control reader investment and pacing
Mar 7, 2025
How to modernize frame narration for contemporary fiction
Feb 6, 2025
10 min read
How the table of contents shapes our experience of the opening of God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Oct 7, 2023
11 min read
See how Mick Herron uses part breaks to open The Secret Hours three times and introduce its interwoven plot strands.
Oct 9, 2022
4 min read
See how Maggie O'Farrell uses inventive writing to lure readers into a story whose ending we think we already know.
Sep 8, 2022
See how Rebecca Roanhorse uses suspense to make readers desperate to know more about the fantasy world she builds in Black Sun.
Aug 13, 2022
5 min read
Learn how Jesse Q. Sutanto hooks readers while launching a complex plot and large cast of characters in Dial A for Aunties.
Jun 3, 2022
See how Laura Dave uses our knowledge of the novel's hook to delay gratification, increase suspense, and turn readers into sleuths.
May 6, 2022
How do you engage and disrupt genre tropes to hook your readers?
Apr 16, 2022
Learn the techniques Lauren Groff uses to introduce readers to a distant historical setting in Matrix.
Mar 4, 2022
See how Tana French uses sentence style, summary, and suspense to pull readers into the first chapter of The Searcher.
Feb 11, 2022
What are the benefits and drawbacks to including a prologue in your novel? We’ll examine the prologue to N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became to find out.
Feb 5, 2022
A close look at the messages readers get from the title, cover, epigraph, and illustration of NK Jemisin’s The City We Became.
Jan 7, 2022
In the opening of The Dutch House, Ann Patchett strategically opens story questions, provides layers of narration, and makes setting details do double duty to draw in readers.
