Somewhere Below the Top

Several weeks ago I was speaking with a friend who is in the throes of completing a debut novel. A beta reader, who is an expert in long-form fiction, had just read the manuscript and offered a shocking bit of feedback. The first chapter is actually the second chapter and the second chapter is the first—the order of the two opening chapters needed to be switched.

Again.

One recent evening while reading a different writer’s work, I found the opening sentence of the first chapter flat. The sentence was not brining the reader into the story. I read on, finishing the first page. Starting over, I read the first page again, and then a third time. On that third reading I found it—nine sentences down the page—the rightful first sentence.

The craft point: beginnings aren’t always where we think they are. What we’ve written as the beginning of a short-story or longer manuscript may very well not be so. The beginning may be a paragraph or two—or many pages—in.

I have now come to use this tactic in personal letters, emails, and other incidental writing as well. More often than not, the first sentence, the penultimate sentence, the phrase that will grab the reader by the collar is somewhere below the top.

In life and in writing, beginnings aren’t always where we think.