One of the most common storytelling issues I see crop up as a writing coach and editor happens on the first page…
In the first paragraph.
Many authors open the story with a descriptor paragraph to “set the scene”. More often than not it’s the weather.
Wind whipped the clouds into a frenzy. White streamers raced across the sky, low above the treetops. Black spruce, branches covered in snow, stood tall in the night. The crescent moon provided a dim light, illuminating the clouds with a diffuse glow. Enough to see by. Enough to hunt by.
It generally comes from hearing the advice, “ground the reader in the scene”.
It’s good advice, but when used to open a story like this it runs into a problem… mainly, it doesn’t actually open a story.
No matter how beautiful the prose or how vividly you can imagine the setting, nothing is happening. There’s no character to attach ourselves to. No action or conflict.
Invariably, the second paragraph leads with a character and begins the story.
Almost always, the “weather” paragraph can be cut without losing any information.
But it’s not always weather.
There’s a similar issue in genres like fantasy, science fiction, and anything that has an “other world” element.
Writers fear the reader won’t understand the story without a quick primer—an overview of the world. Instead of taking the time to work it into the text, they give a short “narrator’s explanation” to bring the reader up to speed.
This often comes in the form of a brief history lesson.
Other times it’s more philosophical. A detached rumination on life, religion, or relationships.
Either way, it runs into the same problem as the weather, in that there is no character and no relatable conflict.
I see this a lot with retellings of classic fairytales, or stories set in worlds where magic exists.
For example:
We tuck children in with a kiss and a story. A tale of princes and dragons, of magic apples and glass slippers. But fairytales are a lie told to mask the truth of the world. To ease the terror of dark winter nights. They help us sleep, but they don’t keep us safe. Because in reality gnomes drag children into their dens, dwarves steal your gold, and princes are anything but charming.
Eddie peered through the shed window at the writhing pile of pixies. Grey and twisted, they clawed and climbed over their kin, even asleep. Blood pooled on the floorboards, some of it pixie, some human. Beyond the seething mass Eddie could just make out the shadow of a girl, her small form facing away and terribly still.
Eddie checked his net for tangles, gripping the long pole in a sweaty palm. The head was large, the netting fine. If even one of the creatures evaded his first swing… well, best not to miss. He didn’t much trust the barrel lid he hoisted in his other hand, acting as a shield. Eddie took a deep breath and shouldered the shed door open.
See how the story starts on the second paragraph? Realistically, the reader doesn’t need the first one to understand what’s going on in the story. The story conveys the information: pixies are evil and dangerous, they’ve captured and injured a child, and Eddie is scared of them.
The first paragraph isn’t a story, it’s an explanation from a disembodied narrator. It’s the author telling the reader a fact about the world, and doesn’t even feel like it’s the character of Eddie who’s speaking, since the reader has no indication of who the story is about yet.
If you feel the need to include the first paragraph, maybe to add information that comes into play in later pages, switch the order.
Example:
Eddie peered through the shed window at the writhing pile of pixies. Grey and twisted, they clawed and climbed over their kin, even asleep. Blood pooled on the floorboards, some of it pixie, some human. Beyond the seething mass Eddie could just make out the shadow of a girl, her small form facing away and terribly still.
We tuck children in with a kiss and a story. A tale of princes and dragons, of magic apples and glass slippers. But fairytales are a lie told to mask the truth of the world. To ease the terror of dark winter nights. They help us sleep, but they don’t keep us safe. Because in reality gnomes drag children into their dens, dwarves steal your gold, and princes are anything but charming.
Eddie checked his net for tangles, gripping the long pole in a sweaty palm. The head was large, the netting fine. If even one of the creatures evaded his first swing… well, best not to miss. He didn’t much trust the barrel lid he hoisted in his other hand, acting as a shield. Eddie took a deep breath and shouldered the shed door open.
The central descriptor paragraph is still clunky, but the reader may forgive it if they were hooked by the conflict, tension, and stakes of the opening paragraph. You opened a loop and asked questions: is the girl alive? What is Eddie doing there? Will the pixies wake up and hurt or kill the humans? If the reader wants to know the answer to these questions, they’ll read on despite a narrated explanation of context.
But leading with the description unattached to any story will increase the likelihood the reader will lose interest and stop reading immediately.
Smoothing The Descriptor
Okay, we decide to keep the paragraph.
Sure, it may be considered “telling” rather than showing, but maybe you want to establish early on this is a world the reader should expect to see twisted versions of classic fairy tales.
Certain readers love this trope. Others don’t. Immediately indicating what the story is about will help them decide if your story is for them.
This can avoid poor reviews from readers who didn’t have their expectations met.
It can also raise the excitement of those who look forward to this kind of story.
So we keep the descriptor paragraph, but it’s still too clunky. We need to smooth it out, so the reader doesn’t even notice.
How do we achieve this?
We tie it to the character.
Eddie peered through the shed window at the writhing pile of pixies. Grey and twisted, they clawed and climbed over their kin, even asleep. Blood pooled on the floorboards, some of it pixie, some human. Beyond the seething mass Eddie could just make out the shadow of a girl, her small form facing away and terribly still.
Eddie could remember tucking that girl in. He’d give her a kiss and a story. A tale of princes and dragons, of magic apples and glass slippers. But now he knew. Oh God, but he knew. Fairytales were a lie told to mask the truth of the world. To ease the terror of dark winter nights. They helped kids sleep, but didn’t keep them safe. Eddie learned the hard way that gnomes drag children into their dens, dwarves steal your gold, and princes are anything but charming. He wished he’d never discovered that pixie’s were carnivorous.
Eddie checked his net for tangles, gripping the long pole in a sweaty palm. The head was large, the netting fine. If even one of the creatures evaded his first swing… well, best not to miss. He didn’t much trust the barrel lid he hoisted in his other hand, acting as a shield. Eddie took a deep breath and shouldered the shed door open.
Tying it to the character makes it less jarring. In the first example, it was still the narrator speaking directly to the reader. In this case, we’ve altered it to be Eddie reflecting on his situation.
It’s personal, and feels far more connected to the story.
We’ve also slipped in a little extra information. Mainly, the girl is a daughter-like character, which also helps establish Eddie as an adult rather than a fellow child.
We also added that Eddie is fairly new to the fairytale magic of the world, and is learning as he goes.
I would still say this paragraph is too clunky, and don’t love that it removes us from the action so quickly after the story starts, but it’s certainly much better from a storytelling perspective than it was as the opening foray.
Hopefully, it illustrates the point.
If you don’t open the story with a character and an action, ask yourself why not.
If you’re trying to “set the scene” or “fill in the reader” so they understand the story, consider moving the paragraph deeper into the text, and altering it to add depth to the character.
Consider cutting it out entirely.
Many readers are okay putting in some effort to figure things out. They don’t need to be spoon-fed information up front as long as the character and conflict grip their attention and pose questions they want the answers to.
If the opening paragraph is mainly weather, history, or philosophy, try splitting it into individual sentences, and find places to slip the information into the following page or two of the story.
You may notice you layered in similar details already.
The first paragraph is often when we are warming up our minds and getting into the writing groove. Always go back when you’re done and consider whether or not it’s necessary.
Let the reader work for their meal. They’ll remember your story better for it.
