How to Find the Opening Scene for Your Novel
The entrance point to your novel is a set piece. Here are two things you should know going in.
Photo by Victor Garcia on Unsplash
I started writing new novel this week. A middle grade book that I’m calling The Odds.
I’m in love with this new idea. It’s been brewing for a while. A new project is always fun, but also? A little scary. Because something new means starting. And starting means figuring out where to start.
And figuring out where to start means deciding on exactly where that opening scene actually is.
I’m writing The Odds right now because Ninja Writers does a project every year at this time — a Write-a-Long — we all write a novel together. So this week there are hundreds of Ninja Writers all starting their books, too.
And we’re all in this place of needing to decide the exact scene that opens our novels. It can be paralyzing. How can we start, if we don’t know where? And how can we move on, if the opening is wrong?
I want to do two things with this post.