Meg Chittenden Waves
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The Beginning

The most important part of your novel is the beginning. The middle and end count too of course, but if you don't catch your readers' interest with the beginning, they won't get as far as the middle or end. I've read hundreds of contest and workshop entries in my career, and the most common mistake I've seen in beginnings is that the writer gives too much information. Often it's static information. Something should be happening at the start of a novel. Something exciting if possible, and if it has something to do with the story, but definitely something interesting. Try not to start with only one person on scene. There's more possibility of interest if you have two or more. If you absolutely have to start with only one person on scene, try to have him or her doing something, going somewhere. Preferably not sitting on an airplane--that's been done to death. Also avoid someone sitting in a bathtub musing. That's been overdone too. And usually the musing takes the reader through the character's entire lifetime prior to the start of the book. That is, if the reader reads it. Try to start in what the old Romans called "In Medias Res." In the midst of things.