Promises Every Writer Makes to Their Readers (Part I)
Beginning a novel or short story is akin to making a commitment to your audience. You establish guidelines and expectations that your readers will depend on as they engage with your work. You take your audience by the hand and lead them into your narrative. You cultivate a relationship of trust with the reader.
Postponing or altering these aspects for your reader can create tension. While this may capture the reader’s interest, it also means you’ll need to exert extra effort to regain their trust throughout the remainder of the story. Here are five crucial promises you make to your reader right from the outset of your piece. Most authors will honour these commitments within the first five pages of a novel (or five paragraphs in a short story). We’ll go over two today and talk about the other three next week.
1) You promise a character.
From the very beginning, your readers will be eager to discover whom they should support. Occasionally, writers will skillfully delay the introduction of the main character to build anticipation or to mirror the character’s traits, but this is quite rare. Typically, the protagonist is introduced in the first chapter and is often the first character the reader encounters.
A notable instance of a delayed main character in children’s literature is The Wainscott Weasel by Tor Seidler, where the protagonist is absent in the first chapter. Another example is, of course, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, where Elizabeth’s eventual love interest–Mr. Darcy–doesn’t show up until much later in the narrative. In both cases, these characters are introverted and reserved. By holding back the characters and making the reader wait for them, the authors reveal this aspect of their personalities.
2) You guarantee the voice.
The narration’s voice is crucial for setting the story’s mood. Compare the opening lines of the following novels and observe the varying moods they express.
The point of view is also vital to the voice and mood. Notice that in the three examples above, all narrators are in the first person, allowing us to hear the character’s voice directly. There are other situations where the narrator isn’t the protagonist, yet the protagonist’s voice still resonates clearly in dialogue.
These are essential lessons every writer must learn and we’ll learn the other three so don’t forget to come back next week!