Brad Taylor/Photo © Claudio Marinesco
Editor’s Note: Brad Taylor is the New York Times bestselling author of seven Pike Logan novels including the just-released No Fortunate Son. He served for more than twenty years in the U.S. Army, including eight years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta. For Biographile's Write Start series, in which authors share advice about how to get that first word down, Brad turns to the idea of incentivizing the reader.
That dreaded first page.
I’m not much of a “first sentence” type of guy, but I am a first paragraph or two sort of guy, and I think those paragraphs are critical. Early on, I made the mistake of trying to answer questions about a character’s motivation or critical elements of the plot, knowing those were essential, and the earlier they were out, the more the reader would appreciate it. I learned I was answering the wrong question. In the first couple of paragraphs, the reader isn’t asking questions about the characters or plot. He or she’s asking one simple thing:
“Why should I keep reading?”
And that’s what I try to answer in the first two paragraphs. To that end, I treat it almost as a standalone mini-story, sometimes using a scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. In my short story, Black Flag, the first paragraph deals with a man pounding nails on a roof. Pretty mundane stuff. He hits a nail off-kilter, and the nail flies into the street. The last two sentences are:
“Had the roofer’s hammer rang true, had the nail fulfilled its destiny, the world would have turned a different way. Instead, the nail patiently waited for a new destiny that would involve the death of many, many people.”
That paragraph doesn’t answer a single question about the plot, and the roofer is never heard from again, but hopefully, it does answer the question, “Why should I turn the page?” Because the reader really wants to know how that damn nail is going to kill a lot of people.
This isn’t to say my first two paragraphs don’t ever answer questions of character or plot, just that it isn’t the focus I’m trying to achieve. For instance, in The Widow’s Strike, the first couple of paragraphs describe a doctor entering a laboratory dealing with infectious diseases, something that’s absolutely critical to the story. But the reader doesn’t know this. All he or she knows is that the sign outside the facility, warning of BIOHAZARD LEVEL IV, is listing a bit to the side, the tape peeling from the wall – “An indicator of the less-than-perfect nature of the work beyond the door.” So, while this lab is the epicenter of the entire plot, I don’t force that early. All I do is let the reader know that a) there’s some deadly stuff beyond this door, and b) the people doing it are probably not on the up-and-up. And – hopefully – that will keep them reading.
Usually, I craft the opening scenes separately from the rest of the story. It may or may not intertwine later, but I honestly don’t feel that’s necessary. Sometimes the opening scene leads to further developments as I go along, but I don’t write them with that in mind. For instance, the first paragraph in No Fortunate Son is in a bar, where an older female is hitting on a character I had no intention of using later. It turned out I did, and he became important to resolving the plot, but he wasn’t created with that in mind. He was created to answer that all-important question, and in No Fortunate Son, it was this sentence, given in the first paragraph:
“The woman caught Aiden’s eye a second time and he realized she was stalking him. Which he found ironic, given he was in the process of hunting another, although he was fairly sure her idea of success was much different than his.”
It’s a typical bar scene played out in nightclubs all over America on a daily basis, but this one sentence pricks the reader’s interest. “Who is Aiden hunting, and why?” There’s only one way to find out – keep reading.
I write thrillers, so naturally, my first couple of paragraphs will be different in tone than someone like Nicholas Sparks, but the premise is the same. Obviously, character development, story arc, plot, and a host of other things are necessary, but you have a whole book to answer those questions. Up front, answer the important one: “Why should I turn the page?”
If you miss that, the rest doesn’t matter.
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