Learn the Page-One Secrets of Three Landmark Novels
I am obsessed with the first pages of novels.
If an author can’t write a good first page, I hesitate to think they can hold my interest chapter to chapter, or even paragraph to paragraph. I’ve started way more books than I’ve finished, and over the years, there are five things I’ve come to look for on the first page of any novel. If I find three of these five things, I take that as a sign that I am in good authorial hands.
A few days ago, I sat down and analyzed the first pages of tens of books. Tens, I tell you! After that grueling affair, I selected three novels that I think contain incredible, award-worthy first pages.
Soon, I’ll share those three first pages with you. But first, what makes a good first page?
A Good First Page Must Do Three of These Five Things
If you want to hook your readers on the very first page of your novel, you should be doing at least three of the following:
Present the reader with a mystery
Describe a character with a problem
Showcase a surprising author voice
Tell the reader you will give them what they want
End on a cliffhanger
Let’s break these down.
1 - Present the reader with a mystery
One of the easiest methods to hooking your readers is by presenting them with a mystery on page one. It doesn’t have to be a big mystery - in fact, it can be resolved on the very next page! We’ll see an example of that when I analyze the pages below. But any little piece of unresolved information, any closed loop you can give the reader on page one, will likely get them to turn the page.
As writers, that’s our goal, nine times out of ten. Get the reader to turn the page. And readers, if a book can’t make you do this on page one, do you really want to make it to page one hundred?
2 - Describe a Character with a Problem
Humans are, as my therapist continually reminds me, social creatures. We are hardwired to crave connection with other humans because it helps us survive.
As authors, we can hijack that social hardwiring to write a first page that will make your reader want to know what happens next. If you can show a character with a problem on the very first page, it will trigger our social brains and make us want to see that character’s life improve. If a casual bookstore (or Audible) browser reads your first page and connects with the character on it, there’s a good chance they’ll buy that book.
3 - Showcase a Surprising Author Voice
As a friend trying hard to be funny once said, “it pays to be the Rizzler.”
For those of you not in tune with the perennially suspect slang of younger generations, first, congratulations. I wish I were you. Second, what this phrase really means is “it helps if you’re likable.”
And folks, sure as water’s wet, that’s always going to be true. You can create shallow characters, plot a nonsensical mess, and spit in the eye of good taste, but if your writing is engaging, surprising, or clever, there’s a good chance readers will keep reading.
4 - Tell the Reader you will Give Them what they Want
As I was writing this, I thought this is great and all, but boring books have been and will be successful. How do you explain that?
And you know what? I think boring is subjective. What those books are doing, in one form or another, on their first page, is communicating to their readers that the book is about something they want to read.
And of course, this is subjective. People want to read about all sorts of things. So the takeaway here is to make sure you’re signalling to folks something of what your book will contain, so those who like that sort of thing know to stick around.
Let’s say your book is about people riding horses and you write a character riding a horse on the first page. You’re sending a subliminal message to anyone who reads that and likes horses that says: “I like horses, too. Read my book.”
The real takeaway here is to think about the essence of your novel, and put that on the first page. People will pick up on it, and those drawn to that sort of thing will read on!
5 - End on a Cliffhanger
This is similar, yet legally distinct, from the first rule. While mysteries are teased pieces of information, a cliffhanger is simply a moment that the reader wants to see resolved.
So if your first page ends with a character saying: “Oh, yeah? What are you going to do if I just took your sandwich and ate it right here?”
Well, your reader probably now wants to know what the response will be! This can be tricky to do, as it often comes down to the font size, and spacing, and how the writing will be laid out on the final page. It’s possible you won’t have the luxury of ending on a clean cliffhanger.
That said, two of the three examples below managed it! And I, for one, believe in you.
Analyzing the First Page of Three Landmark Novels
I recently found three novels that I think have truly stellar first pages. Now some editions of books are different, so I’m going to be recreating the first pages of these books, as they appear in my editions, below. After each one, I’ll have an analysis on why I think it works so well.
The First Page of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
1
Tuesday’s Wind-Up Bird
.
Six Fingers and Four Breasts
When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.
I wanted to ignore the phone, not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical climax. Finally, though, I had to give in. It could have been somebody with news of a job opening. I lowered the flame, went to the living room, and picked up the receiver.
“Ten minutes, please,” said a woman on the other end.
I’m good at recognizing people’s voices, but this was not one I knew.
“Excuse me? To whom did you wish to speak?”
“To you, of course. Ten minutes, please. That’s all we need to understand each other.” Her voice was low and soft but otherwise nondescript.
“Understand each other?”
“Each other’s feelings.”
I leaned over and peeked through the kitchen door. The spaghetti pot was steaming nicely, and Claudio Abbado was still conducting The Thieving Magpie.
“Sorry, but you caught me in the middle of making spaghetti. Can I ask you to call back later?”
END of page 1.
Analysis
Let’s run through my points one by one to see which criteria this first page fulfills.
1 - Does this page present the reader with a mystery?
Yes!
Murakami actually gives us a few mysteries here, but some of them tie into later points. So, I’ll simply focus on the identity of the caller, and the strange topic they wish to discuss.
Who is this caller, and why do they want to talk to the main character? Why do they want to understand his feelings, and vice versa? Why are they so confident they only need ten minutes?
These are great little mysteries. In classic Murakami style, they’re mundane yet strange, and they stick in the mind.
2 - Do we read about a character with a problem?
Yes!
Much like with the number of mysteries presented, our character has more than one! My man just wants to make spaghetti, but this strange woman calls and interrupts him.
Then, there’s the nod to the fact that our character is looking for a job. This raises another question - why is he out of work? Here, we see how Murakami is combining two of my good-first-page-prerequisites, the mystery and the problem. See if you can find interesting ways to blend these together in your own writing - it helps!
3 - Does this page showcase a surprising voice?
Yes! Ish.
Murakami’s prose is certainly not as flashy as many authors, but it has a quiet understated quality that makes it stick in the mind long after you stop reading. And I do think there’s something to the way Murakami describes this slow afternoon, the characters' fussiness and particularities, that do feel quietly revolutionary. There are bits of strangeness there - our character being good at recognizing voices, for instance - but presented side by side with the mundane, and the effect heightens both.
4 - Does this tell the reader you will give them what they want?
Maybe.
To be honest, this question is always subjective. Did this page tell you that the book is about something you’re interested in? I’m not sure!
For me? Yes. I like the subtle mystery, the quiet atmosphere, and our character’s quirks. I’ll read more.
5 - Does this first page end on a cliffhanger?
Yes!
It’s a small cliffhanger, but it counts! Our character has just asked their mystery caller if it’s okay for them to call later (in terms of the hero’s journey, he has denied the call!). Don’t you want to know how the woman responds?
Spoilers - it’s not how you think!
The First Page of Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
NOTE - McCarthy does not use much of the punctuation you may be used to!
I
Childhood in Tennessee - Runs away - New Orleans -
Fights - Is shot - To Galveston - Nacogdoches -
The Reverend Green - Judge Holden - An affray - Toadvine -
Burning of the hotel - Escape.
See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him.
Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The Dipper stove.
The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off. The father never speaks her name, the child does not know it. He has a sister in this world that he will not see again. He watches, pale and unwashed. He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.
END of page 1.
Analysis
1) Does this present the reader with a mystery?
Arguably, no.
You could make a case for some mysteries being present in this first page. For instance, why will the child never see his sister again? But this is not really what McCarthy is focusing on, so I’ll skip over it.
2) Do we see a character with a problem?
Yes!
We are introduced to the child, a poor boy with a drunk father and a dead mother. This engenders in us some sympathy for the boy, and it’s good, too, for McCarthy undercuts some of this sympathy by telling us he’s a violent little rascal. But notice how he only tells us this after first commanding us to see the child and the environment he is raised in.
3 - Does this showcase a surprising voice?
YES!
McCarthy has some of the starkest prose I have ever read. On top of that, and his antagonistic attitude towards punctuation is rare, and visually sets him apart from every other novelist who employs semicolons, em dashes, and even quotation mark (although, this invites the possibility readers will bounce off his work for how little it visually holds your hand).
Furthermore, McCarthy opens his novel in present tense, which is also relatively rare. I believe he does this entirely for effect, as he transitions into past tense after a few paragraphs. But it’s all done for this devastating opening salvo that drips of desperation and growing dread.
4 - Does this tell the reader you will give them what they want?
Again, that’s up to you. But from an objective standpoint, McCarthy promises us a tone that he one hundred percent delivers on: this is a grim tale full of poor, violent people, and it is bigger than any one person. The line “All history present in that visage...” clues the reader in to the fact that this story has sweeping thematic ambitions.
Boy, does it ever.
5 - Does this page end on a cliffhanger?
No.
While there’s a good chance the reader wants to turn the page by the final word, it’s not due to some information that has been teased but withheld. But the fact that his writing can be so strong and not check every box just goes to show how flexible this system is.
The First Page of Parable of a Sower, by Octavia E. Butler
1
. . .
All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2024
I had my recurring dream last night. I guess I should have expected it. It comes to me when I struggle—when I twist on my own personal hook and try to pretend that nothing unusual is happening. It comes to me when I try to be my father’s daughter.
Today is our birthday—my fifteenth and my father’s fifty-fifth. Tomorrow, I’ll try to please him—him and the community and God. So last night, I dreamed a reminder that it’s all a lie. I think I need to write about the dream because this particular lie bothers me so much.
END of page 1.
Analysis
1 - Does this present the reader with a mystery?
YES!
What is your dream?
Also, what’s going on witchu and your daddy?
2 - Does this describe a character with a problem? YES!!
The struggle is real. In fact, Butler’s third sentence literally tells us the character is struggling. But Butler masterfully illustrates this with just a few words.
For one, we know that the narrator has her dream when she struggles, and she struggles when she tries to pretend that nothing is happening. Then we learn she has the dream when she tries to be her fathers daughter.
This line carries so much weight, and it hits because of how much heavy lifting the incredibly simple sentences that come directly before it do. Basically, Butler is showcasing the transitive property, but linguistically. A=B, B=C, so A=C. And it raises the question...
What is happening that the narrator pretends isn’t?
Then, the narrator’s problems intensify. Already, on the first page, we not only get a character with a problem, but that problem actively gets worse. Because we learn it’s not only her birthday, but hers and her father’s. Given their fraught relationship, we know this event will be complicated for her.
Like with Murakami, Butler blends the mystery with the character’s problem. This seems to be a very good way to create suspense and tension, and an excellent strategy for your first page.
3 - Does this showcase a surprising voice?
Yes!
Butler’s prose might not be as vividly economical as McCarthy’s, but she’s able to do that grand thing all authors aspire to: she describes something we’ve all felt, but never thought of in that way. At least, she did for me, and that is her description of twisting on a hook when trying to act like nothing's wrong.
Beyond this, her language is simple, yes, but devastatingly honest. Our character is self aware: she has strained relationships, she has issues, she has dreams. And she’s going to tell us all about it. This intimate, disclosive prose is emotional and surprising, and absolutely a draw.
4 - Does it tell the reader you will give them what they want?
As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
5 - Does this end on a cliffhanger? Yes! WHAT IS YOUR DREAM ABOUT?!
To be completely honest, I haven’t read Parable of the Sower. It was given to me several months ago, and I only opened it to research this article. However, Butler does so much right with her first page, I think it may be the finest I have read.
Master the First Page, Master the Novel
That’s hyperbole, right? Well, kind of. But I think if you’re able to take to heart the lessons of a good first page and can apply them to every page thereafter, you’re probably writing a pretty good book.
Obviously, you can’t do this carte blanche. Your last page can’t always start a new mystery and end with a cliffhanger. Rather, I think you should always write like you are fighting for the attention of your reader.
In our world of notifications and messages, you really are. As an author, you’re battling against every other distraction, attraction, pleasure, and sorrow that bombard us daily.
Today, I’ve shown you three authors who knew their first page must cut through the noise to be seen. They each delivered, and they were successful for it.
If you want to talk writing, have questions about story structure, or want to know if your first page is up to snuff, you can reach me at noahchen1221@gmail.com
