14 April 2026·3 min read
When your opening isn’t quite working
Sometimes an opening feels slow because the story starts a few pages later.
Early pages can be a way into the voice and setting. They help you begin, but you may not need all of them in the finished draft.
Try reading from page two, three or four. What do you miss? If the story still makes sense, you may have found a later starting point. You can bring back any details the reader needs.
Look for something changing
An opening can spend a long time describing a situation before anything changes.
A woman who has been unhappy for eleven years gives us background. A woman opening a letter she wasn’t meant to see gives us something happening now.
Look at your first page. What changes, or what question begins to form? If you can’t find either, try starting closer to the moment that unsettles things.
Quiet openings are allowed
A quiet opening can draw us in through a small detail that feels out of place. It might be a hesitation, an unexpected visitor or an ordinary object somewhere it shouldn’t be.
The useful question is whether that detail gives us a reason to keep reading.
Read more
These books explore the ideas in more detail, with examples you can try in your own work.
Hooked · Les Edgerton
A close look at openings and how they draw a reader into a story.
Steering the Craft · Ursula K. Le Guin
Exercises in sound, rhythm, point of view and other choices in prose.
Stein on Writing · Sol Stein
Practical guidance on revision, with exercises to try on a draft.
How to Write Best Selling Fiction · Dean Koontz
Advice on building tension and keeping a story moving.
For feedback on your own draft, Karlove offers a letter with examples from your pages, reviewed by Aksel before it's sent.
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