Yes, I’ll resume doing critiques in the evening starting today. Sorry about the interruption, but we had to go on a family trip, which ended up taking up more time/attention than I expected, so I’m running late on everything, pretty much.

Anyway, one thing that is becoming painfully obvious as I read people’s beginnings of novels, is that most of you have no idea how much information and world building to put in the beginning of your book.

This is not strange or unusual. I not only went through years of having this issue, but I also revert to this issue whenever I have not written for a long while.

When I fail I have two modes: either I write completely incomprehensible stuff or I write an opening that reads like you’re in a classroom and I’m expecting you to take notes.

But there is a way to handle it. I only figured it with Darkship Thieves, and only after breaking it pretty badly with an extra fifty pages in the beginning.

Anyway, so, what do you need to tell the reader: no more and no less than the reader needs to know.

This is outside the scene setting and such, which is required, not as a matter of information, but a matter of pulling the reader in.

Your first three pages are supposed to tell us who your character is (though not necessarily the main character of the book, mind), what the character’s problem is (his immediate problem, not necessarily the one that carries the story, mind. It should be something concrete too like the character is hungry, not the character needs to save the world, which is a bit more abstract) and the setting. To sell both the character the problem and the setting, you need to make those as clear and concrete as possible, including sensory input. AND your first three pages should also tell us the genre you’re writing in. which is important, if you consider that often in indie the books are misplaced as to genre.

Now, if you’re writing science fiction and fantasy, but also other genres (though less obvious) you can also use the first three pages to carry some of the world building.

What it shouldn’t do is top and give us a lecture on the last 300 years of history, or how the blah blah was built, or….

But Sarah! They need to know exactly when the throne room was built, and that the corners were sealed with the blood of prisoners, otherwise they’ll miss the impact of scene fifty four in chapter 205.

… Maybe, but do they need it all up front?

Answer: no, no, they really don’t.

People are reading a book for fun. Not for studying. What they need to know in any given paragraph is what will carry them through the next paragraph.

Say you open with your character coming out of a spaceship. Good. Science fiction and setting taken care of. But she doesn’t know where to go in the massive spaceport, so she activates her neurolink. Which has been corrupted and is used to send an attack through.

Each of these things should be introduced only when we need them. You shouldn’t start with a lecture on space flight and when commercial spaceships became available. and no one, not even you, can think people will sit riveted through an explanation of what a neurolink is, who invented it, and/or how it can go wrong.

No, you just introduce enough of each concept to carry the reader along.

Later, while the medtech is trying to fix whatever the malware did to her brain, you can introduce how long the neurolink has been in use and how it can be used for attacks. You might even mention the name of the inventor, though unless it’s absolutely necessary and the plot revolves around it, I wouldn’t.

We don’t usually go around giving the whole history of phones and how the cell phone became prevalent every time we pick up our cell phones. No, not even if they’ve been hacked. Not unless the book is about the inventor of the next great phone.

So, tell the readers exactly what they need to know when they need to know it. Later on, when you have them firmly hooked, you can indulge yourself a little more.

But it is very much on a need-to-know basis.