Of course, your entire novel should be great, but your first chapter really needs to knock it out of the ballpark. If your readers don’t feel engaged after the first chapter, you won’t get the chance to show them what you can do later. The good news is that if you nail your first chapter, you have the skills to carry it through to the end. In a post on DIY MFA, Abigail Perry suggests seven questions that will help you make your first chapter the very best it can be. She also examines the first chapter of Take It Back by Kia Abdullah, and how it answers those questions.
Taken from Paula Munier’s The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, those questions include:
- What kind of story is it?
- What is the story really about?
- Who is telling the story?
- Which character should they care about most?
- Where and when does the story take place?
- How should they feel about what’s happening?
- Why should they care what happens next?
