How to Nail the Opening Chapter of Your Fantasy Novel – A Brief Guide

If you are a writer who is ready to embark on a new fantasy novel, you already have an idea of how terrible it feels to stare at the first blank page. The reason why you have this terrible feeling is because you already know that the first page of your book, or fantasy novel, to be specific, is either going to make or break your book. 

Your first page, which is the opening page of your novel, is going to be the deal breaker as it is going to establish the reader’s interest and whether or not they will continue reading your story. 

Understand the Reader’s Journey 

If you are an aspiring novelist, especially a fantasy novelist, it is crystal clear that you are a great fan of fantasy novels yourself. On that note, you might even be a picky reader who takes their sweet time browsing and looking at everything. 

So, when you are book shopping, a book cover might jump out at you, and you are drawn to pick it up to get a better idea of what it is about. You continue reading the description, and when you are intrigued by it, you will feel hooked enough to start reading the book for a few minutes. 

On the other hand, if you are shopping for books online, you might use the “look inside” preview option to get an idea of the book. Now, here is what usually happens – if the book doesn’t grab your attention within the first few minutes – you simply close the book and move on from there to another book.

You Have No More than Five Minutes to Impress

Your priority is to make your readers care about the characters or the story within those first five minutes when they open your book to read it. If you cannot make them care about your characters or the story within those few minutes, you have lost them. 

According to research, the average adult’s attention span is only five minutes. So, you have five minutes to impress your readers. On that note, you have less than five minutes to get your ideal readers hooked, which is why you must pay attention to writing a winning first chapter. 

Don’t Start with A Description of the Fantasy World

The reason why you should never start with an exposition is that not only is it lacking internal conflict, which is the intriguing aspect of any story – but it can also be quite overwhelming for the readers. You might want to look at your story from the reader’s perspective. You will see that the reader is more or less already overwhelmed when they start reading a new story.

Now, you might believe that since the readers don’t know anything about the amazing fantasy world that you have built, it might be sufficient reason for you to explain the world first to them. But – the truth is the other way around.

Your readers will be more interested in understanding the main character and their place in your magic world. 

Do Start with the Good Stuff Right Away

Now, if this is your first attempt at writing a fantasy novel, we highly recommend you learn how to write a fantasy novel and do some research before you actually start to work on your project. The reason is that there might be a lot of things that you aren’t familiar with from the writer’s perspective despite the fact that you might have read tons of fantasy novels yourself.

Remember, having a learner’s mindset is the key to success. On that note, when you are writing the opening chapter of your fantasy novel, don’t make the mistake that many beginner writers make, which is to keep the good stuff for later. 

Don’t Give in To Your Impulses 

You might want to keep the internal conflict for later to make your protagonist appear mysterious in the eyes of your readers. You cannot save a lot for later because if you do so, your readers won’t even know what the main character cares about, which is why they won’t care about them.

Now, you don’t have to reveal everything from the very start, but you can give your readers some taste of the good stuff on your opening pages. Ideally, your aim should be to show your readers “just enough” of what your character is struggling with internally so that your readers can empathize with your character and care about them. 

Don’t Start with A Mystery Narrator

Another cliché that you should absolutely avoid when writing a fantasy novel is to start with a spooky prologue or start the chapter from the point-of-view of a mystery narrator whom your readers are most likely to never hear from again throughout the fantasy novel. 

You should never forget that you have less than five minutes to impress your ideal readers and make them want to continue reading. Your goal is to write an opening chapter in a way that you can make your readers care about one of the characters. 

Respect Your Reader’s Wishes 

So, you cannot integrate a mystery narrator who will never show up on those pages again. The worst you can do is to make your readers care about a character and then change the mood of your story completely by taking your readers to an entirely different set of characters that weren’t there in the beginning. 

You should never put your readers through this sort of confusion. Only include characters in the opening pages who matter and who will matter until the very end of your fantasy novel. 

Final Thoughts

Now that you know why your opening chapter is the most important aspect of your fantasy novel, you must ensure that you grab your reader’s attention right from the beginning by introducing some sort of conflict in the story. Also, avoid overwhelming your readers by including too much information and even characters or names on the first few pages. If you do this, your readers won’t be able to read more than two pages because they will feel overwhelmed with too many characters, names, places, world-building, etc. Your readers are already disoriented when they first open your book, so make it easy and interesting for them.