7 How should we write the beginning of a webnovel?

Author: Yang Chen(314)

The beginning of any story is critically important. This is a fact that I'm sure everyone is aware of. However, just how quantifiable is the importance of the beginning, and how much effort should we spend on the story's beginning? Perhaps not a single author knows.

Actually, webnovel literature has its own unique aspects. The fact that it can be written for a very low cost means that it's unlikely to ever become as well-known as a major blockbuster movie, while its nature of being continually updated with chapters also makes it harder for authors to foreshadow exciting events to be later used in the story.

More importantly, with so many webnovel stories available out there, readers have limited time and patience. They will only choose very few novels from among the crowd to read. They won't stick with an ordinary beginning which they need to spend much time on reading. If your story's beginning doesn't attract them, then it's highly likely that they won't even read your story past the beginning.

If only the beginning of your novel is good, that won't make your novel popular by itself. But without a doubt, having an excellent beginning will help you more than anything to show the advantages of your story. To use an analogy, a good beginning has the power to even revive the dead. However, just what counts as a good beginning?

For newcomer authors, there's only two standards for a good beginning – simple, as well as interesting. Now then, let us begin to analyze how to accomplish these two seemingly ordinary standards.

1. A simple beginning

The beginning of your novel is more important than anything else in determining whether your readers will pick up your novel or not. From a certain standpoint, the beginning serves as an advertisement for your novel.

We can completely categorize the beginning of your novel and the main storyline as completely separate categories. In other words, you can view your novel as an advertisement in the beginning, combined with the main storyline that comes after that.

Without a doubt, most readers won't choose to read your main storyline unless they're attracted by your advertisement. Also, most readers won't have too much patience in reading a boring or long advertisement.

So, this advertisement of yours needs to both be as attractive as possible, and as short as possible. The less irrelevant information, the better.

For newcomer authors in particular, you absolutely have to remember that the beginning is incredibly precious. But, what's precious aren't your words themselves, but the amount of space they take up!

So, just how should we have a concise beginning that doesn't take up too much of our precious space? We can try it starting with the following three factors.

(1) Deleting any irrelevant content

Some newcomer authors without any experience treat the beginning just like their main story by describing each little scene in great detail, or even adding filler. This is obviously unwise.

For the story's beginning, we should carefully consider each and every line of dialogue, description, and even each individual word. Are these truly meaningful? Is this word or sentence absolutely required for my beginning?

If I delete this paragraph, will it greatly decrease the effectiveness of advertising my beginning? If I delete this sentence, will it greatly affect the plot of my story?

If the answer is "Yes," then you can keep this sentence or paragraph. Otherwise, no matter how much you as an author love your own words, there's no reason for these words to continue being in your story's beginning. We should grit our teeth and make the sacrifice.

(2) Decrease any specialized information

What specialized information refers to is information that readers will unconsciously try to pay attention to and remember. This includes any words you've invented for your story, the setting, the storyline, and so on. To be more specific, this means the names of the people in your story, locations, technique names, character relationships, etc. etc…

Let's use characters as an example. How many characters should you have appearing in your beginning?

The answer is quite simple. As long as the plot permits it, apart from the main character who's absolutely necessary, it's best with as few characters as possible.

This is because if you have other characters appearing, the readers need to spend extra effort on remembering these characters' names in order to differentiate them. The readers will also try to understand these characters' identities, along with their relationships to the main character and each other. In fact, readers might even have trouble differentiating who the real main character is. Without a doubt, this is adding additional specialized information.

This is why as long as your plot permits it, it's best to have as few characters in the beginning of your novel as possible. Anyone that isn't critically necessary to your storyline shouldn't be appearing.

Other settings are the same as well. Any specialized information that's not absolutely necessary is something that should be heartlessly deleted by us. Although a short sentence describing a setting might not take up many words, these few words might cause the readers to lose interest in your novel, which will be much worse than having this meaningless scenic description in your story.

(3) Put the necessary but boring information later in your story

Sometimes, it is indeed necessary to write some somewhat boring but absolutely necessary content in your novel, such as the background of your world, any special settings, character relationships, and so on. In addition, some storyline content, such as the tragic life of your main character before the story began, might not be absolutely required, but if it's not there as a comparison, it will make the rest of your story seem lesser without it.

In such a situation, rather than forcing ourselves to write this somewhat boring content in our beginning where every word is precious, we can try something else instead – is it possible for us to put this information later in our story instead?

For example, the background of your story. Could you try to put it a bit later in your story and introduce the world to us slowly as the story unfolds? Does it really have to appear in the first chapter? Is it absolutely necessary for you to tell us about the world before you tell your story?

If it's possible for you to place it later in your story, then why don't you simply push it to later so that you can have a simple, effective, and excellent beginning?

2. An interesting beginning

What is an interesting beginning? More accurately speaking, it's a "beginning that can attract readers." Your beginning should swiftly show the most interesting elements in your story, along with whatever unique storyline points you have, so that you can tightly hold on to more readers and make them desire to read past your beginning.

What needs to be noted is that the most appealing points in webnovels aren't what you'll typically find in traditional novels. Webnovels don't require fierce fighting, eloquent wording, or mystical suspense. Instead, webnovels require more self-fulfillment factors. Or, that is to say, the readers should learn about what's so special regarding your main character, so that they can see the main character's bright future.

To analyze the true purpose of most webnovel readers, they don't read your novel for the sake of reading. Instead, the purpose for reading your novel is that they're hoping to enter the story together with your main character and experience a fulfilling and wonderful life filled with adventure and excitement.

And obviously, an appealing beginning should help the readers to swiftly understand that this is such an excellent book which can satisfy their desires.

For this purpose, you as an author naturally need to choose an appropriate topic and content to write about. But, without changing your topic or storyline, newcomer authors can try the following simple techniques.

(1) Put some of your best scenes in the beginning

As for the beginning of your story, perhaps some authors will say that it's easy to talk about but difficult to write. If it was that easy to write a brilliant beginning, wouldn't all authors write one? If they had such excellent and appealing scenes, would any author intentionally not use it?

Let me ask you a question. Do you as an author simply lack an interesting scene in the beginning, or do you lack interesting scenes throughout your entire story? If it's the latter, then I would recommend that you stop writing your book. Instead, you should read over my guide on how to choose a topic to write about and come up with a new idea for a novel.

If it's the former, then why don't you simply bring one of your later planned interesting scenes to the beginning? Do you intend to continue writing without a single reader, enjoying your several hundred words long novel by yourself?

Let me give you an example of a cliché storyline.

The main character is an orphan who was bullied ever since young, causing him to have a difficult life. One day, an immortal took favor with him and brought him to the realm of immortals, where he learned amazing abilities. The main character then returned to the mortal realm and accomplished great feats…

Although this type of storyline is quite simple and cliché, it will still attract a sufficient audience as long as you're a skilled writer. According to normal authors' thought processes, the novel should of course be in chronological order, with events happening in accordance to the plot. However, the problem with this is that such a beginning will doubtlessly be quite boring and even feel suppressive to read. This will make it quite hard to attract readers.

The way to solve this problem is quite simple. Simply bring some of the later miracles you planned into the beginning.

For example, start off with your main storyline, which is the main character meeting an immortal and learning mystical techniques. Then, the main character is so excited that he starts reminiscing about the past, when he was always bullied… After that, the story won't have any differences from your original planned storyline at all. You can simply tell the rest in chronological order.

With such a change, simply adding a few sentences to the beginning of your story from your main storyline will give the readers something to look forward to. Similarly, you don't have to write about some sort of miracle. You can use something else you think is interesting from your main storyline, or you could even begin with the planned ending of your novel. For instance, in the same story example, you could write about how your main character has conquered the entire Earth and is quite satisfied with himself. Then, he starts reminiscing about the past and all his achievements over the years, despite the fact that he started out as nothing but a bullied orphan, making it all this way through his efforts…

Obviously, by placing such a selling point in the beginning, this will help your novel to increase in self-fulfillment factors.

However, when you place something from your main storyline in the beginning, you also need to worry about spoiling your own plot. You should consider whether doing so will affect the suspense level of your storyline, which will actually negatively impact the reading experience.

So, with the two examples given above about how to put one of your best scenes in the beginning, the latter example runs the risk of spoiling your own story. This is why it's simply an example. In most cases, it's not recommended to actually start by writing the end of your novel in the beginning.

(2) Make your main character seem special in the beginning

What special means here can refer to many things. It can be in any area or any method.

For example, you could make your main character into a martial arts genius who needs only one time to learn anything. Or, you could say that your main character has a unique body that's capable of cultivating power levels at a rate of ten times faster than everyone else. Not only will this show your main character's amazing potential, this is also hinting that your main character won't be so ordinary in the future. With such a beginning, readers will typically be far more willing to continue reading.

Actually, the "special" referred to here doesn't even need to be something positive. You don't have to have a main character that's overly strong, incredibly smart, or ridiculously handsome. You could even take things in the opposite direction.

For instance, you could write that your main character is so stupid that he still hasn't learned how to talk or walk at three years old. Or, you could say that your main character is really slow at learning martial arts. Perhaps some basic martial arts technique that takes others only a few days to learn will take your main character more than ten years without even mastering such a basic level technique.

This type of setting may seem like it's going against the self-fulfillment factors that readers love so much, but, when readers see such a beginning, they'll have expectations as well. That's because they'll already understand that there's surely a reason for the main character to be so stupid. Or, maybe the main character will encounter a miracle in the future. And, with such a unique main character, it will give them a sense of freshness, which will make readers curious and want to read more.

(3) Add a short and simple prologue

If your novel is the type that's difficult to express its appeal at the beginning, and your plot isn't one where it's appropriate to bring something into the beginning, then you should consider adding a short and simple prologue to the beginning of your novel that can express the self-fulfillment factors of your novel.

There's two types of novels that are particularly suited for such a beginning.

The first type of novel is a novel where some special artifacts or techniques are involved throughout the entire storyline.

With such a novel, here's an example of a simple prologue you could write: describe how some ancient person from several thousand years ago received this powerful artifact which helped him to achieve incredible things, and then jump to the beginning of your storyline and the present day, where your main character is only an ordinary person who accidentally came across a mysterious object…

At this time, perhaps the main character doesn't even know that this object is actually a powerful artifact. However, you can describe this artifact to be identical to the one in the prologue, which will cause all the readers to understand that the main character has picked up an unbelievable treasure.

This way, the readers will already be motivated to read more. Even if the main character doesn't even know how to use the artifact yet, the readers will still maintain their interest for a period of time.

Similarly, it's the same way with martial arts manuals. When your main character receives a martial arts manual, you don't need to have him learn it immediately. Perhaps he'll only think that it's a joke or that it's useless. Maybe he'll even casually leave the technique manual in his home. This will cause the readers to wonder just when he'll find out about the technique manual's true power.

The other type of novel that's most suitable to use this prologue technique is one with mystical elements that aren't the best to appear in the beginning of your novel. This type of novel typically begins with a rather ordinary life based on reality, which will cause readers wanting to see mystical elements to run away from your novel.

So, that's where you could narrate in a small prologue two powerful individuals having a fight, or maybe having just one powerful individual showing off their skills. This way, readers will understand what your book is really supposed to be like, and your novel will attract readers that enjoy this genre.

What newcomer authors particularly need to note is that this type of prologue needs to be simple and concise. You should use as few words as possible.

For example, when writing a fierce fight in your prologue, just use one or two sentences. Never, ever try to use some powerful action scenes to attract readers.

If it's in the middle of your story and the readers already know who all your characters are, then one of your most popular characters participating in a major fight will indeed become an interesting scene to read. However, in the beginning of a story where readers know nothing about your characters at all, that means no reader will feel any sense of self-substitution with your characters that are basically just strangers. Besides, readers have seen plenty of major fight scenes before, so it won't really seem that special to them at all.

This is why you definitely can't have a long prologue of this type. You only need to reveal some information about what your novel will be like. That's all your prologue needs to do.

Also, in normal cases, it's not recommended for the author to have an entire chapter dedicated to the "prologue." Better would be to add the prologue directly to the first chapter, and having it only take up half or even less than half of the first chapter.