It's always difficult to start a novel. In my view the first pages set the tone, they pose the problem of the plot, they constitute a contract with the reader, they contain the fundamental elements of the story (the foundations). In fact, they are all traps.
[Note, as with the adventures of Robert, than I give here my personal view and moderate on the issue, this does not mean absolute truths. The "you" to follow are as many "I".]
Choosing the right point of view, favorable to your protagonists
I think the first trap is to write the first pages that do not at all stage actors (I do not speak the prologue, which is another thorny issue, considered separately.) If you put a secondary character on stage, there are good chances that the reader confused with the protagonists. Thereafter, it will wait for you to come back on them and you might annoy him if he understood too late that in fact they are not the protagonists (gender, it has had time to focus on them and worse if history pleases him more than your characters.)
[Obviously, you can always find cases where we do not start with the protagonists, for example, because they are presented indirectly through other characters, so that the reader is impatient to meet them.]
If your story tells the incredible commitment of a berserk for a fabulous tiger who lives in another world and it is ready for anything, even influence the course of the war, to protect it, eh, you must start with them. If you start with an army marching on ISPAR who intend to settle there to save hands on the reserves Olyre Circle, his enemy is not the same story, just because you change point of view.
short, we must adopt the right perspective from the outset.
properly manage information
The second trap is the problem of information. Ah the information! Managing information at the beginning of the novel! This is a real art! It's not for nothing that the beginning of a novel, it's super hard to write, that's a big mess, and that I should put a stick on the side of my desk (note: the cabinet) for each rewrite beginning of my novel.
[How many times already The Phantom Warrior ? I think my page FaceDeBouc is the status that comes up most often. Um, I digress.]
The most common problem found, especially with first novels, it will be the lack of information. Genre, too mysterious killer mystery (and the reader, especially the drive, and the publisher's worse, it has already Stretched to the following script.) Reader loves to discover the springs of the plot, not one punches him a total of 300 pages later, because he hates not understand what is happening. (And you can not compensate showing them to distract the world, it is not enough.)
Conversely, when we hope as I have cared for, we have a list of items to cram for his first pages because that we chose the difficulty with a character who is anything but ordinary and want to put its bases from the beginning, we risk falling choice in the presentation, or the overabundance of details that the reader will retain not. So be careful to deliver information as and when, so that the reader is able to assimilate, and especially to keep the story alive, is not it, because the information should not overshadow that you tell a story that gives readers emotions.
the tone and stick
Another thing, you must set the tone and stick to it. I mean if you promise an epic novel full of twists, you must save from the beginning. If your novel speaks of the shadow of big monsters, we must mention the ugly from the first pages. If you write a cop, you're going to stage an investigator, a crime scene, and finally one of the things typically found. If you write a saga that takes its time, you just take your time and "put" the first pages, exactly. There are codes. The player does not comply mistaken. We can not, for example, write the first pages where the fantastic burst and not to mention during the first half of the novel.
Same thing for the style and register, once defined, you can not go back. Unable to start a comic story and the gore switch halfway, forgetting the comic, without expecting retaliation from your (beta-) readers.
Present your characters faithfully
One last point (and I wonder how many more I could have missed), your characters must be true to themselves. They should look like they are in the novel because the reader will get an idea of them in these first few pages and it will stick to it stubbornly, for a while. Of course, this picture may change with the story, but only if they are progressing with the story. If 50 pages later, they reveal another unexpected personality, he'll have to prepare the ground: readers hate being lied to or being the dupe unless you have a good reason, even a good reason (which passed the pill.)
So if Siwès does not flinch when 10 tons of barbarc darken over him, it does will not cry at the sight of frightened maid Tadjal for the first time. (Remember the front page that I posted - it's true that I like it when it screams.) And if it is the type to take initiative, the very large (not just to move once it is trapped), it must be fast. Basically, what characterizes the novel must characterize the outset.
And, for that matter, it is best to choose a scene that presents them at their best (not boring, soft, boring, etc..) Think up the stack to read your editor
In conclusion, the test
The first pages and create an expectation lay the cornerstones of the coherence of the story, OK. Ideally, the reader should be able to summarize what History speaks in absolute from the first pages. Test with random titles.
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind : This is the story of the greatest wizard of all time tells his extraordinary life, and he does it in three days (one volume = one day).
Nadia Coste, Les Rives du Monde : This is the story of a fedeylin, a small winged being, born unbranded, which means he has no fate ( unlike the others). His life will not be easy every day.
Another , Christophe Nicolas: It's about a guy who is up to our necks in bullshit and finds himself mistaken for another (no similarity) without understands nothing.
The flavor of figs, of Silenus is the story of a girl who is beautiful with her grand-mother honor an appointment at the other end of a post-apo.
Again?
At Out of the Shadow is the story of a priestess tormented by a monster and his bodyguards, who are chased by the Illuminati (it would also release the monster is awfully intriguing, is not it?)
What I say, as
You see a little dimension to the problem? "And all this by ensure that the first pages scotchent
Meanwhile, the first 7 pages are parties to my two beta readers favorites. If they say it is not good, I start again. I write it back ten times if necessary (I'm not kidding, I never joke). When I think I thought I was high and that for this one, it would be a cakewalk. Surprise! Each new novel is by definition new . Ah ah ah. Life is a bitch.
PS: In truth, I'm having. If you are wise, and that the two beta-readers to validate, you may have right too. I will have comments to encourage me. Mouahahahahah!
* Ah, but hey, it's an idea that I could put it italic, just to remove all ambiguities Point Of View.
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