I'm walking home from school when the bombs drop. I can't believe what I'm seeing: the orange sky, the mushroom clouds. It's hell on earth. And here I am worried about the “F” Mr. Wilson gave me on my math test. Whether to lie or tell my parents. I've got something else to tell them now, if they haven't seen it already. If they're even still alive.
I whipped these paragraphs up in just a few minutes. I don't say that to brag, but to prove you can do it too. It's easy once you get the hang of it and I'll show you how.
Before we get to those writing exercises, Let's try one more first paragraph, this time using the second person POV:
You aim your gun at the dead man. You're waiting to see if he gets up again. Waiting to see if he's like all the rest who died but didn't stay dead. You have to be sure because this guy isn't like the others. He's your father.
You have to start with a bang, pull back, then hit them again with the last line of your first paragraph. BAM! No escape. They're hooked. They have to keep reading.
You do this by teasing your readers, tempting them, then delaying gratification as long as you can (but not too long). It's all about pacing.
Pacing controls suspense.
WRITING EXERCISES (Do Not Skip!)
Pick a character name, profession, and location, then stick that character in their Ordinary World as they confront an unusual situation. Give yourself no more than five minutes to brainstorm the best first line you can, then allow yourself another five minutes to expand that line into a first paragraph. Use a timer. Don't stop to revise or edit.
Do this as many times as it takes to internalize the process. I recommend at least five times total, using a different character with a different profession in a new location and situation each time.
Now reread the paragraphs you've just written and analyze them to see what works and what doesn't.
Feel free to revise and edit them all until you're happy―but don't spend too much time on this. You don't want to slow your progress. Think of yourself as a shark: You have to keep swimming or you drown. Whatever doesn't get fixed now can get fixed in the next draft.
Besides teaching you the skills to start your story in the best and most interesting way possible, this exercise has a baked-in bonus: How many first paragraphs did you write? That's how many beginnings to future novels and short stories you've written. Sure, you may not use them all, but if you use even one, you're ahead of the curve. Next time you want to start a story, grab one of these babies and you're up and running.
Or, if you're feeling ambitious, you could even use several of these first paragraphs to introduce characters in the same story. You'll still need to flesh out the rest of their introductory chapters and decide how they'll meet. You'll also need to figure out their relationships to each other (if any) and whether their roles as survivors will be as heroes, sidekicks, traitors, villains, or victims.
It's wise to pick a character from the supporting cast to be the “stakes character” (a lover, friend, or family member) that the other survivors can rally behind either to rescue or avenge. You don't need more than one stakes character and having more than one only dilutes the importance of each.
To learn more about stakes characters, heroes, villains, anti-heroes, and supporting cast, read my best selling book, Writing Heroes & Villains.
HOW TO WRITE A KILLER FIRST CHAPTER
To create your first chapter, simply keep doing what you've been doing. Start strong, end strong. Make us like (or at least be amused or interested by) your main character. Build tension. Avoid back story. Drop hints to the past, but save any lengthy explanations for chapter 2 or 3. Otherwise, you will bore your reader by slowing the pace of that crucial first chapter with a bunch of information no one needs yet.
With short stories, you have more flexibility since you have to fit the same information into fewer pages. But the basic rule still applies: Don't rush it. Don't front load your story with boring shit. Whatever is in the first chapter must earn its place or it has to go. So either cut it completely, or move it to later in the book.
If you're still in doubt, switch your chapter one with chapter two and see if that doesn't fix any pacing problems.
What about prologues? Don’t do it! Many people hate prologues and skip reading them because too many bad authors chose to slap a “spoiler” or some boring nonsense on the front of their books for the past decades. If you still insist on a prologue, don't call it that. Call it anything else: “Before,” “Thursday, 7 a.m.,” “Patient Zero,” etc. Hell, if none of those work, call it “Chapter 1.” Just be sure you can't tell your story without it. Otherwise, cut it.
To help you see behind the scenes of my creative process, I've included a case study containing the complete first chapter of “My Own Decisions,” a zombie story I wrote for my extreme horror collection, Gore Girls. The extensive footnotes explain how and why I made each and every decision as an author. Analyzing my first chapter will help you better write your own in a way that will satisfy readers and sell more books.
15
ZOMBIE STORY CASE STUDY
(FOOTNOTES APPEAR AT THE END OF THIS CHAPTER)
MY OWN DECISIONS
Jackson Dean Chase
DEREK MASON AIMED HIS RIFLE out the attic window.1 He was picking targets in the street2 while my big sister, Marnie,3 rubbed his shoulders and whispered encouragement.
“There's one,” she said. “Shoot that one!”4
It must've been a hundred degrees in here. No air conditioning, no cool drinks, nothing to make the end of the world any less sweaty and miserable. I sat in the corner with my hands over my ears, waiting for Derek to pull the trigger.5
The rifle roared.6
My parents were banging around downstairs shoring up our defenses.7 They were always mad about something, but the gun noise really set them off. I wasn't a fan of it either. It attracted zombies8 from the street toward the house, and that was never good. Still, at least it wasn't the other sound―the one I had to listen to all night of Derek and Marnie making out behind the bed sheet they'd hung to get some privacy. Like I really cared to spy on that! Well, OK, I'll be honest―I didn't mind looking at Derek, especially with his shirt off, but not when he was doing stuff with my sister.9
I wanted him doing that stuff with me.10
Derek was the best-looking guy my sister had ever brought home.11 What he saw in her, I'll never know, but Derek was a catch. His eyes were sexy-blue and his hair was blonde and styled just right. Or it used to be. Now it was all greasy from days of brutal heat and no showers,12 but he didn't seem to mind. He'd wink and smile, and at least try to be nice to me. Not like my sister, who was always bitching about something. Mostly me.
The end of the world13 hadn't done much to improve my relationship with Marnie. Especially once we got stuck in the attic. Not only had she kept her big sister authority over me, but when our parents decided to stay downstairs―“to make sure we were safe,” were their exact words―Marnie acted like she was my mom. Even before the apocalypse, she was always telling me to shut up, or go away, to stay out of her clothes and makeup. It seemed like the only time Marnie liked talking to me was to rub her boyfriend in my face.14
“Derek is so handsome,” she'd say, or, “Maybe someday you'll get a boyfriend, Lisa―if you don't scare him off with that mousy brown hair and scarecrow-thin body of yours. You're like a human coat hanger.”15
I'd study myself in the mirror and wonder what was taking so long, why I didn't look all curvy and round in all the right places like her. “Maybe someday” better come soon, because I'm not sure how much longer I have to live. I hoped it would be long enough to get a boyfriend, even if we could never go to the prom or the movies or do anything normal. At least we'd have each other.
I looked over at Derek again, hunched over the windowsill, rifle pointing into the street. What if everyone else was dead? What if Derek was the last guy on earth? I bit my lower lip and another “what if” popped into my head, someth
ing so horrible it made me excited and ashamed all at the same time: What if something happened to my sister? Would Derek stay with me? Would he finally see in me what he saw in Marnie?16
No way, I thought. No guy wants a “coat hanger” for a girlfriend. Not if he has a choice. Plus, Derek's totally seventeen. He's gonna graduate next year and go off to college with Marnie and I'll never see him again. Only wait, I forgot there won't be anymore graduations. No more school, no nothing. There was only this attic and whatever world we made from it.
The rifle cracked, ear-splittingly loud in the dusty confines of the attic.17
“Omigod!” I said, coming over to the window where Derek and Marnie were fooling around with Dad's rifle. “Would you guys please stop? You know Mom and Dad hate noise.”
Marnie looked at me like I was retarded. “It doesn't matter what Mom and Dad hate anymore,” she said. “We're up here, and they're down there. I'm in charge. Besides, Derek and I are practicing.”
“Oh,” I said. “Practicing what? How to get us killed?”18
“Check it out,” Derek said. He made room for me to see what he was up to.19
I peeked out the window. I didn't much like looking outside anymore, not since the dead started coming back to life. It was pretty gross seeing strangers walking around all dead and rotting, but friends and neighbors were the worst. Like old Mrs. McGruder next door, who'd been like a grandmother to me, but now walked around in circles on her front lawn with half her face chewed off.20 Or that cute boy, Eric Westin, who lived two houses over. He'd been my first kiss last summer when I turned thirteen.
It hadn't worked out with him, thanks to stupid Angela Overton, who'd stolen Eric from me a week later with her overdeveloped chest and big fat ass.21 No, I wouldn't be making out with Eric again, and not just because he was a zombie. Angela still had him, and they were undead together, all vacant-eyed and drooly-mouthed.
I saw them now, stumbling up and down the street, holding hands like it still mattered. Nothing much mattered, but at least they had each other and that was something.22
What did I have? A smelly attic, a few days worth of food and water,23 and a sister who hated me. There was no place to plug anything in here, so the batteries to my iPod had died and the only sounds I got to hear everyday were Derek and Marnie sucking face,24 Mom and Dad banging around, and whatever weird groans came from the zombies outside.
“I got one!” Derek said. “See that?” He pointed at the body of a UPS guy and grinned. “Total head shot.”25
He was right. The delivery man's brains were all over the pavement, steaming in the August heat.
“Derek got him on the second try,” Marnie bragged. “A few more shots like that, and he's gonna get us out of here.”
I pushed Marnie out of the way and took her place by his side.26 “So what's the plan? You gonna shoot all those zombies?”
“No,” Derek said. “I don't think I'll have to. They're pretty slow, and we can probably get around them without wasting too many bullets. I just wanna get a feel for the gun, is all. I haven't had a chance to use it since…”
“Since you borrowed it from Dad,” I answered for him. “I remember.”
Derek and Marnie exchanged a look―one of those secret looks they were always giving each other. They didn't think I noticed, but I did. They were planning to ditch me, make me wait here with Mom and Dad while they got help. If they got help. Or maybe they planned to never come back. It's not like I could read minds or anything, I just knew they were up to something and didn't like it.27
I grabbed hold of the barrel and pointed it toward Angela Overton. “Shoot her! I bet you can't hit her.”28
Almost as if she could hear me planning her murder, the dead girl stopped in the middle of the street and stared at us. Most of her once-graceful neck had been chomped off by Eric, but she managed to tilt her head enough to let us know she was on to us. Eric stopped shuffling too and looked in our direction. Only Mrs. McGruder kept moving, still in the same slow, lazy circles. She didn't respond much to anything anymore, but then she'd always been hard of hearing.
Marnie yanked me back, out of sight from the street. I took a few steps, fell, and hit my shoulder on the chest of old junk we'd moved over the trapdoor.29 It led to the downstairs hallway near my bedroom.
Marnie said, “Sorry, Lisa, but you know you're not supposed to make noise.”
I rubbed my shoulder and glared at her from where I sat sprawled next to the chest. “Oh yeah? Well, what about that rifle, huh? It's not exactly quiet, you know.”
“That's different, Lisa. We need to learn how to use it if we're gonna get out of here.”
“When are we doing that? Before or after the food runs out?”
“Before,” Derek said. “Now can you two stop fighting so I can finish practicing?”30
Marnie apologized, but returned my glare. She was always apologizing to him, so much you'd think she couldn't do anything right. But it made Derek happy, so I guess it made sense.
“Yeah,” I echoed. “Sorry, Derek.”31
Derek stuck the gun out the window. I came back over, wedging myself next to Derek's left side while Marnie stayed on his right. But it made Derek happy, so I guess it made sense.
“This one's for you,” he told me.
I followed his gaze into the street. Angela's head disappeared in a pink mist of scrambled blood and bone,33 and it was the most romantic moment of my life. I think I loved Derek then.34 I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him, planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek.35
Marnie rolled her eyes. “Jeez! It's only a zombie. Don't make such a big deal out of it.”
In the street below, zombie Eric tugged at his fallen girlfriend's lifeless arm, not realizing she couldn't walk with him anymore. He kept tugging until her arm tore loose. Eric wandered off with it, trailing gore.36
An angry thump came from downstairs. Mom and Dad were pissed.37
LATER THAT NIGHT, after a dinner of cold pork and beans and warm Diet Pepsi, Marnie said she felt sick38 and went behind the curtain to rest. That didn't bother me, since it left me alone with Derek. As alone as we could be in a one-room attic.
“I wanted to thank you for shooting that girl today,” I said. “She was really bugging me.”
Derek shrugged and bit into a Snickers bar. “Had to shoot one of 'em,” he said. “Might as well make you happy at the same time, right?”
“Yeah. Hey, can I have some of your Snickers?”“Take it.” He handed me the candy bar.
I took a bite, realizing I was tasting more than chocolate, caramel, and peanuts―I was tasting him.39 It wasn't the same as making out, but it was the closest we'd ever gotten. I wondered if Derek knew that? Was that why he handed me his candy bar? Was it some secret boy way of reaching out to me? I could barely see him in the deepening gloom. There were no more candles, so there wasn't much to do after dark except sleep, and dream of Derek…
I handed him back the bar. “Here, you finish it.”
He took it and ate the rest. I watched him do it, trying not to giggle. I'd kind of slobbered on it, but he didn't seem to mind. Maybe because he knew what I'd done and liked it, or maybe because it was the last one. Either way, a little bit of me was in Derek now.
We sat in the dark, listening to the creepy moans from the street, not saying much. The streetlights had been off since yesterday, but the moon was full. It was almost romantic, but then I had to ruin it by asking, “How come Mom and Dad are always making noise?”
Derek turned away from me. “I told you, they're boarding the doors and windows to keep us safe.”
“But shouldn't they be done? It's taking forever, and I wanna recharge my iPod, take a shower, and get some more clothes and stuff.”
“The power's out,” he said. “Your parents told us to wait here.”
“Yeah, but I don't understand why Mom and Dad don't come up to check on us.”
“Look,” he said, “they're fine, all right? They're busy reinforci
ng the barricade. All the doors and windows have gotta be perfect, or else―”40
Marnie sighed in her sleep. She'd been kind of sick lately, vomiting in the morning and being more irritating than usual. I'd asked if she was pregnant, but she'd given me this weird look and said, “Mind your own business.”41
Derek looked in Marnie's direction. “I should check on her. “Goodnight, Lisa.”
“Wait,” I reached over and put my hand on his knee.42 “I, uh, wanted to say thanks for being here and helping save me and stuff. You're really awesome.”
“No problem. I'm glad I could be here for you and your sister.”
“And our parents,” I added. “You're helping them too.”
“Sure,” Derek said. He moved away, and then he was hidden behind the blanket. With her.
I could hear the two of them whispering, then the slow, soft kissing sounds began.43 I closed my eyes and tried to pretend it was me he was kissing, but it didn't work. I put my hands over my ears and turned away.44
FOOTNOTES
The first sentence gives us the character's name, location, and that he's taking a dangerous action. It also combines action with mystery. We don't know if Derek is a hero or villain or what he's aiming at.
The second sentence increases suspense by expanding on the dangerous action.
After increasing suspense, another character is introduced taking an action that adds mystery. Why is Marnie encouraging Derek to shoot? Who or what are the targets in the street?
Dialogue is used to ratchet up the suspense even more.
Just when we think Derek is ready to pull the trigger, we delay reader gratification by introducing a third character (and the hero/narrator), who is less concerned about shooting than her comfort. To introduce her after Derek shoots would be a mistake. We need to know she's there so we can get her reaction both before and after Derek pulls the trigger. I don't recommend introducing more than three or four characters on the first page or you'll clutter it up and it will feel rushed.
Writing Apocalypse and Survival Page 11