Writing a Strong Novel Opening: How to Nail Your Incipit
Last updated: October 2026
By Gabrielle Dorval, founder of Inkbound
A novel's first pages carry a particular weight: they often decide whether a reader keeps going or puts the book down. For a manuscript sent to a publisher, that's even more true. Here's how to approach that opening without getting stuck on it.
What a novel's opening needs to accomplish
A good opening doesn't need to explain everything. In a few pages, it needs to establish three things: a recognizable voice, a character worth caring about, and a promise, whether that's a mystery, a tension, or simply a tone that makes the reader want to stay.
Take the opening line of Camus's The Stranger: "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know." In two short sentences, you already hear a distinct voice, oddly detached in the face of grave news, and it's exactly that mismatch that unsettles the reader and pulls them forward. No description, no context: just a voice and a promise.
A very different example: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale opens on an almost ordinary sentence, "We slept in what had once been the gymnasium." That one past perfect, "had once been," is enough to plant the doubt: this place changed its purpose, proof that somewhere, the world shifted. No explanation follows right away, but the promise is already there: you want to know what happened.
Starting the story at the right moment
The most common mistake is starting too early, with a description of a setting or a character's backstory. A useful rule, close to what's called an in medias res opening: start at the moment something is changing, or is about to change. You can always let the context trickle in later, in small doses.
A more radical variant, common in thrillers, opens on a loaded scene pulled from the end of the story (a flash-forward): the reader then knows a crisis or revelation is coming, and reads to find out why, before the narrative loops back to its actual starting point.
The classic traps
A few pitfalls show up again and again: opening on the weather or a character waking up, a dream that turns out to be just a dream, or laying out the entire world on page one. None of these are forbidden, but they need a precise reason behind them, or they read as an opening with nothing at stake.
Planting a question in the reader's mind
Openings that hook readers usually raise a question, whether stated outright or not: who is this person? Why are they doing this? What's about to happen? The reader keeps reading to find out. An opening that answers everything up front has nothing left to offer afterward.
Openings generally fall into four broad families: narrative, descriptive, dialogue-driven, and reflective. The narrative type drops straight into a character's voice or action; the descriptive type sets up a place or an era; the dialogue-driven type reveals the situation through conversation, with no explicit narration; the reflective type opens on a thought or a general question. No family is better than the others: the choice mostly depends on the tone you want the novel to carry.
Introducing the world without overwhelming the reader
In fantasy or science fiction, the temptation to explain everything right away is strong. It works better to show the world through the character's actions and perceptions, and let the reader piece the rest together. World-building details can stay in your Codex, surfacing in the text only as they're actually needed.
Writing the opening last?
Plenty of authors rewrite their opening after finishing the novel. By then they know exactly what the story promises, and can adjust the first page accordingly. So there's no need to produce a perfect incipit on the first draft: what matters is moving forward, and coming back to polish the opening once the manuscript is complete.
A good sign, once the opening is reworked: if your beta readers turn the page without hesitating, without needing anything explained to them, that's often the most reliable signal that your opening works.
Happy writing!
Frequently asked questions
Should a novel start with an action scene?
No, action isn't the only way to hook a reader. A strong voice, an intriguing situation, or quiet tension work just as well.
How long should an opening be?
There's no fixed rule: people usually mean the first few pages or the first chapter. What matters is that it makes the reader want to keep going.
Can a novel start with a prologue?
Yes, but it needs to offer something the first chapter can't. If the novel works just as well without it, it's better left out.
How do I know if my opening works?
The best test is a real reader's reaction: hand your first pages to a few beta readers with no context, and watch whether they turn the page without hesitating. If they ask questions to understand what's happening instead of reading on, the opening probably needs more work.