At the beginning of the year, I became a member of The Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) to connect with other writers in my genre. As part of the membership, they provide a monthly virtual workshop titled “Polishing the Page: Craft Lab.” The event is designed to enhance our skills through real, in-progress examples. This Saturday, the theme was “The Art of the Opening.”

The host, Laura Drake, reviewed a member’s first pages and discussed what could make them stronger. Here are my takeaways:

• The first sentence is cold information to the reader. Give as much information as you can to orient the reader about the characters (quirks, universal needs, flaws, talents), time and place of the story, and the problem that the protagonist has.
• Put the reader in the scene with their senses. Such as the October breeze raises the hair on her arm, or the smell of leaf decay was in the air.
• Ensure that every word on the page serves a purpose. Cut what isn’t. Remove throwaway words like adverbs and attributions.
• Hint that there is backstory, but don’t infodump.
• To hook a reader, the reader needs to know what the protagonist’s problem is or her misconception.
• Use pronouns as often as you can because using names can be wearing.
• You don’t want long paragraphs or thoughts. Include white spaces to move the pages along faster.
• Editors generally will cut semicolons since they are not in fashion. Go through and make them separate sentences.
• Drake won’t use more than five exclamation points in a novel. They are telling. Use tone and body language to show.

In the hour-long session, Drake shared the checklist that she uses for her opening pages and generously answered all our questions.