So I’m working on a new novel (finally), a thriller about a gold heist. I am considering trying to go the traditional publishing route with this one as I would like to see what that experience is like. I have a few friends/acquaintances who are just killing it in the trad pub world.
Part of getting your work considered in the traditional publishing world, either by an agent or a publisher, is having an amazing opening, because realistically, if they don’t like the first 100 or fewer words, they are not going to read further.
Typically I like to open “in medias res”, or in the middle of things, in an important scene with lots of action. Then the introduction to the characters and setting can be filled in later via flashbacks or exposition. A good rule of thumb narratively is to start your story as “late” as possible. Often your initial opening scenes are just “scaffolding” that you needed to write so you could arrive at the actual starting point, but should be cut in the editing stage. Thus you start the story as close to the inciting incident as possible. I have generally followed this approach. However, some of my readers have questioned this, as it can be confusing, and some readers prefer a more gradual entry to the story.
I had been pondering opening with a “flashforward” for this novel. You know the kind of opening I’m talking about—where the novel begins with the main character in jail, standing over a dead body or about to leap off a cliff—basically a tense pivotal scene that occurs later in the narrative. In the opening, the scene ends with a cliffhanger, and the reader flips the page and finds a new chapter that begins with “Six months earlier” or “Twenty-four hours earlier”. The writer then fills the reader in as to how the character got to that terrible moment, which reappears later in the novel and is .
I’ve seen these openings utilized a lot in thrillers and on TV to good effect.
Flashforwards can provide a teaser for what is to come, draw the reader into the novel through a gripping scene that foreshadows the narrative arc, and make the reader want to keep reading to learn the outcome of that critical scene and how the character got into the situation in the first place. Basically flashforwards can be the hook. The writer can then write a more leisurely opening chapter that introduces the reader to the world and the characters.
But there are definitely risks to using a flashforward.
These risks include,
It can seem kind of gimmicky. It is often tempting to add a flashforward when your beginning doesn’t feel exciting enough, but it is manipulating the reader to capture their interest, only to then yank them out of it to put them into a scene you thought was too boring to start with.
You are throwing the reader into an intense scene where they have no investment in the characters or knowledge of what is going on, and this can backfire, causing the reader to lose interest because they can’t connect with the characters or their predicament.
It gives away a key part of the story that you might want to reveal later. Because the reader has already read part of one of the most critical scenes in the novel, they might not be as excited when that scene actually occurs chronologically.
That said, done right, flashforwards can work.
A lot of great novels play with chronology in the narrative. For example, check out The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. I won’t give away the twist, but the author deftly uses chronology to amplify the impact of the story. A Christmas Carol is a famous example of the use of a flashforward, although it is not the opening scene.
Some ways to utilize flashforwards so they do work include:
Keeping it short and limited in detail, so that the reader doesn’t have to invest too much in the characters to get through it. A couple of pages should be the maximum length of a flashforward.
Make it misleading whereby the reader thinks they know what happened, but they do not. One approach to doing this is to have the flashforward occur from one character’s point of view in the beginning and then another character’s point of view later in the story.
Ensure that your beginning could stand on its own without the flashforward. If you are using a flashforward to mask a boring beginning, go back and revise your beginning so it packs more punch.
Make sure you do not give away too much in your flashforward. If you are using your climax scene as a flashforward, do not resolve everything (or anything) in the flashforward. Leave the reader hanging.
Set up the big question of the novel. As I’ve written before, the beginning of your novel should reflect the ending of your novel, so you should always go back and weave some foreshadowing of some sort into your first chapter once you know how the novel ends.
I haven’t decided whether I will use a flashforward or not. I think I am going to go back and do some revisions to my first chapter before I make some choices. For more on flashforwards, please see the following great posts:
http://blog.janicehardy.com/2015/07/the-problem-with-flash-forwards-as.html
http://writeonsisters.com/writing-craft/watching-for-writers-101-flash-forwards/
https://prowritingaid.com/art/977/how-to-flash-forward-without-giving-away-the-ending.aspx