Chapter 51: Your Book's Beginning

If you’ve been following the plan laid out in this book, much of your novel’s plot is already established. In fact, you only have two parts left: the beginning, and the end.

In this chapter, we’ll talk about the first of these: your book’s beginning, which consists of two beats—Opening Scene, and Opening Status. These beats have an intimate relationship, and can sometimes be combined into one—more on that later.

Opening Scene

The very first scene of your book has one simple but all-important job: