After you remove your memoir's scaffolding, craft a concise, intriguing opening

Now that you’ve removed your scaffolding,* it’s time to polish your memoir’s opening because without a top-notch lead-in, few people will be motivated to read your book. 

You have only seconds to hook a person and persuade her to continue reading.

So how do you write a high-quality beginning? Start with an attention-getting scene—a defining moment, a critical juncture, an inciting incident.

In your opening, include the following but be brief (you’ll fill in more details later in your story):

• Introduce your character,
• briefly let readers know where that person is (describe what’s unique about the setting) so they can picture themselves in the scene,
• and maybe include the date or era (or at least hint at it).
• Introduce a conflict, complication, vulnerability, or a need the main character has. What does he want? What’s keeping him from having it? What’s at stake?
• Engage readers’ emotions. Make them care what happens to the main character.
• Hook your readers—make them curious.

After you’ve pinned down those key components, continue to hone your opening:

• Be concise (write tight). Remove every unnecessary word, every unnecessary sentence, every unnecessary paragraph.  
• Cut boring stuff.
• Cut flowery language.
• Cut most adverbs and adjectives.
• Cut clichés.

And strive for clarity—leave no confusion in your readers’ minds.

Crafting a successful beginning takes a lot of work—I can tell you from experience that a person can revise an opening for years!

You can do this. 

You can pen a powerful beginning 

that grabs readers’ attention 

and gives them reasons to keep reading.

*If you read Thursday’s and Tuesday’s posts, you’ve identified the scaffolding in your manuscript’s opening and you’ve dismantled it. (If you missed those posts, click on Readers don’t want us to dillydally around and Have you dismantled your scaffolding?)

By now you understand that while scaffolding is a good thing, it’s for your eyes only.

For more instruction and inspiration, read Chip Scanlan’s Dismantling Your Story’s Scaffolding in which he teaches and gives examples. He writes from a journalist’s perspective, but his concepts are relevant for those who write memoirs, too.