Steps to creating your opening line

1. Plan out your scene. This scene must start your story.
2. Visualize your character at the beginning of this scene. Have a clear picture of where your character is, what she wants, and what is in her way.
3. Now write what is right in front of your character’s face.

Strategy 5: Have the main character introduce himself or herself.

1. Start with action or dialogue.
2. Ask a question or set of questions.
3. Describe the setting so readers can imagine it.
4. Give background information that will interest readers.
5. Introduce yourself to readers in a surprising way.

5 Steps to Writing a Killer First Chapter to WOW Readers

1. Introduce the main character in the first paragraph.
2. Present a problem for your protagonist to wrestle with in Chapter One.
3. Hint at or describe the “back story” in your novel.
4. Always write in the active voice.
5. Use proper grammar – especially when writing your first chapter.

Though the average word count of a chapter is around 2,000 – 5,000 words, it all depends on your story. (We can’t emphasize this enough.) There are plenty of books that purposefully play with the word counts of their chapters. So, don’t write a chapter with only one eye on your story and the other on your word count.

An introduction to the main character: A great opening usually contains an introduction to the main character. By the end of the first chapter of your novel, the reader should have a basic sense of who your main character is and be eager to follow their journey into the second chapter.

Any chapter that doesn’t further the overall story in some way should be cut. This means that every chapter has a little part of the story to tell. And as soon as the chapter has told its part of the story, it should end.

Some will tell you 2,500 words is the average, while others will say that 3,000 to 5,000 word chapters are more likely to be the norm. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words.

Answer: 20,000 words is 40 pages single-spaced or 80 pages double-spaced. Typical documents that are 20,000 words include include novels, novellas, and other published books. It will take approximately 67 minutes to read 20,000 words.