Introductory Material in First Chapter

[Sonichen]

If you are writing a fantasy novel and your first chapter is introducing the fantasy world setting for the first time to your reader how much material should you plan on having before starting with the characters and dialog? Should it be 500 words, 1000 words?

 

[Brian Scott Allen]

There is no hard and fast rule. It's about what is enough vs what is not enough. And that all depends on context, skill, and a host of other things. Without reading the chapter it is hard to say. But, a good guideline is to introduce enough to keep interest but not enough to overwhelm the reader.

 

[Penpilot]

Personally, I like to get into the characters ASAP and sprinkle in the details of the world as I go along. Generally speaking, when I pick up a book, it gets around 250-500 words to get to the story before I start feeling sleepy.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Let's see what WordCounter thinks.

Prologue (May 5 and August 7, a century apart)

As I write these words, I am no longer Grand Priest of the Church of the True Divine. There’s nothing left for me to be Grand Priest of.

I must write for both the present and the future. In the present, priests across the no-longer-Blessed land must already be scared and confused, wondering why the Divine no longer answers their prayers. In the future, generations that grew up never knowing the Divine will need to understand why it was so beautiful, and so corruptive.

I will not here explain the nature of my deed. Suffice it to say that, in committing it as Grand Priest, I have placed a seal on the Divine that will never be broken. What I will explain is why I did it . . .
--The Apology of Jovan the Blasphemer

142 words before I cut to characters talking. And that's a long introduction by my standards. Compare one of my quicker starts:

"Why are you doing this?" the girl asked, and for a moment Tolliver wondered that himself.

"Because you deserve it," Vyce responded. He gripped her right arm as tightly as Tolliver held her left, leading her down the dimly lit staircase that led below the labs.

"Do you know what the Tyrant did to me? What he did to all of us?"

"You won't get anywhere with Vyce," Tolliver interrupted. "When we learned that the Tyrant was dead, he was in the first ranks to storm this castle. His sister was one of the girls in the labs, and he found her too late. You weren't barred in like she was. You could have saved her."

"The Tyrant needed a few people to give the others food. A few to clean the floors. A few to . . ." She broke off. "But you know his power as well as I. If I'd done anything, I'd have wound up on the other side of the bars myself."

There's worldbuilding almost from the start, but I build outwards, using the characters to establish the setting.

 

[cupiscent]

For my money, you should start immediately with character or conflict. Dialogue or worldbuilding can tangle themselves along behind, but there should be character, conflict or both from the first paragraph. First sentence, if you can manage it, but a little bit of context makes things more meaningful, so I'm willing to wait a sentence or two.

Even in Feo's first example above, there's both character and conflict in that first sentence: the I and the fall from being Grand Priest. It makes it immediate and gripping in a way that starting with pure worldbuilding - like "On the fourth of May in the year after the flood, the Church of the True Divine ceased to exist in any meaningful sense" - just isn't.

The best advice on beginnings that I've read recently is that your first line needs to say something hard and true and succinct about your entire story. It's possibly hard to do that if there's no character or conflict! (But not necessarily impossible.)

 

[Kobun]

Our job as writers is to hook the audience. While there is no hard rule on this, straight undiluted world building is more often more fun for the author than the reader.

Basically, make the start of your book interesting. If you can do that JUST introducing the world, then so be it. But that's pretty difficult. You can start with characters and conflict right from go and still work world building in as you tell the story.

Jim Butcher does a great job of this, if you wanna see it in action. Retribution Falls is a good book that displayed this too, though I've forgotten the author's name.

Edit: His name is Chris Wooding and actually Retribution Falls' first chapter is a great study in general of how to open your book.

 

[Mark]

I like to introduce the main character and issue as soon as possible. Hopefully you can build the world at the same time.

 

[Svrtnsse]

One thing to keep in mind is to not overwhelm the reader with information. Even if you write a really good introduction to your world they probably won't remember half of it by the end of the chapter.

One suggestion is that only explain that which is necessary for your reader to understand what's happening at that very time. They don't need to know the exact details of why the Bad Guy is chasing your main character, they just need to know that A Bad Guy is chasing your main character. Leave the nitty gritty to later.
Don't leave it out completely though. It might be that if you leave just enough information for the reader to get by, they will be more eager to learn the background details later on. Then you can give them something of an insight later, and they'll appreciate it all the more.

 

[goldhawk]

If you are writing a fantasy novel and your first chapter is introducing the fantasy world setting for the first time to your reader how much material should you plan on having before starting with the characters and dialog? Should it be 500 words, 1000 words?

None.

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. ​

The first chapter of The Lord Of The Rings is background information on hobbits. But it is all about Bilbo planning his birthday party and his nosy neighbours pestering him for details. It contains action, dialogue, and a minor conflict.

The second chapter is also background material, this time about Sauron and the Ring. It is mostly a dialogue between Gandalf and Frodo.

Take a tip from the masters and get your stroy moving from the start.

 

[Mythopoet]

None.

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. ​

The first chapter of The Lord Of The Rings is background information on hobbits. But it is all about Bilbo planning his birthday party and his nosy neighbours pestering him for details. It contains action, dialogue, and a minor conflict.

The second chapter is also background material, this time about Sauron and the Ring. It is mostly a dialogue between Gandalf and Frodo.

Take a tip from the masters and get your stroy moving from the start.

Great example. Tolkien introduces his world through his characters and their dialogue. The vast majority of readers will be bored to tears if you spend 50 let alone 500 words describing the setting at the beginning of the chapter. You could get away with that sort of thing once, because decent fantasy books were much more rare, but now there's so much choice, you need to entertain your readers from the outset.

 

[skip.knox]

For myself, whenever I find myself writing such introductory material, I'm really writing for *myself* not for the reader. It's what I think they should know. I write it because I need to write it. I need to think my way through it. But it never survives an edit.

 

[Brian G Turner]

If you are writing a fantasy novel and your first chapter is introducing the fantasy world setting for the first time to your reader how much material should you plan on having before starting with the characters and dialog? Should it be 500 words, 1000 words?

Your story begins with the very first word. And your story is unlikely to be about what your world looks like!

It's a basic mistake to think you have to stop the story and explain everything to the reader. You don't need to - you have an entire novel to explain everything you need to. And those descriptions and backstory are best dripped in where most needed.

 

[Butterfly]

If you are writing a fantasy novel and your first chapter is introducing the fantasy world setting for the first time to your reader how much material should you plan on having before starting with the characters and dialog? Should it be 500 words, 1000 words?

None. Start with the character and filter your world through the eyes of your POV character right from the beginning. Describe the world as your MC moves through it and keep all the information relevant to the scene at hand.

Of course, that's just a suggestion. You don't have to do so if you don't want to.

 

[Kobun]

None. Start with the character and filter your world through the eyes of your POV character right from the beginning. Describe the world as your MC moves through it and keep all the information relevant to the scene at hand.

Of course, that's just a suggestion. You don't have to do so if you don't want to.

Precisely. It's why so many books are written from a pov that's ignorant of the world. They can world build from pov without intrusion and with impunity.

 

[Addison]

After writing several very full, boring, info-burdened first chapters I learned the core essentials of introductory chapters.
In the first chapters you only need to cover the W's. Who, What, Where, Why, Why a reader should care. The last two whys are different.
Who: obviously the protagonist, any relevant side characters and if you can mention the antag- if it's that kind of story-then do that.
What: What kind of story is it? What kind of world is it? What is the protag's world like and what changes it?
Where: Where is the story taking place? Completely different world? Some place in this world? The afterlife? Also when applies if it's historical-fantasy.
Why: This is the center of the starting conflicts. If your character is unhappy, why? Why are they doing-or not doing-such a thing to change it? Why is the person(s) that changes their world there at that point and time to change it? Gandalf didn't go to the Shire to find the ring and pull the hobbits into a world-saving adventure. He visited the Shire for Bilbo's birthday at which event he witnessed events which started the ball rolling.
Why a reader should care? Why should someone care that Logan the farmer makes the choice to keep the injured griffin secret? Why should they care that such a king is dying? Why should they care that the two brothers are making a long trip through the mountains?

They last question should be answered, or have the answered foreshadowed, by the first turning point. The Door of No Return.
Happy Writing!