Beginnings

 As I start to truly revise my novel (and, without giving too much away, it looks like there are going to be some major shifts - very exciting!), I've been thinking about how and when to begin the novel. Do I start with a flashback in a prologue? How old should the main character be in the beginning? Do I begin with dialogue? Narration? What should the opening scene of chapter 1 be? Do I include dates to guide the reader? Does the book begin with each chapter having its own name? Should each chapter have a different character as a narrator?

So I reflected on some of my favorite books, and how they begin . . .

"Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill."
- The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith

"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."
- Jean Louise/Scout Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

"There was a time in Africa the people could fly."
Hetty Handful Grimke, The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd

"Little Man, would you come on? You keep it up and you're going to make us late."
- Cassie Logan, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred D. Taylor

"You were picking your teeth with a plastic straw - I know, I know, it wasn't really a straw, it was a coffee stirrer."
- Ophelia (Cocoa) Day, Mama Day, Gloria Naylor

"I leave this record for my dear children, Hortense and William, in the even that they never see their loving mother again and so that they might one day know the truth of my unjust incarceration, my escape from Hell, and into whatever is to come  in these pages."
- May Dodd, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, Jim Fergus

"Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960."
- Aibileen, The Help: A Novel, Kathryn Stockett

"I have never been what you'd call a crying man."
- Jake Epping, 11/22/63: A Novel, Stephen King

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, than you very much."
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling

"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 Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein

"There is one mirror in my house."
- Beatrice (Tris) Prior, Divergent, Veronica Roth

"When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold."
- Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

"I'd never given much thought to how I would die - though I'd had reason enough in the last few months - but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this."
- Bella Swan (Preface), Twilight, Stephenie Meyer

- Saving Cece Honeycutt, Beth Hoffman

This was a very helpful exploration. I'm still not sure yet how I'll begin this book. I do want each chapter to have a title, and I was toying with the idea of song quotes at the beginning of each chapter, too. I imagine this novel as a screenplay sometimes, and music is very important to me.

I like the idea of including quotes from the songs that I imagine as the soundtrack for the movie. The idea of different characters narrating each chapter is intriguing, like in The Help and The Invention of Wings. Stephen King did a masterful job with Jake Epping as the narrator for 11/22/63 for 842 pages. . . but multiple perspectives are important to me.  

If you have favorite novels, tell me why they qualify as your favorites. How do they begin? Who is the narrator? Is the narrator consistent throughout the whole story? What is the first sentence? How do you feel about it? Tell me . . .