10 Things You Should Have On The First Page Of Your Novel

Hint At Inciting Incident

Your inciting incident will likely not occur on page one, but you can be laying the groundwork for the big event from the very beginning. This includes doing all of the aforementioned things well – setting the physical scene, introducing a flawed character, giving a sense of what normal life is like in the “before” to create a bigger impact in the “after.”

Hint At Main Motivation Of Protagonist

The motivation of your protagonist is going to be what shapes your story. It may even change as your protagonist changes and encounters different things. On the first few pages, however, we should see a hint at what their deepest longing is, and wonder how that will affect them, or how they will achieve their goals. This can be as simple as a choice they make, something they say, or how they respond to a situation.