Prose checks › Chapter openings Pro
Prose check: chapter openingsShe woke to the sound of rain.
Waking up. The weather. A long look in the mirror. Agents and editors say these are the chapter openings they see most. Falcontext checks yours.
The three chapter openings it looks for
- Waking up: woke, opened her eyes, the alarm.
- The weather: rain, wind, snow, fog, clouds.
- A mirror: a reflection, a description of themselves.
Mara woke to the sound of rain on the roof.
The watch came for Mara an hour before dawn.
It only reads the start
The first two sentences of each chapter. A storm in the middle of chapter four is just a storm.
And an opening can break the rule and work. It’s here so you know, not so you rewrite.
How Falcontext checks chapter openings
Guidelines, not rules. Plenty of good books open with the weather. You’ll just know yours does.
- Finds
- Chapters whose first two sentences wake someone up, describe the weather or put someone in front of a mirror.
- Traffic light
- None
- 1–2 chapters
- 3 or more
It needs your chapters, from a Bird’s Eye scan.
Chapter openings belong to the first pass when you self-edit a novel: structure, the big picture, worked through chapter by chapter before any sentence gets polished.
How does your first chapter open?
Questions about chapter openings.
Why shouldn’t a chapter open with waking up?
Agents and editors say it’s the opening they see most, so it can make a chapter feel like every other. It’s a guideline: plenty of good books do it.
Does it check the whole chapter?
No, only the first two sentences after the chapter heading.
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In Falcontext
Your next chapter starts today.
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