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Reading isn’t dead, but readers are getting harder and harder to hold. The competition for entertainment is fierce. They have a lot of places to escape into: internet, television, movies, game consoles, books of all kinds. If your writing doesn’t grab the reader from the beginning, your manuscript won’t make it over an agent’s desk, let alone an editor’s. And once you have a reader’s attention, you can’t let go for a moment.

 That’s why I’m going to go against Joseph Campbell. Sacrilege. In The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell talks about how the beginning of most of the stories through the long centuries have begun by showing the listener or reader the main character’s regular world. The story will soon force them into The Wild World of Adventure, but it’s Regular Joe World to begin with.

Down with Campbell.

Modern authors don’t have time. Readers don’t care. I’ll explain some of the things that need to be in the beginning of your story, but the reality is that The Kick In the Pants to Adventure has to come on page one of your novel, or you’ll lose people to The Starter Wife on USA Network. So, make sure you have everything in the following list, but don’t try to start writing until you read about the next part, or you’ll have to rewrite. Just make sure you have:

1. Your hero needs an internal problem, a weakness. But it has to be something they have to fight against through the story: fear, feelings of inadequacy, addiction, trauma, etc.

2. Your hero has to be likable. Even Dr. House in the television show House is likable because he’ll do and risk anything to save the life of someone who has no other chance of survival. Even the darkest of heroes have to be likable on page one. Make them do at least one noble thing, however small.

3. Remember that every actor likes to make an entrance. Your main character can only be “normal” if everything else in the story is Crazy with a capital “C”.

4. The stakes have to be established early on–and generally–the bigger, the better.

This is the first part of the Eternal Story–the core story that has been the predominant backbone of storytelling throughout the centuries. This used to be Chapter One. Now, it’s part of Chapter One. The more important part of Chapter One comes tomorrow, and it is really what needs to be the star of the show: The Kick in the Pants to Adventure. Are you ready? Don’t skip the four steps above. Make sure you have them ready.

5 Days until NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month . I just signed up!