As the old cliche goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
To introduce myself a little further than my bio, here are a few more facts about me.
- I own three cats. Two are named after Harry Potter characters.
- I’ve never broken a bone.
- I have a minor title of nobility in a small European country. No, really.
- I’ve been writing since about 5th grade, when I wrote stories about cat cops. I was a bit of a weird kid.
- I love cilantro and I feel so bad for those of you whose genes make it taste like dish soap.
- Pineapple on pizza.
In fiction, it’s a little harder to introduce your characters, especially the protagonist. You open a book and get to the first paragraph and have zero context. We’ve moved past the self-introductory descriptions where characters look in a mirror and run down their appearance, their current life stories, their interpersonal relationships, their jobs, and their hopes, dreams, fears, wishes, and so on. But doing that is fine! Dropping in medias res is also fine. Any way you want to introduce a character is fine, but there is one immutable rule to follow: it has to be interesting.
My Kevin Parker series starts with an actual “look in the mirror” trope, but cuts it off quick – his eyes are glowing and he doesn’t know why. The actual physical description is forgettable, the eyes aren’t. It’s enough to capture interest long enough for weirder things to happen. In The Demon Inside Me, we meet Isaiah Bright on a Tuesday morning (which he hates) when he gets a knife put to his throat and a whisper in his ear. In Demonic. It’s a quick start to the story and gives readers a taste of his internal voice. Both Kevin and Isaiah have something interesting happen to them at the very beginning.
In my next book, the very first line has the protagonist learn that his wife has ascended. A single line that snaps attention (I hope!) – what does that mean? Is it a euphemism for dying? Jackson doesn’t quite know, but he does know she’s not coming home.
If a protagonist doesn’t show signs of being interesting right off, who’d want to read about them? An interesting personality – situation – event – something has to catch the reader within a few moments or they might just stop caring. I’d rather have less sales and more caring!