How to Start Your Novel?

If the agent of change in the novel is a person and you’re telling the story as an outside observer.

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald.

“Elmer Gantry was drunk.” Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis.

“I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.” On The Road, Jack Kerouac.

If the agent of change is the narrator.

“You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by a Mr Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.” Mark Twain.

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before...