First let me say you can start a novel any way you want in order to get words on a blank page. Anything goes when you’re writing your first draft.

I always say the first draft of a novel is for the writer and the final draft is for the reader.

In your first draft, you’re telling yourself the story and getting to know your characters. You may have many false starts and get carried away with backstory. That’s normal. Just don’t leave them in the final copy.

These are tips for that final draft, not the first one.

You probably won’t know where your story actually begins when you start a novel on that blank page. You may not know until you do your final edit. (Some writing teachers say the average student novel starts at chapter three.)

Also, when you first start a novel, you’ll probably dump a whole lot of backstory into your first chapter. Later on, you can cut it and sneak bits of backstory into several chapters so it doesn’t choke the flow of the final narrative.

Another thing to remember is that a novel needs a protagonist. (Or, if you’re writing a saga — a series of protagonists with a thread of family or some other link holding them together.)

When you’re writing your first draft, you may find a secondary character becomes dominant. There’s nothing wrong with that. You can either let that happen and make the book about character #2, or tone that character down and give them their own book later. That’s how many trilogies and series are born.

Here are some things to avoid in your final draft of that opening chapter. None are “wrong” but many are overdone or they’re too slow for the contemporary reader.

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