Opening Your Book with Dialogue

There are mixed feelings about opening a book with dialogue. It's a combination of personal opinion of readers and industry professionals (literary agents, editors, publishers, etc.) and how effective the opening dialogue is. Thus, let's delve into the pros and cons of opening your book with dialogue.

PROS

• Grabs the reader's attention.

• Can be powerful (if done well).

• Start in the middle of the action.

CONS

• It can be jarring and confusing to readers.

• No setting has been established. setting, characterization, who is speaking are all important questions.

• It can be a sign of an amateur writer.

Here at Earley Editing, LLC, we see a lot of books open with dialogue, and 99% of the time, we advise against it because it is not an effective opening for that book. We want you to look good when approaching professionals such as literary agents or publishers, or even readers if you choose to self-publish, so we base our advice off of how effective the dialogue opening is.

Hope this was helpful to some of you! 🤎

Xo,

Ashley