Perfecting the First Chapter: How Romantasy Authors Are Hooking Readers in an Increasingly Crowded Market and Standing the Test of Time
Author Taylor J. LaRue shares nine romantasy openings in an attempt to help writers perfect the first chapter in their own novels.
It’s the one question every single author asks, regardless of genre or experience: Where do I start the story?
“Info dumping” was once a term exclusive to the craft of writing. But now, even casual readers use it to define why they’re asking themselves if they should care at all about these characters or this world. Attention spans have thinned, and the market has responded. It’s a high bar, especially for fantasy authors. When a reader dives into a contemporary or historical novel, they already understand the laws of physics and the realities of a given time. In fantasy, the author has none of those advantages.
Romantasy authors have an even greater challenge. Not only are they introducing readers to an entirely new universe with different rules, their readers have also come to fall in love. Authors have to prove in just a page (or two, if they’re lucky) that this new world and all that is happening inside it will be worth the $30 cost of admission, plus the investment of their own heart. And that’s only if the cover, blurb, and title—which are often beyond the author’s control—are enough to make a reader pick it up at all.
Authors write and rewrite their first chapters over and over…and over again for good reason. Because a perfectly written midpoint or finale will never be enjoyed if the reader can’t stay invested beyond what they’re able to sample in a bookstore. So, how does one ground a reader in an entirely new cosmos, entice them to keep going for 450 more pages, and prepare them to fall in love all at once? Let’s talk about it.
Author’s note: While we are sticking to opening chapters, beware that there may be minor spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.
The Bridge Kingdom, by Danielle L. Jensen
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Any ardent Danielle L. Jensen reader will tell you to expect a one-two punch right at the starting line. An enemies-to-lovers romance in the truest sense of the trope, The Bridge Kingdom tells the story of Lara Veliant, a princess raised as a deadly spy and assassin, who is shipped overseas by her father to marry an enemy ruler and bring his kingdom down from the inside.
The story begins around a dinner table—where Lara unalives all 11 of her half-sisters (all of whom were raised as her competitors for the job) to take the role of queen. By chapter two, we are on our way to the wedding and unable to tear our eyeballs away if we tried. The reader is not just shocked and enthralled; they know from the recipe Danielle has laid out and from engaging with the FMC alone that it’s going to be a love story for the ages.
I first read The Bridge Kingdom in 2018 when it was published exclusively as an audiobook, and I wholeheartedly recommend enjoying the book this way. This one is a mainstay of the genre for good reason. It hooks the reader hard and fast and never lets go.
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, by Ilona Andrews
Portal fantasies add an entirely new layer of difficulty to their openings: They have to ground the reader in not one, but two worlds, and they need to do it quickly. Bestselling husband-and-wife writing team Ilona Andrews takes a straightforward approach in This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me: They tell the reader exactly what the book is and how the story ahead will be different.
Our heroine, Maggie, knows she’s in a decidedly un-cozy portal fantasy. She understands the world, its players, and that she’s been dealt a terrible hand, because it’s her favorite fantasy series (which has been left criminally unfinished by its fictional author). Maggie describes for the reader exactly what the genre tropes say will happen next, how the complete opposite has befallen her, and how she’s planning to survive it anyway.
If there’s one thing romantasy readers love, it’s a heroine with a plan. Maggie is easy to root for, even as she’s waking up naked in a gutter every time the violent world of Kair Toren tries to kill her. Pitched flawlessly as Game of Thrones meets Outlander, the overture of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is both brutal and addicting.
The Sun and the Starmaker, by Rachel Griffin
A masterclass in gorgeous prologues, The Sun and the Starmaker begins as it intends to go on: With prose that takes your breath away. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on prologues, but this one is essential. It begins at the start of the fairytale central to the story, as told to our heroine, Aurora Finch, in a long-ago bedtime story. It tells of a sun goddess who takes the form of a human to save the mountain village of Reverie from the darkness, and there falls in love with a man she is destined to lose.
Rachel Griffin’s books are the kind of romantasy readers love to fill with tabs because every page is memorable. The opening chapters read like folklore. Whimsical and atmospheric, the reader immediately feels nostalgic and keeps going with zero doubt that they are about to embark on a truly epic love story.
Bring tissues. You’ve been warned.
For She Is Wrath, by Emily Varga
Where better to begin a story than in the middle of a prison break? For She Is Wrath is a Pakistani-inspired young adult romantic fantasy retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. The book opens on Dania, who has been in prison for exactly three hundred and sixty-four days for a crime she did not commit. All because the boy she fell in love with framed her for the crime.
What follows is a storm of grief, sisterhood, revenge, and longing. Dania will stop at nothing to make right the injustices done to her, even if her target is the man who would know her anywhere and who has never forgotten her.
The opening sequence is bloody and bold, and sets the perfect tone for the gorgeous spectacle of female rage that’s to come.
The Spellshop, by Sarah Beth Durst
Any book that begins with a library on fire is going to keep romantasy readers turning pages. “But do they save the books?!” is undeniably going to be the first question on everyone’s mind, and until that question is answered, they’re not going to look away.
The Spellshop is the first in Sarah Beth Durst’s New York Times bestselling adult cozy fantasy series. Cottagecore at its most enchanting, The Spellshop tells the tale of a quiet librarian named Kiela and a sentient spider plant named Caz who flee a revolution with a boatful of illegal magical books and open a secret spell and jam shop in an old cottage on a remote island.
Readers don’t just take the burning book bait; they swallow it whole, lost in wonder and delight as a cheeky, bookish plant swings by his leaves in a mission to save a place all readers will unanimously agree is sacred.
Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead
Allow me to take you back to summer 2007. It’s the peak of the vampire craze, long before the term romantasy was ever coined. Vampire Academy remains an essential pillar of the romantasy movement. We open on two best friends on the run, surviving on their own. The opening line? “I felt her fear before I heard her screams.” One is a princess, the other her bonded protector, and they’ve just been cornered by their pursuers.
But it’s Rose Hathaway’s voice that hooks the reader before all of that. Loyal, headstrong, stubborn, and just the right amount of irreverent, she alone is enough to keep the pages turning. It helps that the reader has already met the MMC and his black duster coat by page nine, and knows they are about to embark on what is sure to be a tantalizing forbidden mentor romance set inside a magical boarding school. The writing is addictive, spellbinding, and still making readers pine to this day.
Faebound, by Saara El-Arifi
Another masterclass in writing prologues, Saara El-Arifi begins with essential mythology. I was lucky enough to snag an ARC of Faebound in my former bookselling life. As a reader, I sometimes struggle with fantasies that begin with gods, preferring to start inside a character’s head so that I know what’s at stake before I learn who they pray to.
That is precisely why I want to highlight the gorgeous example that is Faebound. Instead of opening on a long and detailed mythological history, Saara El-Arifi keeps the two-page creation story essential and vivid, beautifully laying out both the structure of this world and core conflict between Fae, Elves, and Humans. A complicated new cosmos is made easy to traverse thanks to the artful simplicity of the roadmap. By the time we meet Yeeran, the first of our sister heroines to grace the page, the reader already feels the story’s epic tone and is appropriately braced for the whirlwind to come.
Assistant to the Villain, by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
“It was an ordinary day when Evie met The Villain.” Hannah Nicole Maehrer manages to hook her reader in a single sentence that is a contradiction in and of itself. The reader knows the day is going to be anything but ordinary, and they know immediately why they should care.
A character’s voice is one of the best tools an author has to ground a reader in an opening chapter. The reader might not know the rules of this world yet or even what it looks like, but an internal monologue they can relate to or giggle over will keep them around long enough to find out. Enter Evie Sage.
Gold-hearted, trusting Evie, mourning her unemployment and inability to support her family, wanders distractedly into the Rennedawn’s darkening, forbidden Hickory Forrest and is promptly yanked to the ground by a dark and mysterious stranger romantasy readers know from the moment his hand clamps over her mouth that they’re going to love. A sunshine and the grump romance if there ever was one, it’s Evie’s disarming optimism even despite the direst circumstances in contrast to The Villain’s comically dark outlook on everyone and everything that keeps the reader kicking their feet the whole way through.
Long Live Evil, by Sarah Rees Brennan
Another brilliant portal fantasy from Sarah Rees Brennan (who shares my deep love of chapter titles), Long Live Evil tells the story of a terminally ill woman named Rae who seizes a second chance at life via a magical bargain with a mysterious stranger that thrusts her into her favorite fantasy series. But Rae doesn’t arrive in the magical realm of Eyam as the hero, the damsel, or even a side character: She’s playing the villainess.
In chapter one, “The Villainess Faces Death,” we’re shown first where we’re going, as Sarah Rees Brennan sweeps us into a gory, bloody scene in which the Once and Forever Emperor is marching across a throne room wielding a sword and severed head. But it cuts off right before its peak, and slams the reader back into the present, where our heroine is listening to her sister read the tale aloud from her hospital bed. The sharp 360 is deeply relatable, especially to a mother who’s been interrupted by a feral tiny human in the middle of a climactic chapter a time or two. The chapter culminates with the kind of start to a story every romantasy reader and aspiring author dreams of: The chance to not just participate in the tale, but change it.
Check out Taylor J. LaRue's Steelborn here:
