2 pieces of advice on starting your book strong

Beginning any task — including writing a novel — is often the most difficult phase of the project.

So it's not surprising that two weaknesses that the Writer's Digest team has called attention to, in its new-writer-mistakes series, take place in the early pages of the book.

WD Senior Editor Robert Lee Brewer explains how too much exposition too soon can overwhelm or bore a reader, while author Michael Woodson suggests beginning the story in the middle so that readers wonder how the characters arrived at that key point, versus watching it gradually happen.

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• An author considers opening pages from a reader's perspective

• Authors don't necessarily have to start at the beginning