The first chapter of your book is a lot like a first date. Whether you hope to boost your book sales or have a partner who can call emergency services if you suffer a stroke in the middle of the night, you have to make a good impression quickly.

While your book cover, review and endorsement quotes are more akin to social media dating profiles, flirty texts and dick pics, the first chapter is much like a first date, where your reader can get to know the real you.

But as anyone who has been on a first date or has sent their first chapter to a publisher can tell you, this is when audience scrutiny is at its highest. Just as a date might be looking for annoying eating habits, Nazi tattoos or evidence that you’re placing sports bets while she’s talking about her job, your reader is looking for intriguing mystery, a unique voice or well-developed world building.

In this article, I’ll show you how the strategies that you can use to get laid on a first date will work equally well in the first chapter of your novel. We’ll hide our desperation to be noticed on this edition of Stories’ Matter.

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Strategy One – The Sympathy Strategy

I use this all the time on first dates. My goal is to make my date feel sorry for me so she’ll be less likely to turn down my advances. I have a few go-to’s. Sometimes I’ll tell her my last wife hurt me because was a total crazy bitch. This makes me look like a reasonable guy who’s just unlucky, and it has the added benefit of boosting her confidence because she’ll feel normal in comparison.

Other times I will pull out a photo of my “dead son” quote-end-quote, which is actually a photo of a real child from a missing person’s cold case. This shows I’m committed enough to being a father, and the woman, who in the age range I date is likely baby crazy, will naturally assume I want to have another child quickly to take the place of the one I’ve lost.

In a book, you similarly want your reader to identify emotionally with your character fairly quickly. Books take a lot more time and effort than almost any other type of entertainment, so those emotional bonds are necessary. Consider starting your book at a parent’s funeral, or if you want to keep it lighter, just make it a dog funeral.

Strategy Two – The Exotic Setting

If there’s one thing I know about women, it’s that they’re wary of going to your house on a first date. If there’s two things I know, it’s that they really don’t like going to your house on a first date when you forgot to close the dresser that contains mementos and clothes from all your previous wives.

An exotic location can be a great place for a first date. If nothing else, the crazy setting gives you something to talk about. Some of my go to’s are restaurants where you can eat sushi off of naked people and spas where naked people come to eat food off of you.

In fiction, land your reader onto the surface of an alien planet. Lower them in the depths of an African cobalt mine. Or borrow from real life and use my naked spa idea.

Strategy Three – The Info Dump

Sometimes, when you’re on a date, it’s best to lay all of your cards on the proverbial chess table. Especially at my age, when cancer or heart disease might take you during your next sexual encounter. Well, heart disease anyway, I’ve never heard of a cancer that killed someone during sex, but at the same time, I’m not an oncologist so I can’t say with any certainty that there isn’t a type of terminal cancer that’s onset by particularly vigorous intercourse.

Anyway, my point is, I often make it a point to start dates by cataloging my marriages, my recent sexual history, the children that I know about, my publishing feats, my bankruptcies, my mixed feelings about being partially raised by a prostitute and my regrets that I never DNA tested the man in my father’s grave. And generally, I try to get this all out of the way before the main course arrives so we can just enjoy our meal. Sometimes the date leaves before then, but I’m at least happy knowing neither of us has wasted our time.

Now, a lot of writers will tell you it’s wrong to info dump right away. I disagree. You merely need to find a way to do it that doesn’t feel like info dumping. Epistolary devices like news articles or diary entries work great. In The Life We Have, the lead couple looks through a photo album together and discusses the last ten years of their marriage. To make it less boring, I end the chapter with a raunchy sex scene.

Strategy Four – The Misdirection Strategy

Like a reader, a potential love interest is out for an element of surprise. Some people think dating is about connection and comfort, but comfort is just sitting at home alone, binging Netflix and seeing how many boxes of wine you can drink before you pass out.

People date to get out of their comfort zone. I like to keep my dates on their toes. Sometimes I’ll spend the whole date hinting at my sexual prowess by doing things like running my fingers suggestively up and down the stem of my wine glass or sharing photos from a recent vacation that “accidentally” contains one in the middle of me shirtless in front of a mirror. I may also compliment the mouth of my potential paramour.

But then, at the end of the date, instead of suggesting we go back to my place, I’ll end things with a hearty, chaste handshake. “Who is this man?” say her eyes as we depart for the night and the thought of her tossing and turning in her bed unable to get me out of her mind is almost as erotic as the eventually sexual eruption that is soon to follow.

Of course, I have realized that the opposite strategy, hinting at chastity and wanting to take it slow, only to end the night with a sudden, desperate plea for at least a handjob, is not as successful.

Anyway, this type of misdirection can work wonderfully in your fiction. You could start the book from the perspective of someone who turns out to be an ancillary character, or a mystery that doesn’t actually play a part in the main plot. My novel, The House on Pain Avenue, starts with the protagonist finding a dead body in the park. But this isn’t a story about solving that mystery. It turns out it’s merely a catalyst for getting the main character to get checked for syphilis.

Strategy Five – The Unusual POV Strategy

Now this is a strategy I’ve used less than the others, but it can be successful when implemented well. In the context of dating, what I mean by POV is giving my date a fake name and sometimes even a fake persona. Now, why would I do this?

Well, for starters, sometimes I want to make sure I’m not dating a fan. Sometimes they get clingy and sometimes they get a little too critical. But what I’ve found, ironically, is that pretending I’m someone else is really freeing and helps me relax during the date. I’m much less self-conscious about being mean to waiters who won’t let me order off the menu. I’m also much my forward about which of my partner’s body parts I like and which could still use a little work.

 In your novel, you could start the story from the perspective of a dead person, a villain trying to justify their crimes, or as in my novel, Plastered Bastard, the perspective of the car the drunken main character is driving.