Antes da primeira página: onde um romance começa

Not all of my novels begin in the same way.

Sometimes, everything starts with a city.

Other times, with a scene that appears without context, an imagined conversation, or a feeling that lingers for too long to be ignored.

Some ideas arrive almost fully formed, bringing characters, conflicts, and a direction that already seems clear.

But, at least for me, those moments are rare.

Most of the time, a story begins much more quietly.

At first, there is only something.

An image.

A place.

A question.

A person who does not yet have a name.

And, for some reason, it stays.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when an idea begins to turn into a novel.

There is not always a single instant when everything becomes clear and the whole story reveals itself.

For me, it usually happens little by little.

An idea returns while I am doing something else.

A scene gains a detail that was not there before.

I begin to imagine what happened before that moment — or what might happen after it.

And then I realize I am no longer thinking about just one scene.

I am beginning to look for a story.

Perhaps this is one of the parts I love most about creating a novel: that stage when almost nothing has been defined and, at the same time, everything is still possible.

There are not yet enough chapters to limit the paths the story may take.

The characters can change.

A place can lead the story in a direction I had never imagined.

An idea that seems small at first may eventually become essential.

And there are questions I still do not know how to answer.

I do not feel the need to answer them all immediately.

Some stories need to remain in the imagination for a while.

Sometimes, an idea disappears for days or weeks and then returns with a different kind of clarity.

Other times, a single new detail is enough for something that once seemed disconnected to begin making sense.

It is as though the story is slowly revealing the space it wants to occupy.

At this stage, I still do not think of it as a book ready to be written.

I observe.

I imagine.

I research something that has sparked my curiosity.

I hold on to a scene.

I write down a sentence.

I return to an idea.

Little by little, elements that once seemed separate begin to move closer together.

I do not think of this process as following a formula.

To me, it feels more like recognizing something I still cannot fully see.

A feeling begins to belong to a place.

A scene finds its reason to exist.

A question begins to demand consequences.

And what once fit into only a few words begins to take up more and more space.

When that happens, I start to realize that I probably will not be able to simply let the idea go.

Even so, the first page may still take time.

Because imagining a story and being ready to write it are not the same thing.

Before I begin, I like to feel that there is something beyond that first spark.

I do not need to know everything that will happen — in fact, I would rather not.

I want to know enough to step into that world while still leaving room for it to surprise me.

Perhaps that is why, when I finally write the first sentence, it never really feels like the beginning.

For the reader, it will be.

That is where they will enter the story for the first time.

But for me, so much will already have happened.

The idea will have returned countless times.

Some possibilities will already have disappeared so that others could remain.

Certain scenes may have existed only in my imagination and may never reach the page.

Some details will have changed before a single chapter has even taken shape.

And something that once existed only as an image, a question, or a feeling will have slowly begun to become a world I still want to discover.

It is curious to think that the reader will probably never see this part.

They will meet the story when it already has names, places, events, and a direction.

But there is an entire territory before the first page.

A quiet space where the novel does not yet need to explain what it will become.

Perhaps that is exactly where I begin to understand why I want to write it.

Because before a story can reach someone else’s hands, it needs to remain long enough with the person who is writing it.

Until it stops being only an idea.

And begins to ask for pages.