It took me a few months and tries to get my opening chapter the way I wanted. Some people think the answer is to just write and fix later, but that's not the answer for everyone. Don't be in a rush. You'll get this. And when you get it right things will get easier as you go. Good luck, my friend.
I never try to get the opening perfect at the outset. I just write what I have to write to put the story in motion. In my current project, which I'm now doing a final revision on before I start pitching it in the spring, I started with a scene that I later completely deleted, making the start of the novel the scent that followed. But I was very glad that I'd written that first scene, because what happened in it was referenced several times in the story and became the basis of a significant subplot. It's great that you have such a clear idea of your story in advance. But it's important to leave yourself open to the nuances in character and plot that haven't yet occurred to you, but will as the story unfolds. Good luck.
Not to sound like a Debbie Downer (whoever she is), but you might want to reserve judgment on the viability of the idea until you've begun to execute it. One of the pitfalls of writing is the deficit--real or perceived--between the idea and the logistics of writing it. Easier said than done. I would bang out a beginning and see where it gets you. If you can get into the meat and find an open channel, then great. But it already sounds as if your game plan for the beginning isn't working, so I would keep an open mind and stay flexible while you follow your plan, because no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy intact. I wouldn't sweat the first chapter too much. I heard on a podcast the other day (Sanderson?) that nobody is qualified to judge a first chapter until they've completed the second.
Yep. Three out of four novels had the first chapter rewritten several times. I get past it by writing the rest and going back to the first chapter when the novel is finished. I then find several people willing to read the first chapter and tell me if a) they like the main character and b) they want to read on. If the majority answer yes to both, then the chapter is doing its job. There's a lot of pressure on that poor little first chapter. I think we have to try not to worry about it until the rest is done, or it could hang us up forever.
@BayView has stated suggested that you should start your story as late as possible. So, I'd suggest that you write your crappy first chapter and then plough on. And then delete that first chapter when you realize that the reader really doesn't need to know your MC's bathroom routine. Or, if the first chapter REALLY is necessary, edit the hell out of it on 2nd draft.
Arguably, this is the the actual craft of writing... everybody has an idea for a novel. They're a dime a dozen. What makes a person a novelist is the act of converting that high level synopsis into 75,000 words of prose. Which I learned the hard way through writing circles. I have abandoned the belief that I can write a chapter and bring it to critique, and go on to the next chapter. I would come back the next month with chapter 7, and spend 90% of the time sputtering, "OK, this character is a woman now, and I've rewritten chapters 1-6 to include a new character that you haven't seen before, that's where this Sarah person came from, and her unusual lreaction is actually explainable because of an incident in chapter 2 that wasn't there when you reviewed it 5 months ago. It's really interesting and goes like this (*). Oh, and they're in space now instead of on Earth. And there's a different villain. And it's a heist now, not a murder mystery. OK... everybody caught up? So: whaddya think? No, I'm not writing this down. While I was talking, I decided to eliminate those characters and this entire chapter, but fill your boots with the critique. Honestly, at this point, I'm just here for the biscuits." So for me, the writing circle is for completed short stories, and focused exercises, such as dialog studies, or dream scenes, or <10 min standup routines or sketch comedy scenes. (*) Inigo: "Let me 'splain… No, there is too much. Let me sum up."
Hi everyone, Thanks for all the advice! As usual really helpful and encouraging. Definitely a lot to think about, and I’ll keep working on that dreaded first chapter. And if it’s not perfect.. well, sounds like it’s best to kepe going anyway and see what happens. Thanks again, Piper
I do do that, but I've gone back and changed the beginning on all three of my books so far - so my advice is don't stress it - remember no first draft is perfect - and just crack on, you can't edit a blank page
Since many here have urged me to write without revising either for clarity or cadence, I cannot bring myself to write anything, for having cadence as a goal, and doubting that revision can give it to a mess, and struggling to imagine how I could write a whole draft without revising in the process, I find myself procrastinating continually. And during this time I have wondered what process I used in the past to write one good thing, and have realized that I did so by doing some revision while writing the first draft of it, and by heavily revising each paragraph once I had written it, and by revising the first one after I had polished the second. I also have realized that everything I wrote that was somewhat decent at the least, I wrote by revising while I wrote it, whether sentence by sentence, or paragraph by paragraph, and that never have I written things of such kind without revising as I wrote them. But there are some here who discourage me from doing this, and from aiming for cadence at this time. And their reason seems to this, that they think I cannot juggle content, clarity, and cadence all at once. But I think the main reasons for my failure are these, that I insist on using certain grammatical structures and certain archaic words and phrases, that I do not read my writing over to make sure it is clear and graceful, nor leave it for myself to read later, nor persevere in polishing it, but spend so little time on it and then rush to post it. And I think another reason for my failure is this, that these days I barely write anything. I think that in order for me to be productive, I must revise as I write, though you might think that this is the problem. I have had much more success by thinking of the wording and revising as I write, than by forcing myself to write a rough draft and to polish what I wrote later on. But I know that by writing a rough draft first you are able to have this advantage, to have your thoughts fully set down and flowing.
I revise as I write, too, but it doesn't keep me from writing. One thing I try to keep in mind is the quote, "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly". Nothing you write will ever be perfect, but your best is good enough.
Honest question: Do you enjoy writing? I cannot help but get the impression from your posts that the process feels to you like a burden or an assigned task that you are reticent to do. Don’t get me wrong, in no way, shape, or form am I saying it’s easy or should be easy, but even when it has you pulling your hair out, still it should be enjoyable. I am no one’s description of successful or published, and even if I were to go to the grave with that status unchanged, still I deeply enjoyed the process of writing stories and inventing people and places and happenstances. Does this happen for you when you write?
I think you might misunderstand what rough drafts are. You don't force yourself to write a bad first version, it's just that when writing a large project, you're first version will invariably end up pretty bad in spite of efforts to the contrary. If you must revise as you write to make progress, then go ahead, but, for me at least, a large portion of that effort is wasted when revising for voice, character consistency, filling plot holes, cutting useless content, fixing pacing, et cetera. And your project will have these problems. Everyones does. If you don't think your project has these problems, it's probably because you've been too busy focusing on individual words and sentences rather than your project as a whole.
I agree with Wreybies. If you want to write and enjoy writing, then write. And write in a way that feels comfortable to you. Writing advice are just tools and suggestions, they won't fit everyone's process, and you don't need to use those suggestions if they restrict you in this way. If people have problems with your writing, then just write for yourself. Nothing wrong with that. A lot of people write for themselves and are happy doing so. It's better than not writing at all, if writing is truly what you wanna do. Good luck!
You just wrote 400 words. Use that as a draft exercise. Maybe you can work on ebb and flow? You like writing with stylistic anastrophe (i.e., never have I written). Try to work that device tastefully into a neutral paragraph. I'll do an ebb and flow of imagery using your paragraph, starting literal and then building to metaphor: I cannot bring myself to write anything. People have urged me to write without clarity or cadence, but those are my goals. I can’t revise a mess and can’t imagine a draft without revision. And so I procrastinate. These days, I wonder: how did I ever write anything of worth? Writing should have stature, poetry, rhythm. My old work breathed these, because I revised by sentence and then by paragraph, building each upon the motif of its neighbor’s song. I wrote in chorus. When I revised those old drafts, my words seemed decent. They had dignity. I can't find them without revision. And then you ease back to average. I hit high metaphor, and then fell back to softer personification. The follow-up would be a couple paragraphs of simple prose. It's like waves on the sea shore, rising up and spilling back. You want subtle and then intense and then quiet. You don't want a tsunami of one technique.
I am not quite certain of what you mean by waves rising up and spilling back. I am aware of this phenomena in prose, but I do not know exactly what it is. Are you referring to the length of sentences, the length of clauses or phrases, or something else? How is this wave-like motion achieved? Also, you have simplified my original post. Although your version is much better than mine, I do not want to attribute this to simplification. I have written some simple prose in the past, and that prose was good, but I would also like to write prose that is sophisticated, albeit easy to understand. What is your advice about prose style, pertaining to these two kinds?
If revising as you go is how you like to write, then by all means do it that way! Suggestions from others are only that, not orders, right? Good luck.
Thanks, @Seven Crowns, for posting what I was going to post but didn't get to in time. @waitingforzion, you say you have written simple, good prose in the past. Why isn't that good enough for you? Many writers strive mightily for years learning to write good simple prose. Many self-styled experts have written books on how to do it, and why you should. No less than Ernest Hemingway built his reputation on doing it well. Writing sophisticated prose well is fiendishly difficult for most people. James Joyce did it brilliantly, but it took him years to write a novel. Vladimir Nabokov did it well, too, but he was some kind of genius. William Faulkner did it, but he's awfully turgid most of the time and many readers just don't bother with him. William T. Vollmann thinks he can do it, but he's hopelessly wrong. Many fine writers never manage to write sophisticated prose well - it's not required, after all. I try to write sophisticated prose myself, with intermittent success. When it works, it makes all the work involved worth while. When it doesn't, it just sends me back to the desk, a little more humble than before. My advice is, read poetry. Find a poet or two whose rhythms and imagery resonate with you and memorize some of their work. Recite it aloud to yourself when nobody else is around - when you're driving or mowing the lawn or otherwise occupied. Their rhythms will soon become part of the way you think, and will give you a springboard for your own work.
By ebb and flow, I mean a rhythm. You're right, it's usually sentence length, but you can apply it to other qualities: length of phrases, use of metaphor, and your more sophisticated phrasings too. My suggestion is pretty much the same as what everyone else here says, and that's to slim down your prose and stay simple. That should be your baseline. Don't think of it as being modern or writing on a low reading-scale. Just consider it elegance. You want the ratio of ideas to words to be as high as possible. If it bothers you seeing your first draft that way, don't even consider it a first draft. Just think of it as notes. (Sometimes these things are completely mental). We all have our own voice, and yours can still go over that. (Truthfully, it will still be in anything you pare down. Voice is more than rhetoric.) You just have to be honest with yourself and admit that your voice is weighty. You want to use it at just the right spot for emphasis. You can't clobber the reader over the head with it right out the gate. When everything is ornate, the basics get lost. So it's an ebb and flow. State some points simply and then build to what's important with a more powerful voice. That's where you apply your full style. And then you relax and come back to simpler language and structures. On my rewrite above, I just distilled your important phrases. It left me with a beige paragraph. Then I worked over it with bold colors, which for me means imagery. (That's where I have to not lay it on too thick. Because I can get carried away too. Easily.) You should try something similar, I think. Slim down a work and then build up a point of emphasis. See how that looks to you. If you don't have any ideas you want to use, then go to Amazon and swipe an opening paragraph or two from a "Look-Inside" preview. Especially the poorly written ones. They're just asking for it. I think little exercises like that might help you build some confidence. Then you can tackle your own ideas with a similar approach.
I don't think anyone has urged you to write without revising for clarity - the advice that was given was not to try to artificially create cadence in your writing as your efforts at doing so were making your writing worse, not better Not to be harsh but when did you write this one good thing ? Virtually everything you've posted for crit has been a mess of words that struggled to make sense And in this they (we) are correct - based on what you've posted so far you really do struggle in these areas - also you don't seem to actually understand what cadence is or how it should be applied in your writing, hence the advice to first learn to write before you try and write a treatise on biblical apologetica, which for your level of ability is like a toddler saying they want to run a marathon Fine revise as you write then - no one has a problem with that.... but don't revise the same paragraph eight or nine times, continually posting it for advice which you then don't take, and use to as an excuse to not write anything further. Personally I revise as I write, then when I've got something I'm happy with I submit it for crit, revise it again in the light of that crit and then move on to the next thing (or to the next step in the publishing process)
Two questions here a) how do you know that prose was good ? and b) How do you define sophisticated prose ? .... from what I've seen here you seem to think that sophisticated prose consists of using lots of archaic words (sometimes wrongly) but it really doesn't or at least doesnt have to
Why are you writing, @waitingforzion? For yourself or for others? If for others, which others? If you're writing for yourself, ignore everything people have been trying to tell you here for the many years you've been posting, looking for advice. Nothing we say matters if you're writing for yourself. Just write. Enjoy. Carry on. But if you're writing for others? You either need to keep hunting until you find an audience that enjoys the style of writing you want to produce, or you need to change that style, because the audience you've found here does not enjoy that style. It's really that simple. So... why are you writing?
@waitingforzion - Some pretty useful questions posed to you in this thread. And to them I will add only one piece of advice - regard them as rhetorical questions, only. That is, they are questions that you would be well advised to answer to yourself, but you do not owe anyone any explanations for anything you do. Judging by some of the questions you have posted, and by this one as well, I get the sense that you want to write, of your own effort, something that will have the "feel" of some ancient style - biblical, perhaps. Or possibly Elizabethan. But language evolves, syntax changes, vocabulary moves on. Those texts were the product of the time and language in which they were created. You and we are of a different time, different language, different culture, different events, different references. I am not trying to tell you not to try to write this way, only that it will be exceedingly difficult to do so, and it will be an effort for which you will not be able to get much advice (except possibly from biblical or Elizabethan scholars) and for which you are unlikely to find much in the way of critical appreciation. If my assumption about your efforts is correct, it does not mean you shouldn't do it. Many of us pursue avocations that only we can appreciate. It only means that it will likely be a solitary effort, and that the advice you get from even the most knowledgeable and experienced writers here will be of little or no value to you. And if my assumption is incorrect, my apologies.
The things I have posted here for critique, I have not tried so hard to endow with cadence. If I had, your point would stand, but I have not, so it does not. For as I have said, and as you have agreed, seldom do I write anything, and also with effort do I rarely write anything, but hasten to post what I write in a rush. And my efforts to give cadence to my writing are small. So why should I cease altogether from trying? I have not tried so hard that I should give up.
a) because people told me. But I wrote it five years ago and most of it is lost. I have not written anything quite like it since. b) Sophisticated grammar, albeit easy to comprehend. It has nothing to do with being modern or archaic.
