Well I survived Saturday relatively intact except for a migraine that wasn’t on my weekend agenda. Urgh.
Today I write. Managed to get a chapter and a half done on the new book Friday night. This morning I dumped the entire first chapter and am now starting the book with Chapter Two. Um yeah, I had time for that, right? Not.
But when I read over the first chapter, it read like a story bible, filled with narrative and exposition and dumping the entire backstory of both clans into the chapter. The two main characters’ motivations, their angst, their reasons for being in that place at that time, and how they felt about it. Yada yada yada *yawn*
Bad writer. Bad Bad Bad. One doesn’t ‘info dump’ in the first chapter. That’s the #1 cardinal sin in writing and I haven’t done that in years.
Then again, I think I needed it. That erroneous first chapter fleshed out the characters for me, allowed me to get to know them better, to understand why they do what they do. Now I can start fresh and weave their motivations, their insecurities and flaws, into the rest of the book. Weave…NOT dump!
Now I have a much stronger, more intriguing opening page, and I feel a lot better. I don’t think I wasted those precious hours writing that first chapter because I really needed the information the chapter exposed.
On to writing and weaving now!