Writers, myself included,
often begin a story too early, giving a lot of background before reaching the
place where the story really starts. We justify it by saying the background is
necessary to the plot or characterization of the novel, which, even if true, is
just an excuse for bad writing since it can usually be woven into the story
when it becomes relevant. As I said, I’ve been guilty of this too and had to
force myself to go back and cut out pages or even chapters at the beginning of
the manuscript.
But my current work in
progress, Lonely Rock, is different. This time I started too
late.
In my original first
chapter, Jessie and her friends were looking forward to a fun summer. That
would have been fine if the book was about what happened to Jessie and her
friends over the summer. I started there because I wanted to show the reader
what Jessie was like, and she is all about her friends. But the real story
involves Jessie’s move to a lighthouse, and the friends exit offstage. If I
start the book with them, readers will expect these walk-on players to have
major roles and will be disappointed when that expectation isn’t met.
That chapter also
introduced too many people at once. Aside from Jessie’s three friends, I had
various townspeople show up to make the scene more interesting. That can be
confusing to a reader.
The second chapter
introduced the other major players—Jessie’s family. And there were no extraneous
characters to confuse the reader.
So what did I do? I switched
the two chapters with a few minor changes to the timeline and how I introduced
the setting. To make it work, I had to move the story back several days. I think
I also managed to find a way to introduce readers to Jessie’s personality without
having her friends present. But this is the first draft, so it may change
again.
Because maybe there’s an
even better place to start.
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