Too much pressure about 10 flimsy pieces of paper

Kept rewriting until I liked what I got. My first chapter has been through hell, but it was worth it.

I demoted my first chapter and promoted my third chapter to no. 1.

wrinkles has a good idea -- The question that got me sorted out on my last MS and also on the one I'm working on now: Does this begin in the right place? In both cases I found I'd started too late in the action and needed to give a bit more preamble. Others might find they've started too early and need to remove something.

WendyNYC said:

I've recently completed my WIP -- hooray! Time to edit!

Except, no.

I'm having some trouble here. I've written, and rewritten, and re-rewritten the first 10 pages umpteen times and still I'm not happy with it. I'm not having this issue elsewhere in the novel, just the beginning. Knowing that agents and publishers (not to mention readers) will be giving a thumbs up or down based on the first few pages is absolutely killing me. The pressure!

Here's my progress:
1st draft: Ack! All crap!
2nd: Better, but too distant
3rd: Hmmm, not quite it
4th: Not enough about the MC
5th: Not quite the right tone
6th: Tone's better, but action stinks
7th: ...you get the picture

Anyone else deal with this? What did you do?

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Start on Page Eleven.

I've certainly dealt with this. I eventually figured out I'd started my entire novel four YEARS too late into the story. No freakin' wonder I was having trouble explaining what was going on without dragging down the action. It only took me *counts* 8 rewrites of that stupid first chapter to figure out something that seems so obvious now I want to hit myself over the head with a keyboard for not seeing it right away.

Exactly. I had to do a flashback in one of my stories--switching chapters one and two. I didn't work any other way.

Tri

WendyNYC said:

Hm. I think I am going to have to start later in the action, then circle back a bit. It starts too slow. Another problem I have is that my MC changes *a lot* throughout the story, and she's not terribly likeable up front. Interesting, I think so, but likeable? No.

Maybe I'll give her a blind parrot or something to care for. I dunno.

Thanks, everyone, for answering!

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Hate is another form of love. If the people truly HATE someone, they will continue to read.

Chuck the first ten pages up on SYW if you haven't already, and give us a chance to "reject" them. Or not!

Have you left the entire manuscript in a desk drawer for three months yet?

James D. Macdonald said:

Have you left the entire manuscript in a desk drawer for three months yet?

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That's what I was about to suggest. Let it age like cheap wine for a bit.

Trying for perfection is another stall tactic. It'll never be "perfect" because there's no such thing. Do the best job you can and realize you have to stop somewhere.

I sympathize. Agonizing over those first 10 pages is enough to drive any writer (me too!) completely buggy.

Try looking at the LAST five to ten pages, noting who the pov character is, what the setting is, what problem (story question or plot point) is being resolved there, what has changed about the pov character to get there, what the emotions are, etc.

Now, go back to the beginning and see what's the same/different about the protagonist in the first scene. Is it the same setting, same problem, same character? If not, why not? (There can be good reasons, but you need to know what they are.) Is the protagonist in the first scene being sent on his/her path to that final scene? If not, the story may be starting too early or too late.

In other words, in a really basic romance, the first scene is the heroine meeting the hero, but having some reasons why they can't be a couple. In the last scene, the heroine is with the hero, and they commit to being a couple.

You can link the first and last scenes in lots of ways. Jenny Crusie does it frequently and brilliantly. If you look at the first and last lines of Welcome to Temptation, they're describing pretty much the same thing, but in the beginning the heroine is anxious and pessimistic, and in the end she's confident and optimistic, and it comes across in the description. In Bet Me, the first words are "Once upon a time," and the last words are "they lived happily ever after," in keeping with the fairytale theme.

So, to test your first scene, to make it as strong as possible, look at it side by side with your final scene and see how the two link up (or, if they don't, how you can make them link up). It's like those word puzzles, where you start with a word, change one letter to make a new word, then change one more letter for a new word, and repeat until you get to the word you're aiming for. The first scene is the starting word, and the final scene is the word you're aiming for.

JD

I know what you're going through. My first chapter has been through so many revisions, I can't even count them anymore.

BUT it's soooo worth it! Keep plugging away. You'll get there eventually.

I rewrote the first chapter so many times I don't even want to think about it...but hey...it's sitting in an editor's hot little hands so it was worth it.

I cut and pasted - per your beta advice, I believe - a section of chapter 3 to chapter 1. I needed a particular dramatic happening for the opening, to give that hook the reader desires. Is there something later in the ms you can move forward?

WendyNYC said:

Here's my progress:
1st draft: Ack! All crap!
2nd: Better, but too distant
3rd: Hmmm, not quite it
4th: Not enough about the MC
5th: Not quite the right tone
6th: Tone's better, but action stinks
7th: ...you get the picture

Anyone else deal with this? What did you do?

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I think I'm on draft 12 or 13.

WendyNYC said:

I'm having some trouble here. I've written, and rewritten, and re-rewritten the first 10 pages umpteen times and still I'm not happy with it. I'm not having this issue elsewhere in the novel, just the beginning.
Anyone else deal with this? What did you do?

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No easy answer to this one. I know exactly what you mean. Openings take me far longer than any other part of the book. Maybe, just maybe, the first 10 pages don't need to be there. Often the real story doesn't begin in those first pages and we're just kind of warming up. If it all needs to be there, try walking away from it for a week or so. Leave it alone and come back fresh. Both of those methods worked for me but not until after I'd revised the opening umpteen million times. Eventually I got so frustrated I let it sit for awhile then I scrapped the whole thing and wrote a new opening. Worked like a charm.
Linnea

WendyNYC said:

I'm having some trouble here. I've written, and rewritten, and re-rewritten the first 10 pages umpteen times and still I'm not happy with it. I'm not having this issue elsewhere in the novel, just the beginning. Knowing that agents and publishers (not to mention readers) will be giving a thumbs up or down based on the first few pages is absolutely killing me. The pressure!

Click to expand...

Stop thinking about readers, editors and so on. The first 10 pages of my novel are long gone, tossed in the circular file. As the story moves on you chop and prune dead wood, and believe it or not, the first beginning you write is more than likely "deadwood." 10 pages out of 300 or whatever length you are shooting for, should not stall you. Personally, I do not even start the beginning unless I have a good middle started. I actually had the ending written before I had the beginning written.

It is like the magical beads. You string them loosely and then tighten them up.

I'm also a pretty good editor, but I don't start editing (except for obvious mistakes) until I have at least 30-40 pages, and even then, you might have over-written something. You can't really start to see the entire "shape" until you are about 100 pages out. That's where keeping it loose comes in handy. The first draft is a draft, no more. You don't go back and edit it till you have polished it to flatness.

Just give it a read-over and stop worrying about publication.