Since I’d made good progress on my world building, I let myself take a little dive into Chapter One of SEVEN STARS (I really have to think of a new title).
The first chapter of anything is always challenging. It’s not so much the blank page. There’s just a certain amount of settling into the new character’s head and getting comfortable there. Kind of a period of getting acquainted.
Often, there’s a certain amount of info-dumping, setting up the world. Stuff I’ll have to go back and delete later, but have to get out of my head before I can really get started. Plus, I always try to turn my infernal, I mean internal, editor off when writing a first draft.
I’m having more than the usual trouble getting into this character. He keeps wanting to sound too experienced and generally too old, at least if this is going to be a young adult story. I’ve got to make him a little–no, a lot–more uncertain about a couple of things. That means getting deeper POV, which is always hard for me for the first chapter or so, but I’m making progress.
I still have world building to do, but getting a better feel for the main character is important, too.
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