Young Writers Society

I just started writing again (We just finished moving) so I reread the first chapters of my novel and saw they were no good, so I started again, and again, and again but I can't seem to get my first chapter right, so here's the Q: Is it okay to skip to the next chapter then go back to the first one later on? Thanks a lot guys

Hey Steward!

Is it okay to skip to the next chapter and return to the first? Yes! Always.

In fact you'll probably return to it five or six times before the end of your draft to rewrite it.

Things are going to change dramatically by the time you've finished your novel. You characters will rewire their personalities, change their names, dye their hair in between chapters without you noticing. The plot will twist and turn and take up a mind of its own, and your voice and style will alter depending on the situations echoing through from your real life. It's funny sometimes when you read back over your first draft and see this happening.

By the time you finish, your novel will look nothing like what you intended it to be when you started, so it's best to leave your first chapter just as a standing stone and don't edit it too much, or not at all.

The positive to having a good opening chapter is that it gives you a kick start into your novel, but that dries out. The huge negetive is that having a good opening means you will want to stick with it and be more reluctant to change the details or even the starting point of your novel, and that will impede you from making further progress.

Ten is absolutely correct in how much things change from draft to draft. My first draft is completely unrecognizable from the draft I'm working on now. The only thing that matters is the final draft has lost its continuity errors.

Because of all this editing, the best way to write is whatever gets words on the page. If this is non-liniar, "write what I want and fill in the blanks", awesome! If that is stubbornly figuring out what happens before you write it in chronological order, fantastic!

Just work on getting words out so you can polish them out later.

Some people do have to edit before they move on, as well. They go scene by scene and make each scene as perfect as they can before moving on to the next scene. Others cannot look back on what they've written else they'll rewrite the whole thing.