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First few chapters are boring



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Mon Dec 09, 2013 7:12 pm
FillinFaye says...



So I'm writing a story, the first chapters feel boring to me. Which makes me not want to write. I keep on telling me to get on the computer and type but all I do is watch youtube. I really need to know if my chapters are boring or not.
  





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Mon Dec 09, 2013 7:20 pm
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Zolen says...



One way to handle that (at least for the first chapter) is to start with an intro, in slow to run stories the best way to make sure the reader will keep reading through is to give them a hint of the future or a far more dramatic event that happened in the past to hint at the characters more interesting traits.

Then try to make every chapter have some sort of conflict, treat it like you are writing the plot of a cartoon episode for every chapter, make each one like a dramatic new event.
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Mon Dec 09, 2013 7:43 pm
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Deifyance says...



1) -Look at what the tv show 'Breaking Bad' did, they opened with a scene that wouldn't actually take place for another few episodes. However, this scene gave the audience the suspenseful drive necessary to make it past the rather boring first part (when Walter was still a chemistry teacher.)

2) -Usually this problem is due to a writer wanting to explain everything (this is called exposition) before the story even starts. This is the fastest way to sink your book-ship. You, as the writer want to give the 'necessary details' so the audience knows what's going on, but, in reality, the audience want's to EXPERIENCE the world as a child wandering through a new play-place. Remember the saying: Less is more.

Hope some of this helped!
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Chapter 1
Changing Legacy: Chapter 1 - Disheartening

Chapter 2
Changing Legacy: Chapter 2 - Ambushed
  





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Mon Dec 09, 2013 7:48 pm
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OliveDreams says...



What an amazing response, @Deifyance!

My advice, FillinFaye, would be to treat your first chapter as the THING that drags your reader in to want to read more. It needs to have that event/first meeting that excites you to write as much as it does for us to read it!

If you're not excited about where your first chapter is going to take the entire book..then we will feel it through your writing.

To brush up on your first chapter skills - I would read, read and then read some more. Whether they be your favourite books (to see why they interested you so much in the first place) or other members' work on here to see how they managed to create that feeling of curiosity.

Good luck! Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions :)

Olive <3
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Mon Dec 09, 2013 8:20 pm
FillinFaye says...



thanks for your answers!
  





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Tue Dec 10, 2013 2:35 am
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Rosendorn says...



If it is boring to you it will be boring to the reader.

My advice? Make it interesting to you.

Forget all "must"s and "should"s and "but they need to know"s.

Make it interesting.

If you want, start it in the middle of a bank robbery. No idea who these people are or why they're doing it, but if you make us care about the characters (through maybe a snarky narrator, or an attention grabbing line like "I had to do this", which makes us wonder why he had to and what he's about to do) then you're golden.

Don't worry about what you have to write, or what it should be, or what readers "need to know."

Come up with the single most interesting beginning to yourself as you can, then take all that interest and write it.

Then you'll have a good beginning.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

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Wed Dec 11, 2013 5:33 pm
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Tenyo says...



I'm gonna throw a spanner in the works, because I find that fun to do =]

Rewriting
Do you know how many times you're going to rewrite the beginning of your novel? At least four, if it's your average 50k novel. If longer, probably about eight or nine.

Every time you find a new theme to introduce, something in the back of your mind will start weaving it into everything you've already written- which is why it's important not to edit or rewrite until you've finished your first draft.

You may even find that you'll want to start your novel further back than you originally planned, or you'll get ten chapters in and decide that this is where I want to start it.

Things change
And by 'things' I mean 'everything.' Characters change their names without you noticing (it's really funny when you realise this has happened because it seems so ridiculous you'd think it wouldn't.) Kids grow up over the time frame of a few months, places relocate themselves, your entire novel might even fall a few hundred years back or forward in time without you noticing.
If you were to go back and edit *every* time this happened, you'd be rewriting the whole novel every two or three chapters.

The worst thing that could happen-
-is not that you'll mess up your opening. The worst thing is that you won't mess up your opening. Always be open to editing later. Right now you might spend weeks perfecting your opening, and later decide that you want to change it. But you won't. You'll resist it with every ounce of your being. Because you worked so hard on it and you can't bare to change it. And then you're stuck in a rut because if you're not open to change then you'll never be able to make it better.

Don't read it. Don't even think about it. You're thinking about it now, aren't you...
Everybody wants their opening to be perfect because it's so important, but because it's so important, it's probably one of the last things you want to edit because that way you'll know how best to do it and you'll get it right.

If it helps, my personal solution is that I'll cut the first few chapters, save them in a separate document and then tell myself that the beginning is done. Then I don't have the temptation to read over it or even glance at it when I open the document.

Hope this helps!
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Mon Dec 23, 2013 5:58 pm
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fire_of_dawn says...



How does this change when applied to short stories?
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Tue Dec 24, 2013 12:28 am
Rosendorn says...



Short stories should be nothing but interesting things.

You have no space for anything other than the heart of the story. Cut as much unneeded information as you can, and find a way to make it interesting. If it's boring, you need to focus on something else that's not boring.

Short stories have no luxury of boring parts. Novels don't really have that luxury either, but there's more space to establish things. Short stories have no space.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Wed Dec 25, 2013 4:50 am
cheymarie628 says...



FillinFaye wrote:So I'm writing a story, the first chapters feel boring to me. Which makes me not want to write. I keep on telling me to get on the computer and type but all I do is watch youtube. I really need to know if my chapters are boring or not.


I don't know if this would help you are not but I usually write my stories on Quotev and then I joined on this site. The story that I have been working on a while now, the first few chapters were boring, but when I started to write again, I related some of it to me and that just wants me to get motivation for writing. Hope that helped? :)
  








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