Stop the Presses!
Major rewrite on the way.
Feedback from a good friend has made me take a fresh look at the first chapter, and yeah, he's right. I'm writing a new beginning to Heyna's Tale.
Writers do that all the time, right?
You know that feeling? When you think that your story is done? You’ve plotted it and written the shit out of it. You think it’s ready? And it’s a long piece, and even though you’ve edited it to a fair thee well, every time you read the first chapter, you get a twist in your stomach?
So, what do you do?
What I did was to stop reading the first chapter. Just stopped.
My lovely wife was my first reader and she gave me a heads up, and I did revise those first pages, and they were better, but…
I also think… that I use ellipses too much. Feel free to read the novel and tell me if I’m right.
Anyway, the first chapter…
It’s a dream sequence. It’s a dream dreamed by a character that the reader doesn’t know about a world that is just effing weird. Thousand foot tall trees. Not just talking animals, but talking mythical creatures with powers. A world of sailing ships, tramp steamers, and U-boats. A world of complex political and cultural turmoil. And… It’s a dream sequence.
See the problem?
Well I couldn’t. I couldn’t until I had nearly published the whole thing on Substack. I couldn’t until my friend told me bluntly that I have fucked the part that needed to pull the reader in, the part that needed to do the one thing that is essential. To make the reader care about Heyna.
Before the plot kicks off, I needed to let the reader know who Heyna is and why they should care about her.
So… (too much? The ellipses, I mean.)
The long and the short of it is that it’s going to take some time to craft a new first scene. Those who’ve been reading along as I publish (and I know there’s at least one) I ask your patience.
Once more, once more into the breach… yada, yada, yada!
“The best writing is rewriting.” -- E. B. White