Book Done Yet: Don’t Do This At Home

So I’m obsessing over the beginning, which you should never do.

The thing is, the beginning is going to change again no matter what I do with it now. You can’t write the beginning until you’ve written the end, you really can’t write it until you’ve written a full first draft (no matter how awful that draft is). And yet I keep going back to those first three scenes. I think it’s because I’m trying to introduce the book to myself.

The beginning is the invitation to the party. I must have written that a thousand times. You’re standing in the doorway, looking at the readers, and saying, “Come on in,” and part of the success of the beginning depends on how long it take you get out of the damn doorway so they can come in.

I have pretty much come to the conclusion that the scene sequence of the beginning is 1-1 Nita vs. Mort, 1-2 Nick vs. Vinnie, and 1-3 Nita vs Nick, and that the party starts with 1-3 Nita vs. Nick. Then I think it’s 1-4 Nick vs Daglas and 1-5 Button vs. Nita, which establishes the secondary relationships, and then 1-6 is back to Nita vs. Nick because I think this is a romance. I think. But the heavy lifting is 1-1, which establishes who Nita is; 1-2, which establishes who Nick is, and 1-3 which starts the romance plot.

So 1-1 has to introduce Nita and make her fascinating, introduce the external conflict (Joey’s death) and start that plot on the first page, and set up expectation for the romance. It also introduces Button, Mort, and Clint, but it doesn’t have to; the Musts are those first three.

Then 1-2 has to introduce Nick and make him fascinating, build on the external conflict (the supernatural is real) and move the plot, and continue to build expectation for the romance.

And 1-3 has to move the plot and pay off the foreshadowing to establish the beginning of the romance even if they’re not aware there’s a romance coming at them.

Looking at those three scenes as the beginning sequence is making me look at the book as a whole: who are these people and where are they going to end up? Which brings us to the antagonist . . .

What I’m thinking is that I’m not trying to get the beginning right–I know I can’t do that until the first draft is finished–I’m trying to get Nita and Nick right, trying to get back to the beginning of their arcs, to see who they are before they move from being into becoming, that moment when the last grain of sand drops and starts the avalanche. And the third scene is the grain of sand.

Even so, it’s nuts to spend too much time on the beginning. Don’t do that.

The post Book Done Yet: Don’t Do This At Home appeared first on Argh Ink.