Getting Past the First Chapter

I have met several writers who can’t seem to get past the first chapter. They write, re-write, and re-write the first chapter over and over again attempting to get it just right. What inevitably happens is that they never finish the first chapter, nor even start on the second, third, or fourth.

There are writers that outline and then there are the seat-of-the-pants writers who just seat down and start writing from page one through to “The End.” Then there are The First Chapter Writers. The people who are so bogged down in getting the first chapter so perfect they never get out of that maze.

The First Chapter Writers often don’t even know what is going to come in the next chapter. They don’t know what is their story. It might be this or it might be that, or it might be something else.

My screenwriting days included a few screenplays that were started and subsequently abandoned because either the story was not there; it was an idea for a script rather than a tale that could last 120 pages, or I didn’t have the maturity as a writer to flush out the film. The moral of this fable is that I was able to move past “Fade In,” past scene one, and write, write, write until dawn brought the morning light with the realization that the project would not be completed.

Is that failure? No, every writing project improves the writer’s ability because instead of being stuck trying to tell perfectly how Harry met Sally they are able to move to the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene, the best friend carting the wagon wheel out of the apartment scene, and to the final “Fade Out.”

A scriptwriting group of which I was once a member had a writing challenge. Write a screenplay in twelve weeks. The group met each Tuesday and everyone turned in what they had written that week. The group started off with fourteen people, two quickly dropped out, two more eventually faded, and at the end of the ten remaining only myself and another scribe had a first draft. Two members hadn’t even started as they were still thinking about their story, four where in the first act, and two were re-writing the first scene for the who-knows how manieth a time

The moral of this tale my friend is that it’s called a first draft for a reason. You need the first before you can have the second and until you move past chapter one, you’ll never reach chapter two.

Steven Tyler

Onelittlelie.com

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