I know, you probably think it’s all boring don’t you!
Well I am working on a novel as well, which you can’t see any examples of on this blog yet, but I have blogged about in the past, called Hell has its Demons. So far I have written the first two chapters, and outlined in detail several more. I am planning to get the first couple of chapters out for critique soon, so read through them with a view to making edits etc. I liked chapter 2, I thought it was funny, had a lot of tension and conflict and captured the tone of the book and the character of one of my main protagonists quite well. Still needs a lot of editing, but it is in the right ball park.
But the first chapter is sadly lacking in anything very interesting. I had made some attempt to introduce tension and some inner conflict within the viewpoint, but not much in truth was really happening. So what to do about it? Well I decided that we really needed to know a lot more about this character and what drives him, as well as using conflict to make the scene come alive. Also there needs to be a connection to the plot as a whole. The need to make a major change was born out of the realisation that I had to be braver as a writer and create something that would get readers interested, rather than just relay facts. They want to know about the character, not just what the roads were like on his ride through the countryside. I am now looking forward to completely revamping this chapter, rather than going through the tedium of attempting to improve and tweak what I already had.