So I’m struggling with the beginning of T.J.’s Story. Again.
What I’ve written accomplishes everything I set out to accomplish in chapter one (I actually made a list of everything I need to include in chapter one…it’s all there!)…it SHOULD be okay. But it’s not. It’s slow. We don’t get to the “inciting incident” until the end of chapter two. And I just don’t know what to do about it. (I need all this other stuff to come BEFORE the inciting incident so the inciting incident has the right amount of emotional impact.)
Unfortunately, I’m not one of those writers who can just say, “oh well…I’ll fix that beginning later” and move on. I must fix it NOW. And since I don’t know how to fix it, I am at a dead stop. Again.
So while I’ve been sitting here, staring at my boring beginning, a new voice popped into my head. New voice, new character, new book….he, of course, has a very interesting problem that not only appears in the first chapter, it appears in the first line. He is trying to romance me away from my current project (and of course, when I was stuck in The Truth About Truman School, T.J. kept popping into my head, PROMISING me HER story would be so much easier to write than The Truth About Truman School was…YOU LIE, T.J.!!!!).
Since I don’t want to get caught up in Andrew’s problem (And btw, ANDREW, your name CAN’T be Andrew…choose a different name!), I’ve been e-mailing my friends about why the beginning of T.J.’s Story is so bad. If I write out the WHY of it often enough, maybe I’ll figure out what to do about it? And at least I’m staying focused on T.J. Sort of.
(Go away, Andrew!!!!!)
Maybe you should forget the sequel and work on the new project since you have no story. How did you get a contract without a story? Would you rather give back the advance (if you got one) or write a bad book? Better to leave a few questions in the mind of the reader than disappoint them with a lousy sequel.
I can’t…I have a contract for THIS project. I got the contract on the basis of two chapters and an outline (and good sales on the first book).
And I have a story…I’m just having problems with it. Like any writer with any project. If I abandoned a project every time the going got tough, I’d never get anything written. You have to work through the difficulties. Which I’m doing…it’s getting better. I think I found my beginning! I just wish the deadline wasn’t coming up so fast.