First Chapter Stumpers

I recently watched a video where a newer author was expressing her frustrations because she couldn’t move beyond her first chapter. She said she’d been writing for weeks, and she was still working on chapter one. No matter how hard she tried, she was stuck. She just couldn’t get it right.

I think this is a common problem that new writers face. They unknowingly get caught up in thinking that their first chapter needs to be perfect before they can move on to writing chapter two. Instead of focusing on writing the rest of their novel, they skip to editing and revising chapter one and get hung up.

The problem is chapter one is never going to feel finished when you don’t know what direction chapter two is going in. Even if you think you know what you’re going to say in chapter two, you don’t really know until it’s written. Until you’ve drafted the whole book, you can’t really even be sure chapter one is going to stay chapter one. You may end up moving it or cutting it entirely!

No one has ever written a perfect first draft. No matter how much time you spend outlining, things are still going to change as you write. Characters develop, scenes pop up, words come alive that send you in a new direction. Writing your first draft is an adventure! Give yourself the freedom to go on that adventure without restrictions. Allow yourself the ability to do it messy. Leave things a little sketchy if you have to just to get to the next scene. Write your way through it, because you can’t edit a blank page!

Revisions are a way of life for writers. You’re going to make changes and do rewrites. You’re going to cut things out and move things around. Remember: it does not need to be perfect the very first time you write it down.