Chapter 1: What's holding you back?
What an exciting month for The Write Place! We had 2 brand new members and 3 returning members, on top of my regulars that have been coming and supporting the program since it’s infancy. My little group has grown so much and I’m happy that people are finding refuge in this community of fellow creators.
This month’s topic was Starting Your Book and what’s holding you back. Many of the members have great ideas but fear of making the first chapter strong and powerful seemed daunting and caused them to shut down entirely. Choosing to not even start a project, overwhelmed by this fear.
We talked about a few different options of conquering this. I gave them some sourced material from the web —> (click here and here ) but overall advice from the veterans in the room was that the beginning, while vital for the reader and the novels success, can only be written after the concept of the book is fully created. Therefor - start to write and write and write and after you finish the book, go back and hone in on the first chapter following all the guidelines and rules that you’ve learned from various sources to make it as strong as possible.
What are your thoughts on this? Are you a writer? Do you have any good advice for that daunting first chapter?
