How I'm starting my next book

Sneak peek at half a dozen real attempts I made -- and why I rejected them

Happy October!!

Just a heads up: the second part of this newsletter is for paid subscribers only. But there’s plenty to read before the paywall (about 850 words!) that I hope everyone will find useful or interesting.

Also, this is a super long email — it’s over 4,000 words total — so if your email provider doesn’t feel like carting this whole essay to your inbox, you can click here and read it on the Substack page.

Okay, let’s dive in!

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A few days after my bonus newsletter, I decided it was time to start writing my book.

The outline isn’t done, but I have a lot of details for the first half and a basic idea of what happens in the second half. I know how the story ends. And I know what I want my characters to learn about themselves, the world, and their community over the course of 100,000 words.

After a lot of tinkering with the first half of the outline, I found wasn’t able to dig into the second half like I wanted to. I realized I needed to start taking the journey with my characters before I would have a clearer view of the end.

I gave myself the weekend to think about the beginning. I charged my laptop. (Sometimes I like to draft on my laptop, rather than my desktop, because the desktop is where Author Work happens and the laptop doesn’t have anything else on it.) Then, Monday morning, I . . . did a bunch of things that weren’t writing my book. But Monday afternoon, I opened Scrivener and stared at the cursor for a while. I moved to sit by Hildy, who was sleeping by the window. Hush came over and snuggled Hildy. Hildy tried to escape her sister’s love. Then they were both squashed next to me, Hush very pleased and Hildy very displeased. So I got up and moved back to my chair.

And stared at the cursor.

I’d written about 167 words while sitting at the window.

They were not the right words.

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How I think about openings

I’ve written a lot of books by now. Books I’ve published. Books I haven’t published (and never will!). So I know that some beginnings are harder than others, but they all have to do a lot of work to earn their places as the opening.

When I start writing a new book, I want my beginnings to introduce the reader to the main character, their hopes and dreams and fears, some kind of tension and stakes, and the world. The world can include family and friends, but since I write fantasy, I also like for it to include some major characteristics of the world that affect the main character.

For example, with INCARNATE, the reader learns immediately that Ana wasn’t reborn, but everyone else in her world is, and she’s kind of hung up about it. That is a major aspect of the worldbuilding right up front, but it’s on her mind because she’s leaving home to figure out her life. The situation she’s in allows her to think about the worldbuilding without it being weird. It would be weird if she were, you know, ironing or something when the story opens.

In THE ORPHAN QUEEN, we learn that there are mirrors on all the city rooftops; allegedly they repel something called the wraith, which is on its way to destroy everything. Wilhelmina thinks the mirrors are a superstition, but her best friend disagrees. Oh, and they’re thieves about to steal something. So there’s some worldbuilding, and Wil has an immediate goal, but it’s a few more pages before we know who she is and what she wants long term. Aside from the mirror/wraith stuff, the major aspects of the worldbuilding wait until it makes more sense to introduce them.

So I wanted to kick off this new story in a way that makes the reader interested enough to keep going — without giving them so much that they feel overwhelmed and lost. It’s a delicate balance.

I knew what scene I wanted to open with, but not exactly how I’d get the reader into it.

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So I’d written an opening, but I didn’t like it. I tried a new version. I still didn’t like it. I started questioning myself.

Monday did not go well.

Tuesday was even worse. I stared out the window, Bella Swan style, and wrote four new openings I didn’t like.

I considered giving up writing to become a basil farmer.

Wednesday, when someone in my Discord group asked how my drafting was going, I said:

It feels like trying to cut into a hardboiled egg (no shell), but every time you go after it with a knife (I don't know why we're doing this), it just slides around the plate (no fork to stabilize, I guess). The knife should be able to cut into the egg, but the angle is wrong, the tension is wrong.

The boyfriend's name is wrong.¹

Thank goodness, after sitting on it all morning, I had another idea. A better idea. I quickly wrote 250 words . . . and then took a nap, because WHEW. Writing is hard.

So now that I have something that (I hope) works, I thought I’d take you through all the openings I tried and rejected. Below, I’ll share my thought process for why I thought they would work, and why I decided they didn’t.

Because the next section is a peek at something brand new I’m working on, it’s for paid subscribers only. If you’re not a paid subscriber, feel free to take advantage of the 7-day trial to see the next 3,000+ words. Regardless, I hope this first section was useful and interesting to you.

<3

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