Refocusing on Chapter One of A Pressing Emergency

It is a new month. I have three more months before the year ends, and I want to end it as strong as possible.

I am going to continue working with my writing coach, Eli. She is excellent. This was truly a God-given destiny helper when I tried to take a writing break months ago. I wrote about this in a previous post.

We have already been working together, and I am excited because she has a writing plan for me.

I recently had a meeting with her, and she made some excellent points. One thing that really stood out to me is that I pretty much cannot work on the second or third chapters until I perfect the first chapter.

The first chapter is very important.

It could make or break my chances of being represented by an agent. More importantly, it could determine whether a reader is engaged enough to keep reading.

I have known this for a long time.

Even more important are the first five pages, but that is a separate blog post.

There are so many reasons why I need to focus on this first chapter.

It is going to serve as the blueprint.

The standard.

The map.

The guide.

You get it.

I already know that I am going to go back to the first chapter multiple times, even if I have written 2, 5, 10, or 20 chapters down the line.

Why?

Because as the story develops, I may realize that something needs to be changed, added, removed, or foreshadowed earlier.

I need the first chapter to establish the standard for the rest of the book.

What is going to hook the agent or editor?

Then eventually, what is going to hook the reader?

The first pages should introduce the action and the main character. There should not be too much information dumping. I want to give the reader enough information to understand what is happening, but I also want them to have questions.

I want them to keep reading because they need answers.

I also want the chapter to end on a high note.

The action is important, and it starts almost immediately. I don't want to say exactly what happens, but now that I am thinking about it, I may change it up a little bit.

The main character, Tony, is in an unfavorable situation, and it is through that moment that his life will change forever.

While editing the first chapter, I have to make sure the reader gets the right information.

Some of it needs to be concrete.

Some of it needs to be foreshadowing.

And some of it needs to make the reader ask questions and continue turning the pages because they want answers.

I want the first chapter to leave the reader asking:

What just happened?

Why did this happen?

What is going to happen next?

Those questions should compel them to keep reading.

I want the reader to feel the darkness.

The hopelessness.

The heaviness.

The true fallen state of the world in A Pressing Emergency.

I want to emphasize just how dark and hopeless this world has become.

In this late 21st-century world, fear is not simply something people experience.

Fear is the zeitgeist—the spirit of the age.

That is the atmosphere I want to create.

That is the world I want the reader to enter.

I don't just want the reader to know that the world is dark.

I want them to feel it.

I want them to feel the weight of living in a world where fear has become the prevailing spirit of the age.

And if I can accomplish that from the very first chapter while leaving the reader with questions they desperately want answered, then I will know I am building the foundation the right way.