#amredrafting

[prettylittlelyres]

Update - Violins and Violets - 10th April 2023

Hello, friends!

Inside the Writing Process - Part 8 - The First Chapter

I’m pleased to find myself redrafting “Violins and Violets” at last. I haven’t written very much this month at all; it’s been a sad one and I haven’t really been in the mood to write. I’ve managed to get lots of crochet done, though, and I’ve nearly finished the blanket I’m working on, so I’m trying to look on the bright side there.

Last night I sat down and studied the first chapter of one of my favourite books, “The Lost Daughter”, by Gill Paul, to see how it’s constructed and what information the opening scenes give us about the protagonist, Maria.

I made a list of all the basic concepts - “description of location, exterior; description of location, interior; emotional response to location; flashback to happier time,“ and so on - and started putting together my own first chapter for “Violins and Violets”, following the same kind of structure.

I know exactly where I want the story itself to go, and I’ll probably be reusing a lot of text from the older drafts, but I want to add more to the beginning, so that the readers can get to know Katharina better before the inciting incident. I really struggle to write the first scene if it’s not “in media res”, and the “in media res” approach doesn’t quite work for “Violins and Violets”.

One of the reasons I love Gill Paul’s work so much is that her books always pull you right into the character’s inner life, make you feel like you’ve known them forever, and then throw chaos into the mix at just the right moment. Her pacing is spectacular, and that’s something I want to emulate in my writing!

I ended up with 40 beats for the opening scene, some fleshing out Maria’s character, others fleshing out the supporting characters, some describing the current setting, others showing the difference between how things used to be and how things are now. I’ve been ticking them off as I’ve been fulfilling them for my own opening scene - not necessarily in order - and I’ve just checked to see how many I did in last night’s writing session of 1,000 words - 12/40 - so I’m nearly a third of the way through.

The specifics are very different, of course, because I’m not writing a book about the Romanovs, but I am writing a book about a young woman alone with her parents after a big change has occured. Maria’s siblings are elsewhere, Katharina’s brother has just left for a tour of Europe, and everyone feels a bit lost. The dynamic isn’t dissimilar, so I thought the first chapter of “The Lost Daughter” would be a good one to study. It’s about 1,500 words long, and I think mine’s going to end up a bit longer (I’m going to stop myself if I go over 3,000 words!), but I can always shrink it down if I need to.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing how this draft goes, and I’ll probably be posting a few “Inside the Writing Process” articles as I work on it!