We're still talking about first chapters here.
Before I start, how many of y'all went and got a copy of
Logical Chess Move by Move? I reccoed that back on page two of this discussion. Go order a copy now. I'll wait.
I'm serious, guys. I'm going to be recommending other books as I go. I'm doing this because I think it'll help you. I know these are the books that helped me.
My next suggestion is also going to be work: Take your favorite novel.
Now, retype the first chapter. Do this with your writer's eye, not your reader's eye. Think about the lengths of the sentences, the lengths of the paragraphs, the sounds of the words. Think about the order of the scenes. Notice the dialog. How are the dialog tags rendered? Where is the point of view?
The point of this exercise is this: Have you ever gone to an art museum and seen the art students sitting there with their easels and oils, copying the great masters? The point isn't to turn them into plagairists, or to make them expert forgers. The point is to get the feeling into their hands and arms of how to make the brush strokes that create a particular illusion on canvas. Writing is no less a physical skill than painting. The words are your paints, the sentences your brush strokes. Following a master, asking yourself, always,
why. Why did he or she choose this word rather than another? Why was this scene from this particular point of view? Why did the scene end there?
Writing is an
art. Everything is there because the artist (that's you!) chose to put it there. The surface meaning, the deeper themes, those are your choice.
I can hear you saying, "Yeah, right, Uncle Jim. You say 'Retype a chapter,' but I bet
you never did that."
Wrong-o, my friends. I did just that (I did more -- I retyped entire books). You can find some of them
here, the ones that I still had on disk to convert to HTML and which were in public domain.
At the very worst your typing skills will improve, and that's nothing to sneeze at.
Assignments: Get a copy of
Logical Chess Move By Move, and work through the problems. Get a novel that you personally really admire, and retype the first chapter.
More discussion on openings later.