I picked up my first completed manuscript yesterday. It had been hibernating in my computer for almost a year. It’s a beautiful story, but for some reason wasn’t getting any traction. I have to admit, I was a bit discouraged. Something all writers go through at some point.

So I have to decide if the story is worth my time, or if I should put it on a shelf and move forward. I’m not a quitter. In all fairness, I can be pretty stubborn. That square peg will fit in the round hole if I push hard enough 🙂

The first thing I did was delete the first two chapters. I know that sounds pretty radical, but I decided to take my own advice. I’ve spent the last six years learning how to write a publishable novel. When I started writing this manuscript, I knew nothing, except I had a great story.

The first few chapters are hum drum everyday life stuff. I wanted my reader to have a little backstory, so when they got to the action, they would have a better understanding of what was going on and why my characters were acting the way they were.

According to Jerry Jenkins and other published authors, beginning with boring is not the way to go. As a matter of fact, it flags you as an amateur. You sprinkle those little details in as you go. I’ve known this for a while, but ignored their wisdom.

I thought the story was so good people would wade through the mud to get to the other side. Problem-people are not going to wade through the mud. They will never know how good your story is if you don’t get their attention from the get go. Solution-make sure the good stuff is up front and pepper the boring, but necessary details in when you can.

Just something to think about.

-Jan R