Anidazen

My most extensive project got as far as two major revisions (and was starting to be almost manuscriptlike after these) before it was ditched in favour of my newer, funnier, and therefore more popular project.

My first focussed most on the story, my second focussed on the humour. It turns out the latter approach was much better received. But now (as well as writing my new book) I'm wanting to revise the old one.



My problem is -- it starts slowly, in my opinion. There's a lot of stuff happens in it, but none of it happens in the first three chapters. This means that you'd have to read a fair bit before you became interested enough to carry on, and publishers wouldn't even glance at it.

I want to re-shuffle my storyline almost, to force some action into the beginning three chapters. Has anyone ever done anything like this before?



I'm finding it challenging to say the least, just fixing the beginning in my head. Any advice on something like this?

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Destany

It would help to know what the story is about, and the general content of the first three chapters.
One thing I did, to make things easier to wrap my mind around, was to pick up a pack of index cards (oversized) and jot down a summary of each scene. I then put them in the order I liked and numbered them. If you're beginning is boring, why is it necessary? Perhaps you can condense the content into one chapter, or even a half a chapter. Filler is not a great way to start off a book. You could also break up the first three chapters and disperse the content throughout the rest of the story. Those are just a couple suggestions.

Anidazen

Thanks for the reply -- it was a good one.


Well, to be honest, it wasn't well planned. Making my second draft, I decided it needed to be more novelesque rather than my brief humour style. So I started off with three chapters showing how bad life was for the guy before the whole adventure happened.

I'm thinking of chopping that. Making it more children's-book-ish almost, abreviating it quite a lot. Or finding some action to replace it. The problem with just cutting (or seriously abreviating) is that a key point I wanted to build up to would be almost immediate, and that ruins it a bit.

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Oracle

I reshuffled my beginning about 7 times before finally coming up with one that works. It's basically a long and painful process of brainstorming, trial and error, and rethinking certain plot/character elements.

I can safely say I know how you feel. It could take a while before you find the beginning that works. I can't really help you much. If there's a key point that needs building up, and you can't build it up, then alter it somehow. I don't know anything about your story, but I can tell you what I did for mine, and maybe you can relate it to yours.

Originally, I wanted to begin by having a character from the future visit the main character, to warn him of something that would soon happen. This required alot of building up, and it was very slow.

Now, it's been changed to the point where the dude from the future doesn't even visit the main character. He visits the initiator of the big thing that's going to happen so he can try to stop him. The main character gets involved when he joins the soldiers in chasing the future guy down...

In other words, the details changed significantly. All I can really say is just play around with ideas for a while until you find something.

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