Opening Chapters Are A Bitch

I’m struggling with my opening chapter(s).

The Prologue, I’m happy with. Yeah, I know they’re unfashionable, but it feels tight, keeps to less than a page, introduces key characters and doesn’t outstay its welcome. The narrative of the book is first person POV and Gin, the protagonist, starts out naïve and socially isolated. So the Prologue functions as an effective tool to show the storm that’s heading straight for her, the wider world outside her scope, in a way that I couldn’t otherwise do. Fashionable or not, it has purpose, and that works for me.

The first few chapters, however, are too slow… I need to cut somewhere. I know I need to cut. I just don’t know what to cut.

I’ve tried slicing out various paragraphs. I’ve tried starting Chapter One with the bombshell news that currently ends it. After all, that would be the sensible way to do it. The quick way to implement prudent writing advice. Except when I do, it feels like someone else’s story. Like someone’s ghostwriting my world, my character, and it’s all wrong. It kinda looks like me, sounds like me, but isn’t me. There’s just something about the current start that pinpoints exactly what Gin’s about, even though it’s not pacy in the traditional sense. But as an unpublished writer, can I really afford to deviate from such established guidelines?

Typically, a MS’s opening chapter starts out with a mini adventure or goal for the protagonist. What they want right now in the world that they’re currently in. Then the inciting incident comes along and interrupts. It may reinforce what they currently want, but take them further away from it. It may show them that what they want is something else, and open up new vistas. But, either way, the protagonist most likely starts immersed in ordinary everyday actions, before having their stasis rapidly broken.

Except, the crux of my issue lies in those same actions; Gin’s response to conflict is to disengage. Therefore trying to figure out how to fulfil both requirements (being true to character whilst injecting pace) feels like I’m trying to wrestle a bag of eels. With little success. An ominous imperial envoy arrives, the theoretical stasis breaker, but Gin runs away before the news is shared. She feels neglected and humiliated in comparison to her sister, so she runs away again. Yes, her disengage-instinct evolves, *rubs hands together with a writerly cackle,* but how do I hook, hook, hook, when her arc’s starting point is all about a tumble of emotions and stepping back, rather than direct action? In other words, Gin’s determined to sit on her swing for exactly as long as she does before she gives in and goes looking for the news that imperial envoy’s brought. I’m 1500 words in before her stasis truly breaks.

So much advice suggests starting with BANG, crash, look-at-me action, if a writer is to attract an agent, let alone readers. Yet Gin’s not that kind of character. Then again, I guess the Prologue counts for that. I might have burnt a city down somewhere in there… I guess that’ll have to do.