Line up the champagne bottles, for I have completed chapter one. It only took me what feels like a hefty handful of ice ages to finish. Not that I should be berating myself. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and all that. Not that I’m suggesting my writing is comparable to the construction of a vast and powerful empire from years past. I promise I’m not that self-aggrandising.

I have learned a couple of things from its completion. Firstly, I’m definitely not a seat of my pants kinda girl. As much as I fancied the idea of freestyling the opening chapter, I quickly realised that’s a surefire way for my work to spiral hopelessly out of control. I just end up writing weird side-plots and endless waffle that could quite easily have been wrapped up in a handful of paragraphs. My target was to wrap up the opening chapter in 3,000 words or less. The finished first draft is currently around 5,500 words long. It’s going to require some serious snipping before it reaches any sort of public setting.

Another thing I’ve learned is I’ve a terrible habit of inserting characters into the mix without having considered the implications of doing so. Chapter one had a simple mission; introduce the character of Quinn to readers. Give them a feel for who she might be, where she may have come from, and the sort of world she’s about to be born into. It’s set in a virtual nursery, in which she’s forced to watch indoctrination videos. Yet for reasons, I ended up introducing a new character called Izzy. She’s a fellow synthetic life form, much like Quinn. The two establish a little friendship of sorts, communicated primarily through glancing looks at one another. Throughout the duration of the chapter, Izzy becomes more distant as she gets brainwashed, whilst Quinn finds herself longing for Izzy’s knowing glances and smirks.

The whole Izzy/Quinn side thing is sweet and a little melancholic, but what’s it doing in here? Am I planning to come back to it later on down the line? I honestly have no idea. My gut instinct suggests that if it’s in there, it needs to go somewhere interesting later on down the line, but in a novel that already has quite a lot going on in its outline, I’ve no clue where it will fit. I fear it will just end up being one of those peculiar slabs of foreshadowing you sometimes get in films, which end up going nowhere. Usually they are in there because the editors or scriptwriters forgot to cut it out when the resolution to that plot was jettisoned from the final product. Izzy may well just become a random intrigue that fades into nothing; a dead end character with next to no purpose.

There’s another character I’ve introduced into this chapter, who will become central to the main plot. Her name is “Nanny”, and she’s sort of an ethereal figure at this point. The only problem, however, is I think she might be a touch too ethereal for my liking. She doesn’t fit tonally with the raw, psychological elements of the indoctrination moments. The chapter alternates between characters watching projectors, and otherworldly visions instigated by an elderly lady who visits Quinn after hours. It seemed fun and mysterious at the time of writing. Reading it back, however, it just doesn’t work. A later edit is going to need to find a way to ground all that stuff.

Finally, the way I handle time in this opening is frankly a shambles. I’m not trying to be mean to myself, there’s stuff I do like in here (more on that in a moment), but I need to be honest with myself. Days and months become muddled. It’s hard to actually know whether the chapter takes place over a few days, weeks, or even years! Even I’m not sure, and I wrote the darn thing! I feel this is the thing I need to fix the first when it comes to editing.

But enough of the negatives, on with the pros!

I genuinely like the world-building in here. It doesn’t feel as ham-fisted as I feared. It seems that I’ve withheld myself from just expositing everything in the first few paragraphs; a habit I’ve been guilty of on far too many occasions. The whole authoritarian government is conveyed from the perspective of someone who has no idea what an authoritarian government is.  I think this helps the story feel a little more authentic. The character learns things as though they are just a matter of fact, not a society that’s been poisoned and broken by the murderers in charge. I think it works (though I guess we’ll have to see when I get someone to read over it).

In extension to this, I’m genuinely fascinated by the whole synthetic subjects in this story. Ever since coming  up with the idea, I kept asking myself what was the USP for these particular droids. What made them different from your usual CP30s, Johnny Fives and Marvins? After drafting out this chapter and giving myself time to let the character of Quinn breathe, the answer came to me like a splash of cold water. Without giving anything away, I know what makes her sentience stand out! It’s cruel and shocking and ties up the varying plot threads of this story in a way I hadn’t expected! As I wrote this chapter, started spotting hints in my writing to the answer I must have known all along! There is something genuinely interesting lurking in here. This chapter sets it up, and if I can get it to play out, I think it will really work!

Is it a good opening chapter? Not at the moment. But it does have potential. It’s all a bit scruffy and nonsensical, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I’m glad I did it. It’s given me a good idea of what I do and don’t  want to do with this novel. For one, I want it to be grounded, despite the fantastical concepts. I want it to be grim, but I also want it to be framed from a perspective of innocence. Had I not hashed out these 5,000 words before plotting, I might have dedicated hours of structuring before figuring out that detail.

I might well not be a seat of my pants kinda girl, but that doesn’t meant this was a futile exercise. It’s given me a foundation to build-upon. I know what needs to be fixed. I get the tone I’m aiming for. It was sure as heck a frustrating experience, but it’s the first major hurdle out the way. It’s progress, and right now, progress is good.

Now I just need to get on with figuring out what on earth I want to write for the remaining 75,000 words or so.