There’s such a thing as too much information

I’m so terrible. I wrote an opening chapter that was 90% exposition. Info-dumping. I can’t believe I did it.

Luckily, I have a terrific critique group that has already given me a lot of advice on how to fix the problem. I have rewritten most of the chapter, which cut my word count quite a bit, but I think that most of it is tolerable. Editing/revision will have to fix the rest of it. And I may be getting ahead of myself a bit. Have to finish the first draft … eventually.

My plan is to finish the draft by the end of the year. Plenty of time, right? Not necessarily, but if this is anything like Whispers of Death, once I get the first few chapters done the rest will come more quickly. I had five chapters written at the start of last year and finished the draft in April. It took quite a lot of editing and revising to get the word count from novella to novel, but I managed.

This one will hopefully be better because I’m trying to plan more of it as I go. Trying being the operative word. I’ve plotted out some of it, but so far I’m flying by the seat of my pants again. Maybe outlines just aren’t for me lol