Chelsea Fine: Why I never start with chapter one

Chelsea Fine, author of Right Kind of Wrong (book three in her Finding Fate series), shares with HEA how she writes a novel.

Chelsea: The first rule of reading is and always has been: Start at the beginning. And many authors think the same rule applies to writing.

But when I sit down to write a book, I never start with the first chapter.

Stories are about moments. Turning points. Plot twists. Reveals. Moments keep us on the edge of our seats, rooting for the underdog, swooning over true love, and holding our breath.

And a book is simply a collection of moments.

The first time Harry Potter held his wand in The Sorcerer's Stone. That epic kiss in the rain between Noah and Allie in The Notebook. When Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute for her sister in The Hunger Games. Readers will feast on a book all day and night, scouring the pages for moments like these to devour. And as a writer, there's no greater joy than creating such delicious scenes.

But a lot happens before the first "moment" of a story. It takes several chapters, a good amount of character development, and a dash of backstory to reach any kind of significant point in a novel. Which, for me, means hours of typing out all the necessary information needed to set up my story so readers will not only want, but care about the moments I have in store for them.

Don't get me wrong. Necessary information isn't boring to write — not at all — but it's usually not as exciting as, say, the first time your main character learns that he's immortal and cursed to never fall in love. And I'd rather write the exciting stuff first.

Sure, chapter one is important, drawing you into the story with vague promises and alluring intrigue, but it rarely contains moments. And if moments are what I'm dying to write, but I deny my muse the opportunity because I'm hung up on the first chapter, well … there's a good chance my chapter one is going to flop.

Which is precisely why I never start with chapter one.

Forget about opening lines, character descriptions, and lengthy backstories. I leave those story elements for later on — after I've written all the yummy parts.

Epic battles, kissing scenes, villainous reveals, impossible triumphs … these are the kinds of scenes I'm most excited to write about, so these are the scenes I start with.

It's like eating dessert first, but better because there are no calories or dirty dishes to deal with afterward.

I used to think books needed to be written in "telling" order, like there was a scientific formula to transcribing a story. Begin with chapter one, proceed to chapter two, throw in some conflict with a pinch of drama, sprinkle on some happily ever after, and voila! Book complete.

But then I sat down to write the first book in my Archers of Avalon trilogy and …

Nothing.

Chapter one was a complete blank. I knew the story, inside and out. I knew what my characters were going to do, when they were going to do it, and how they were going to get out of the mess they made when they did those things. I knew the middle, the ending, and every detail in between. It was a well-planned story and I was going to bring it to life!

But when I tried to write the opening scene I was at a loss.

I sat at my desk, hands hovering over the keyboard, with no passion. No zest. The blank Word document on my computer mocked me to the tune of a ticking clock and I immediately began to doubt myself.

Maybe I wasn't cut out to be an author after all. Maybe I was fooling myself and this relentless story in my head — the one that pricked at my mind all day and crept into my dreams at night, screaming to be written — was wishful thinking and nothing more.

I frowned at my empty computer screen, feeling like a failure.

"What is your problem?" I said to myself, and immediately knew the answer.

The reason I was struggling with chapter one was because I wanted to skip the setup and jump to the fun parts. I wanted to write the moments.

"Then do it," my inner voice told me.

"But I'm not allowed," I told my inner voice, unabashedly arguing with myself in true crazy-person fashion. "Books are supposed to be written in order. It only makes sense."

"Since when do you follow rules?" Inner Voice said. "And when have you ever cared about what makes sense?"

With fingers still poised above the keyboard, I mulled this over and realized my inner voice had a good point.

"Fair enough," I said and took a deep breath. "Here goes nothing."

Diving into the middle of the story stuck in my head, my rebel fingers started typing out a scene. They flew across the keyboard and charged through my imagination, freeing literary content I'd been trying to restrain for years, and my heart went wild in delight.

Twenty minutes and 2,000 words later, I finally came up for air and smiled at the "moment" I'd just created. It was a scene that had been relentlessly clawing at my consciousness and now it was finally out of my head and in front of my eyes, alive. It had no reference and no character development. It was a homeless collection of paragraphs in the middle of nowhere.

And it was absolutely perfect.

It broke all the rules of writing as I knew them, and stared back at me with daring sentences, challenging me to finish what I'd started.

Challenge: accepted.

That orphan scene (which later on became chapter 21 in my first Archers of Avalon book, called Anew) gave life to the entire novel. Tabbing down a few spaces, I liberated another scene begging to be unleashed, and my hands typed with even more fervor than before.

It seemed I'd woken a sleeping dragon in my mind and that fire-breathing beast wanted to soar. Desperate to write more, I typed scene after random scene, until my fingers were numb. And when I was done, I no longer had a blank page of defeat staring back at me. I had a collection of moments.

A host of chapters now filled my Word document, none of which were in any particular order, and I was so proud. My story was finally on paper.

All I had to do now was turn it into a book.

I rearranged my floating chapters into a sensible "reading order" and wrote transitions between each one until the story made sense. And when all that editorial surgery was finished, I finally sat down and wrote chapter one.

And voila. Book complete.

This unorthodox and seemingly crazy method of writing worked so well for me with Anew that I've written every book since the same way.

There's a lot of pressure on the opening scene of a book. So much needs to be said and even more needs to be withheld. It's a tricky process and, personally, I find it easier to write chapter one after I've written the rest of the book and know exactly how things play out.

Stories — even those meticulously outlined — can take sharp turns during the writing process. Characters might not always behave according to plan and wayward scenes might squeeze their way into the manuscript without permission.

But that's the beauty of writing a book. It rarely goes where you tell it to, but it always ends up exactly where you want. Maybe that's why I'm not afraid to write my novels from the inside out, jotting down memorable moments instead of chronological chapters.

Some might say writing "out of order" is taboo. But for me, it's honest.

Forcing a scene into creation feels like homework to me, like I'm writing a college essay instead of a story that excites me beyond reason. Am I capable of writing a book in telling order? Of course. I've trained myself to write even when my muse is taking a nap. But I'd prefer to let passion guide my storytelling,

And when passion doesn't begin with chapter one, I follow it to chapter 21 and start there.

I write what I feel, when I feel it. It's total chaos, but it's real.

The day I wrote that first "moment" in Anew was the day I learned how to be a writer — at least in a way that worked for me. That homeless chapter taught me how to tell a story on my own terms and lead with my heart.

It wasn't chapter one, but it was the first chapter of my book — and the opening scene of my career. Just one of the many moments in my story as a writer.

And stories are all about moments.

Here's the blurb about Right Kind of Wrong, book three in the Finding Fate series):

Sometimes wrong can feel oh so right ...

Jenna Lacombe needs complete control, whether it's in the streets ... or between the sheets. So when she sets out on a solo road trip to visit her family in New Orleans, she's beyond annoyed that the infuriatingly sexy Jack Oliver wants to hitch a ride with her. Ever since they shared a wild night together last year, he's been trying to strip away her defenses one by one. He claims he's just coming along to keep her safe-but what's not safe for her is prolonged exposure to the tattooed hottie.

Jack can't get Jenna out from under his skin. She makes him feel alive again after his old life nearly destroyed him-and losing her is not an option. Now Jack's troubles are catching up to him, and he's forced to return to his hometown in Louisiana. But when his secrets put them both in harm's way, Jenna will have to figure out how far she's willing to let love in ... and how much she already has.

Find out more about Chelsea and her books at www.chelseafinebooks.com.