I have made a first attempt at writing the beginning of my novel, even though the plot is not complete yet. I wrote it yesterday; when reading it today, I realized that I need to rewrite it.
Having read some great blog posts about beginnings, and about "show vs tell", it 's clear that it doesn't work. It starts to slow, and is too much tell, too little show.
Anyway, this is the way it goes:
Chapter 1:
It was summer and, and all the under grad students were gone, the campus was almost empty. Professor Tom Snare was sitting by his desk, in front of the computer, next to a big pile of paperwork.
He could feel a cool gust of wind from the open window. The curtain was moving slowly in the left window, which was open. Some flies tried to get out through the right window, which was closed. Flies never learn.
The relaxing sound of silence filled his head, for a while. Then the damn construction workers started the compressor drills again. The summer was the only time when he could focus on his own research, and revise the course he was teaching. But the summer was also the time for maintenance work on campus buildings.
Shit, how could he work in this noise? Annoyed, he crossed the room in three steps and closed the open window. Then he opened the other window to let the flies out. He smacked a lazy fly in the window frame with his hand, snapped it out of the window and then closed it. The flies are like the students; they stay with him for a while, before he let them fly out to the world, most of them.
.... >:)
