025: Write Your First Chapter in Seven Days
The first chapter is crucial. It serves as the hook for future readers and introduces your main character. And in this episode, I walk you through how to write your first chapter in just seven days.
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Write Your First Chapter in Seven Days
Hello, I hope you're having a fantastic day. It is a gorgeous spring afternoon here in Tennessee, the sun is shining, and birds are chirping flowers are blooming, which means I'm in such a good mood. I'm so happy. And I'm also so happy to talk about how to write your first chapter in just seven days. So this episode, I'm going to talk about why the first chapter is so important for the reader and for you as the writer. And then I'm going to share about my mini course that I created. That's all about how to write your first chapter in seven days. Now, in this episode, I'm actually going to break down each of the days. So you're going to get, you know the the high level overview of how to do this in seven days. And then obviously share how you can learn more how you can get video trainings and the content, if that's something that you're interested in doing.
So why the first chapter? Why is this so important? If you are a reader, which, hopefully you are as well, in addition to being a writer, you know that the first chapter is crucial a lot of readers make decisions on if they're going to continue reading a book based on what they see in the first chapter, based on the characters that they meet, the introduction to the world or the setting, dialogue, maybe the conflict, your writing, style, the voice, all of those things. Now, there are obviously some readers who, once they start reading a book, they're in it, they're going to finish it. But a lot of readers are not that way. And if they read a first chapter that is poorly written and all over the place, and they can't get a handle on what's going on, it's confusing, the characters are kind of weak, and they just don't really care about the story. Chances are, they're probably not going to continue. Now we want them to continue, we want them to keep going.
But the first chapter is like the first impression in a lot of ways. So it's really important to kind of hook the reader and make them want to keep reading. The first chapter is also super important for you, as the writer. A lot of people want to write a book, a lot of people have this in the back of their head. It's something that they've wanted to do for years, maybe it's something that they wanted to do their entire life. Like, oh, it's I'd love to write a book someday. But not a lot of people actually get to the point of doing it. writing your first chapter means that you are doing it you are writing a book that is a massive accomplishment in and of itself, right. And it's also really cool to see that you can do it kind of like proving to yourself that you can start to write a book that you can write an entire chapter, seeing that word count, go up too, seeing it go up from you know, a couple 100 words all the way to 1000 all the way to 2000 3000. You know, depending on how long your chapter is, obviously, that's exciting. And that's going to provide momentum, and it's going to provide motivation for you to keep going. That's all it's super exciting. I remember that feeling of starting to write my first book. And it was, I was sort of in disbelief that I was actually doing it that I was actually writing a book. So it's super important for you as the writer.
Now, let's talk about how to actually do this, how to write your first book in seven days. So day one is going to be getting clear on your story idea on your book idea. It doesn't have to be super developed, you don't have to have everything figured out. But just getting clear on what the story is going to be right? Have to have that foundation before you can start writing before you can start writing first chapter you have to know what you want to write about. Day two is going to be diving into the character, the main character or characters and the conflict of your story. So I talk a lot about characters on social media and the podcast with coaching clients like characters are the meat of the story. Yes, the plot is important. Yes, the setting is important. All of those things are crucial, but the characters, that's what readers respond to. That's what readers respond emotionally to characters, so they're really the lifeblood of any good story.
So day two is all about getting clear on your characters, and thinking through what the conflict of your book is going to be, because every book needs some kind of conflict, this can be inner conflict, outer conflict doesn't matter that could be multiple different types of conflict. But getting clear on those things, those things up front is really helpful. So that's day two, day three, you're going to outline your book. Again, every writer has a different process. If you're a totally new writer, you might not even know what process you want to implement. You might not even be sure if you're more of a plotter or a pantser plotter being someone who likes to just kind of outline things and have a good idea of the plot and what's happening in the story before they write. And then a pantser is someone who just starts writing just dives in. But at least doing a rough outline of your book will help get you get clarity on where the story is going and, and your first chapter as well. So day four, once you've got your outline together on day three, day four is going to be outlining your first chapter. Again, up to you how specific you want to get how detailed Do you want to get, but at least just kind of knowing what happens in the first chapter is going to help you hit the ground running when you actually start writing. So thinking about introducing your main character, thinking about kind of what happens to them how you set up this world, how you introduce things to the reader, what happens in this first chapter.
So days five, and six, you're going to write, now you can break down your word count, and divide this by day. So let's say that you want your first chapter to be 3000 words. Okay, perfect. If you take two days to write days five and six, you're going to need to write 1500 words a day, to get through to get to that 3000 word mark. Day seven is where you're going to finish writing. And there's an optional edit on day seven. So day seven, if you need to take three days to write if that's a little bit more manageable for you, if you want to write 1000 words a day to get to that 3000 word mark, you can do that. I am a big believer in finishing a first draft before you go back to edit. But if you want to kind of go over what you've already written and tweak it a little bit, edit a little bit then that can happen. Like the second half of day seven. Now 3000 words what I chose for the example that's just, that's just one chapter length. Sometimes it's a genre thing, sometimes it's a stylistic preference, how long your chapters should be your chapters might be 2000 words, your chapters might be 5000 words, so just do the same thing and kind of break down. Okay? If I want to get this written in three days, or two days, how many words do I need to write to get it done? Okay. And this is where the planning comes in handy that you did in the first couple of days. Because you know what's coming up, you know, what you're writing about, you know, what the characters are doing. So it's easier to actually start writing.
Now, when you are writing, don't worry about making it perfect, it's not going to be perfect, it's your first draft, it's going to be kind of messy, that's totally fine. No one else is going to read this first chapter right now. It's just for you. Okay. And that's it. That's the entire seven days at the end of seven days, you will have your first chapter written, which is a huge accomplishment. Again, a lot of people want to write a book. And a lot of people never get to the point of actually putting the pen to paper or putting the what's the computer equivalent, I guess, like putting your fingers to the keyboard, that doesn't quite have the same ring to it. But you know what I mean? A lot of people don't, don't get there. So the fact that you've accomplished that is, is massive. That's huge. That's definitely something to celebrate. And that's going to provide momentum again for the rest of your book. And since you've outlined the rest of the book, you have an idea of what's coming next. You don't have to just get to the end of the first chapter. And panic think, Oh crap, what happens next, I have no idea where that story is going. So, like I mentioned, that's kind of the high level overview.
This mini course that I created has short video trainings for each of the seven days. Now, seven days. Once you purchase the course you get an unlimited access to it, you can it's totally self paced. So if you want to take 14 days to go through the trainings and kind of think things through and brainstorm and outline and write totally fine. If you already have a strong story idea and a strong idea of your characters, and it only takes you three days to go through it. Totally fine. It's completely up to you. You can watch the trainings as many times as you need to. And I really wanted to feel goes on a specific outcome for this mini course, right? It's not how to do everything related to writing a book, it is specifically about writing your first chapter. So there's no extra fluff. There's no like two and a half hour trainings about everything related to the craft of writing. It's really like short, actionable video trainings to help you make decisions about what to include in your book, make decisions about your characters, get a solid foundation, for your book, write in that in that first chapter. That's really what it's about. I was planning to release this back in January, and I just got busy with client work. And I never want to release anything until I'm 100% satisfied with it. And I feel like it's 100% ready for people to purchase. And this course just wasn't there yet in January. So it's April now, I'm finally releasing it. And there's also three really cool bonuses that you get. So you get all the video trainings for the seven days. And it's available to access right away as soon as you purchase, you can just get your username and password access everything right away.
The three bonuses are really designed to support you as you're writing your first chapter. So the first bonus is a first chapter checklist. It's this PDF that contains kind of a it's almost like a quality check for your first chapter so that when you get done writing it at the end, when you're looking back at what you've written, you can kind of cross things off the list like does my first chapter have this, have this did I do this. So it's a really good idea to just make sure that you've got everything in place in your in your first chapter. The next bonus is a mindset magic audio training. So it's kind of like, think of it like a slightly longer podcast episode, I think it's like 20 minutes or something. 18 minutes, something like that. And it talks about impostor syndrome and self doubt and procrastination, because mindset is super important, especially when you're starting something new. If you have never written a book before, there's a good chance you're gonna have some limiting beliefs come up some self doubt, your brain is going to be telling you yourself all kinds of stories about why you can't do it while you're not a good writer. All of that crap, right. So the audio training is designed to help you work through some of those things. And then the third bonus bonus is a writer resource guide. So I compiled all of my favorite resources. And these are things like different websites that I found helpful in my writing process, things that I use in my editing business, it's just a couple of pages of a collection of really helpful resources to kind of supplement your writing practice. So I'm going to put the link for the course in the description of this episode, you can click to it,
I'm releasing, I'm going to release this podcast episode, if you're listening to it, it's Tuesday, April 19. So through Friday, April 22, this course called first chapter formula is going to be available for just $37. That's it one time price, you get access to it, you also get access to any updates that I make to the course any additional content I put in there totally free of charge. So through Friday, end of the day, Friday 20 the 22nd you get it for just $37. It is going to be available after April 22. But it's going to go up to $47. Still a great price, still a steal. But if you want that early bird price of just $37. Go ahead and purchase it before Friday the 22nd. I'm also going to put the link for this course on my social media. So if you click on my link and my profile on Tiktok or an Instagram, you'll be able to purchase this there if you have questions. If you're not sure if this is going to be right for you. Please check out the sales page. I put some FAQs on there, so you can kind of hopefully get your question answered. But if your question isn't answered, please DM me on Instagram at the Katie Wolf, I'm happy to talk it through with you if you're not sure if this is going to be right for you or helpful for you. I'm always available to chat and answer any questions.
So writing your first chapter is totally possible to do in seven days. And I am so excited to release this course into the world and kind of give you a framework to follow and trainings for how to do this. So I can't wait to hear about your first chapter that you've written. Please give me a shout out if you do end up purchasing the course. And when you get through your first chapter, let me know I'd love to shout you out and celebrate you. So all right, I'll see you all next week.