This is KAM Wyland and you are listening to the four hundred to twenty-third episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors

podcast. For a while now I've had this idea that it might make an

interesting post if I were to do a screen capture of my real-time writing process. Instead of just talking about what

my process is while writing I could make a video that would show people. So this

week I set up an external camera to show myself typing and did a screen cap of one of my writing sessions with my portal fantasy sequel Dreambreaker.

The first thing I have to note is that it was hard, much harder than I anticipated trying to write with the awareness that my real-time

scribbling and meandering were going to be read by others.

The other thing I realized, after rewatching the videos videos is that they were intolerably boring.

Watching a novel's words appear on a screen in real time is far less fascinating than it is on the inside of the novelist's head where all the good stuff is happening.

I was originally going to put a commentary over the video to explain my thought process in composing,

but that turned out to be a lot of boring dead time too.

So all this is to say that my original idea kind of went down the drain, but I still think the idea

of writers sharing their real-time writing sessions

is kind of interesting.

If you guys agree, I may figure out some other way to

share what I recorded at some future date.

And now, I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. First

Chapter Checklist Part 2, your opening scene. First chapters are complicated, which is why writers everywhere need a first chapter checklist.

But even the Checklists are complicated, which is why I've broken down our exploration of excellent first chapters into three parts.

Last week we talked about what is arguably your first chapter's most important job, hooking readers.

But if you're going to provide readers with all kinds of

juicy hooks in your opening line, opening situation, and characteristic moment, then

...