As I'm working on Cloak and Shadow and on the as-of-yet-untitled novel of the massacre at the consistory, I'm struggling with whether the beginnings of them are any good, or if I need to start somewhere, or somehow, else.
Although these will probably be later novels in the series, I can't really assume that every reader who picks them will have read the previous novels. So I've got to make sure that new readers are brought up to speed quickly, without boring long-term readers to tears.
In Cloak and Shadow, I introduce Jan-Pawel and Paige both through meetings with their respective bosses, sending them on their diplomatic missions. The third is of the refugee priest being threatened both by one of the local auxiliary bishops and by agents from the dictatorship that took over his home country. Now that I'm looking back at it, the interviews both seem to be bland -- yet they convey necessary information, introducing the characters and establishing their diplomatic credentials.
In the novel of the massacre at the consistory, I'm starting with a top-level political strategy discussion, yet I'm still not sure if that's the best way to start this novel either. Yet I'm not sure what kind of "we've got a conspiracy here" scene would work best without producing a false start.
You know, the sort of novel that begins with a slam-bam action scene, and then it ends and the characters in it don't show up again for ages, as you drag through how things got into such a fix. It's pretty close to a bait and switch, to my mind.
Of course it may all be just more of the walking-through-fog phenomenon. Once I have the whole thing written, I'll be able to look back and see how everything fits together. Maybe I won't even be using the original opening scene as the beginning. Maybe it'll become a later chapter, or disappear altogether.
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