As I evolve as a writer, I continue to learn more and more about my "style".
Style is a dangerous thing, for the record. I don't believe that everything a writer considers style should be thought of as such... for example, while I enjoy adjectives, that's not to say my writing isn't better when I take them out.
But that's aside. The reason I bring this up is because my "style" focuses pretty heavily on action scenes. I'm good at writing battles of almost any scale, I'm a deft hand with chase scenes or duels... but what I'm not good at is opening chapters.
My usual trick so far has been to write the entire book, and then delete the first 3 chapters, since it usually takes me about that long to flesh out the universe, but nobody really cares about that stuff. Once I've started, the pace of a story tends to be pretty solid (period of action/tension, release, repeat), but those opening chapters... rough.
I bring this up because I have to rewrite the first chapter(s) for Novel 3. The rest of the book is great, and the conclusion is solid (to be honest, I like *most* of the mid-field as well, although there are some slower parts I'm not super happy with), but I haven't figured out exactly how to hit the ground running with this one.
And, perhaps more critically, when I cut my first three chapters, I removed a critical plot point that's only referenced again 30 chapters later... which is a double failure (every critical plot point, in my opinion, needs to be mentioned at least TWICE before it's used).
Anyway, that's my goal today. Write the first couple chapters in an engaging, exciting way, and work in those critical mentions that I flubbed last edit.
Wish me luck!