The First Chapter

The writing Life

The First Chapter

I began writing Leela’s story in October of 2023. She is of Yaksha ancestry and holds a prominent position in the outcome of the story I was crafting around the foundation of the Sinhala people.

Leela turned out to be a two-dimensional character. I could not turn her story up the necessary dial to make her likeable. So, I turned to her two companions: a demon-possessed priest and an Asura-turned-lion. Their backstories were fascinating. However, the timeline where I had started was too far in the future to benefit.

I had to move my timeline back. We’re talking 6,000 years back.

I began writing Sinha’s story (my Asura-turned-lion). I completed the first chapter and took it to my local writer’s group. Within a few paragraphs, I received the feedback that my character had no character.

Your character is too perfect. He needs to be flawed.

What?! It took me two weeks to recover from that bullet. I was determined for my story to come out. I travelled a further 4,000 years into the past. I started writing Sinha’s origin story.

Why? It has no relevance to my original book! I thought. Yet, I needed to carry out the exercise to see if I could create a character that people would want to discover.

This is how I wrote the first chapter featuring a cat as its protagonist. I fell down a new rabbit hole — writing the prequel to the original novel.

I took the new and improved first chapter back to the writing group.

“This is it!” they said. “Now, we’re interested. Keep going.”

The new novel helps set the original idea's foundation, setting, and characters. That is a tale for another day.

-D.M. De Alwis