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how they react and feel and also why. There has to be a logical sequence to the picture painted, so that if a reader can read those words and imagine in their mind's eye the people that form the story, then the writing will indeed have succeeded in painting a portrait.

Think of a great oil painting. The textures that make the backdrop are every bit as important as the main characters and without that explanation, the picture is incomplete. Faces without expressions are like ghosts that appear on the page and then quickly leave the subconscious of the reader, which means they will lose interest. By painting in every aspect of the picture, what you create with words is every bit as good as a masterpiece of art, detailed in every way, so that the reader is intrigued, excited, bewildered and bewitched by the changing images your words produce.

ANTICIPATION

Imagine the story of the Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. In his story, a very vain young man wished that he would stay young and his portrait age instead of him. A reader needs to see on the pages of a book all the transformations that take place as the picture develops. It is almost like the scenario with Dorian Grey, in that your story is going to be a portrait that opens up into new scenarios all the way through the book, though what is required in that first chapter is for the reader to be left anticipating changes that will occur during the story telling process.

They want to know the characters. They want to worry about them, care for them, anticipate what will happen, and a clever author will give little clues within that first chapter that lead the reader down the garden path to scenarios that delight and surprise the reader into reading the next chapter.

CURIOSITY

Have you ever experienced that feeling when the first episode of a television series ends abruptly leaving you waiting until next week to see the outcome of what happens ? We all do at some time, though to be able to capture this skill within the opening chapter of a book is a practiced skill, and one that takes the book from strength to strength. Read your chapter. See if you left the reader hungry with curiosity, because it is this curiosity that will win your readers over and get them involved in the story you are writing.

If the aspects covered above are used to create that first chapter, the canvas is set ready for the portrait to expand and develop into a romantic masterpiece that will thrill and enthrall your readers.

Learn more about this author, Rachelle de Bretagne.
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