Actually interesting topic for posting by @arbitrarykitten mam...

If you are starting your story in the right place, and you have yanked your reader into the story with a great opening line, the next thing you need to pay attention to in your opening chapter is whether or not you are actually putting the story on the page.

Many writers don’t. The story stays locked in their head – a rich tapestry of depth and meaning – and what ends up on the page is just a shadow of the real thing.

Writers don’t mean to do this. The problem is that they know their story, inside and out, and they can’t un-know it. We, the reader, on the other hand, don’t know anything about their story or their philosophy or the world they are building, and we are desperate for inside intelligence. Inside intelligence is, in fact, exactly what we read for, and if the writer doesn’t give it to us, we will feel left out, and we will read something else instead – or nap.
Wel done mam....