I opened the manuscript for my “Mages Dueling on a Metro Transit Bus” novella, and I realized the first paragraph works great, but then the story doesn’t really start until page 5.
It is an easy mistake to make. I front-loaded a bunch of world building stuff that I need (though the reader might not need it all), but should be sprinkled into the narrative so the reader gets what information they need when they need it, not dropped on them in a big spew of dull exposition.
Fortunately, I know exactly what I need to do next. I will cut it up and add the parts the reader needs to the story in small bits scattered about the text. The rest will go into a file, archived for my own benefit. I know what my writing project for the next week will be!