What I've Been Up To Regarding Writing

Hi, all,
     
For once I'm not here to complain about what's happening in the world beyond internet, writing and reading. (I'm actually trying to pretend it doesn't exist.) I'm here to tell you what I've been up to in my writing...and some interesting things I discovered about my characters/worlds/stories.
     
I read Lydia Sharp's post on grabbing your reader's attention with the first paragraph and was like, hmm, let's go back and look at my novel's first paragraph, shall we? (I limited myself to DRAGON QUEEN for those of you about to send me viral emails with the subject line: Stop messing with FURY already!) I've been dabbling with DQ's opening for a little while now. I rewrote it, but didn't really like it as much as I thought. So, yesterday, I pulled up a blank page, stared at the cursor for a moment, and began writing.


On my other critique forum, I received the critique that there was nothing happening (as in, nothing grabbing) in the first chapter because it was mostly set up. And while that irritated me a little bit, I was okay with it being just a setup chapter. But there were also some people who just didn't get Jade's personality. Her motivations were a bit blurry in their eyes and they even (gasp) thought she was a spoiled brat. There were also a few who expressed concern over Jade's age (16). So I thought, hmm, how can I fix that and yet remain true to the story?

This was my original opening:

The pink light of dawn filtered through my closed lids; the day I dreaded had arrived. Today was the sixteenth anniversary of my birth. I was, officially, a woman. That thought, and the gradual lightening of the forest, dragged my eyelids open. Groaning, I sat up. My back was stiff from lying on the rock for so many hours, spoiled as it was to my lush, feather mattress. But my aching muscles felt good, appropriate for this horrid, horrid day.

Not bad, necessarily, but it doesn't really make you scream, "I must read more!"


Here is my second attempt:


I held my breath as the candle guttered in is puddle of wax. Not yet. Not now. But it was to no avail. With one last feeble flicker, the flame died. I squinted down at the page I’d been reading; the tiny script was an inscrutable smear in the wan moonlight. Muttering, I marked my place in the heavy tome, Dragons: Magic and Might, and snapped it closed.

Better. There's a little bit more tension, anyway. But I'm still not satisfied.

This is what I came up with yesterday:     

I wasn’t running away. Not technically.

Pulling the cloak's hood closer around my face, I edged out of my room and tiptoed down the corridor. My skirts rustled, a cacophony in the sleeping silence, and—not for the first time—I cursed the laundry maid who’d discovered my attempt to pilfer one of the squire’s breeches. Her outrage had quivered her jowls and she’d marched me straight to my mother. I’d done many inexplicable, and sometimes unforgivable, things in my mother’s eyes, but my latest escapade had finally managed to crack her icy facade. Her shrieks had ricocheted in my ears long after she’d stopped yelling at me.


In my opinion, much more interesting than the previous two openings. It immediately raises questions and, yes, I would want to read more. 

So, which one would you rather read?

There are some other things, as well, that this new version changes/introduces. In it, Jade is 18. A little older, a little wilder. We get more of a sense of who she is. And, to top things off, you have the question: Why is she running away, though not technically?


I have yet to run this new version by my critique group...but I have a feeling that they'll like it. It will change some of the novel, for sure, but not much (which is something I always like).

And I have that itch again to write, write, write. Not sure if you've been paying attention, but THE LAST OF THE ELVES progress meter is rapidly filling. :D (I love those things, by the way.) And I'm ready to have another project out there for agents to consider. It will probably be a few more months if I decide to pursue this rewrite, but, hey, it's progress. 

How's your writing been going?