Dame Rinda
First and most important, Dame Keri has a release this week! Click on the cover to order your copy!
Guardian Riley Jenson always seems to face the worst villains. And this time’s no different. For it’s no ordinary sorceress who can raise the dead to do her killing. But that’s exactly what Riley expects to find at the end of a trail of female corpses used—and discarded—in a bizarre ritual of evil. With pressure mounting to catch one fiend, another series of brutal slayings shocks the vampire world of her lover, Quinn. So the last thing Riley needs is the heat of the upcoming full moon bringing her werewolf hormones to a boil—or the reappearance of a sexy bounty hunter, the rogue wolf Kye Murphy.
Riley has threatened Murphy with arrest if he doesn’t back off the investigation, but it’s Riley who feels handcuffed by Kye’s lupine charm. Torn between her vamp and wolf natures, between her love for Quinn and her hots for Kye, Riley knows she’s courting danger and indulging the deadliest desires. For her hunt through the supernatural underworld will bring her face-to-face with what lurks in a darkness where even monsters fear to tread.
My husband has been on a classic rock kick. We were busy over the weekend and spent a lot of time in his vehicle with ACDC and Van Halen filling the background. Ever notice the songs that stick in your head are the ones that jump right in with hard, appealing sound?
Dame Keri talked about opening lines in her last post and I’m going to take it a bit further. I’m writing this on Monday after staying up half the night. It was one of those nights where you stupidly stay in bed even when your eyes refuse to close. When you worry that the week of loose spring break mornings will make you snooze through the alarm. Kids will be late, there will be whining, chaos, madness…
So you stay put, do that ridiculous this-spot-will-be-comfortable shift and try to ignore what’s keeping you awake. What was bothering me you ask?
The $#%#$# struggle I’m having with the opening to my WIP!
I want to be done. I’m excited about this book and really want to get it out there. Draft one is complete and there are some serious kick-ass scenes. Scenes I CAN’T WAIT to tackle in rewrites. But this opening is gonna kill me.
I used to jam beginnings of manuscripts like a rock star. Seriously. I’d jump in with a strong rhythmic beat and wimp out later around chapter four or so. Lately, my beginnings have been more like those long, sometimes irritating intros into ambient pieces. (And yeah, I dig the ambient music, too.)
But it’s the BEGINNING. Of a book. What do you usually do when faced with a snoozer of a beginning in a song? Either fast forward or skip to the next, right? Nap? A reader will put that book down.
So last week, I instinctively knew something was dragging, but grew frustrated, went ahead and posted it to the critique loop I share with Dame Rachel. Then Sunday, I got a break and opened it up only to have that DUH moment. (You know the one!) I was skimming the first page or two to get to the part I liked.
HELLO!!
I knew Rachel was working hard on her own stuff this weekend, so I emailed to tell her I needed to cut the first part of that chapter completely and trickle the needed info into the second part. I was too late. She’d already critiqued and posted it back. Guess what she said?
The second half was good, but the first part sucked a– just kidding. <g> She’s politely used the word rough.
I went through her QUITE thorough critique and cringed at the misplaced modifiers, etc, because it was one hundred percent clear that I’d fought each and every sentence. Instinctively, I knew there was an issue, but I slogged on. Hard-headed isn’t always a good thing.
Sunday night, I tossed and turned and remembered another bad beginning. One I thought was all kinds of lyrical and cool and how it just well, wasn’t. How different agents seemed to like the idea and the writing but not the opening. With that manuscript, I also had a DUH moment. Unfortunately, it was after a few rounds of submission. I sat down, rewrote the entire first chapter in one of those fantastic zone days, and again hit up the CP. She responded with, “Yes! You nailed it.” That new beginning resulted in all requests for fulls or longer partials. It jumped right into the action. Started hard. (It was a fast machine!)
Now…I just have to work on getting my DUH moments earlier so I can rock those openings from the very start. 
Related posts:
Um… I believe I said the second half was awesome. Or great. Or something along those lines. Because it was. That’s where you really started to shine, and I could tell you love the story.
This is a hard job, and though it’s a business, sometimes it’s impossible not to take things personally. So I just wanted to saw how awesome I think you are for hanging in there in spite of the odds, and for putting up with my long-winded, opinionated critiques. And for being brave enough to blog about the tough parts in public.
Oh, and happy belated birthday!
Beginnings are always the hardest, Rinda! I’d almost rather write ten queries (which are the bane of my world) than deal with an opening that doesn’t “rock”. Maybe I should try some ACDC!
…and I already wished you a happy-happy, but Happy Birthday here, too!
Thanks Silver! I got your wishes on my Livejournal and forgot to thank you. Eek. My DUH moment hit and it hasn’t stopped so I’m buried in work–trying to get all this down before I lose it. Enthusiasm is back!
And yeah, Rachel, you did say awesome, didn’t you?
w00t! Go, Rinda, go! We’re cheering you on! And I didn’t expect a thanks.
Get to work! *cracks whip*,/i>
I found myself jumping all over the place with my writing (a set-up scene here, an action scene there, throw in some character development about know and none of it in a coherent sequence) so, in an attempt to get myself back on track, I’ve changed my opening. I realised the voice I used for the MC in the beginning made him sound like a callous bastard and completely different from how he is in the middle (I’ve not got to the end) and not how I reckon he’d be.
My ‘duh’ moment was more of a ‘what the hell were you thinking?’ and with a major re-write of the first chapter, I think it’s much better.
Happy belated birthday, Dame Rinda!
Yes! A lot of DUH moments are what the hell were you thinking. (g)
Left off the word moments. LOL.
I *love* that you’re so passionate about the story that it’s keeping you up at night. I’m sure *you* don’t love that, though, lol! Great job with the duh moment. Sometimes we’re too stubborn to listen to ourselves and I think a distinguishing characteristic of great writers is the ability/willingness to pay attention when your subconscious (a.k.a. muse) is telling you something about the story. Well done!
Yeah, I’m pretty tired this week, but it’s been worth it. I’ve rewritten a lot of this book already so getting the opening right will smooth out the rest. We do know when something isn’t right, don’t we? I call it storyteller’s instinct.
Oh Renee, I meant to tell you I’m so happy to hear your beautiful new nephew is doing better! Couldn’t get the comments to come up on that post last night.
Opening scenes are hard. Sometimes I need the whole novel written before I can figure out how to start it.
Thanks Rinda.