I've been rewriting the same opening scene for the last week. I think I finally have it. I think. Openings are hard for me. I'm on about my 4th stab at this one.
I don't want to think about how many times I had to rewrite the opening scene of the current project...openings aren't usually that hard for me (other things are) but this one kept coming out with all the character and appeal of two-day-old vanilla tapioca pudding...no, not even that. Two-day-old cold porridge. With dishwater on top.
Mine either detracted from the main protag/storyline or just plain moved too slowly. As you said in St Louis, the thrillers you read while there started *bam*, right in the middle of things.
Those conversations we had really helped me--I don't think I had the chance to tell you that. I wish I could have been as much help to you.
You were, just in a different way. Ruta was the sounding board I needed (poor Ruta!!) and so was my friend Karen when I got to Oswego. You were the person I could play expert to--while realizing as I listened to you and read those other things, that I had fallen into a similar pattern.
Those thrillers and the magazine articles, basic as they were, gave me a much-needed smack upside the brainstem...my opening was every big as blah...and though mine's not a thriller, it's also not supposed to be quite as put-down-able as it was. I think now it's not...there's conflict right up front, even if not all the conflict right up front.)
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winterfish
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Date: 2009-11-04 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-05 02:59 am (UTC)Those conversations we had really helped me--I don't think I had the chance to tell you that. I wish I could have been as much help to you.
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Date: 2009-11-05 03:13 am (UTC)Those thrillers and the magazine articles, basic as they were, gave me a much-needed smack upside the brainstem...my opening was every big as blah...and though mine's not a thriller, it's also not supposed to be quite as put-down-able as it was. I think now it's not...there's conflict right up front, even if not all the conflict right up front.)