Beginning the beginning...again by Leah St. James #amwriting

Several months ago I wrote about ripping up the plot of my current WIP and essentially starting over.

What was my old prologue is out, and a brand-new prologue is in. My original Chapter One was moved to later in the story, and what was Original Chapter Three is now New Chapter One.

(Did you all follow that? I’m not sure I did!)

To recap, I now have a New Chapter One—a new beginning. And we all know how important beginnings are. Yes, I have a prologue, but Chapter One is still so important. When I read a book with a prologue, I look at the first chapter as the start of the real story. To me, it still has to grab the reader right from the start, or else that reader could very well toss the book and go to the next book that he or she likely picked up for free or cheap somewhere! (Sorry, got a little off topic there.) I need, and want, something that good. (And I really loved the beginning of Original Chapter One, too....sigh.)

But we soldier on.

 

This book is a sequel to my debut novel (Surrender to Sanctuary), and New Chapter One opens with one of the main secondary characters from that book. In fact, that same character opened the first book (in the prologue), so in a rare moment of inspiration, I decided it would be clever to parrot that opening.

Here’s the original opening from Surrender to Sanctuary:

Maxwell Davies was lost.

He squinted toward the countryside behind him, down the tattered two-lane roadway he’d just traveled, empty but for the smattering of cows and sheep grazing on the hillsides and an occasional farmer’s cottage. Ahead lay the intersection of a triplet of lanes bordered by a series of hedgerows and flowering bushes that threatened to overrun the dirt-packed lanes.

Should be easy to come up with a complementary opening, right? Not so much. I hated everything I came up with. Like these...

Maxwell Davies was troubled.

UGH. Lame! Weak! Wimpy!

Maxwell Davies was desperate.

No way, totally out of character.

Maxwell Davies was enraged.

No!!! Makes him sound like a lunatic...and it's way too early in the book for that!

So here’s what I’ve come up with so far for my New Chapter One beginning. I’d love your opinion. Would you want to read more? (Remember: This is a first draft. Please be gentle!) :-)

Danger.

Maxwell Davies sensed its presence as he stood at the big picture window in his office overlooking the back lawns at Sanctuary, Virginia, a tumbler of Maker’s Mark in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. Members in tuxes and their mates in glittering gowns gathered in groups of four or six, talking, laughing, drinking, enjoying life. Others danced, their arms twined tightly around one another, on a temporary dance floor where a six-piece ensemble pumped out a steady playlist of top hits from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

The community was in party mode, and he was late, lost in thought over the troubled waters they’d just navigated, and the murky waters that still lay ahead. Maxwell didn’t know the source, or the timing, only that every instinct screamed warning-warning-warning like a clanging bell in the back of his head. (In my head I’m hearing "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" ... Might want to change this line.)

Dusk had fallen, layering the sky with streaks of oranges, pinks and blues, casting sultry shadows over the celebrants. Ahead, multicolored lights twinkled in the trees lining the mighty James River, like hundreds of rainbow fireflies lighting the evening sky. Flowers in a dozen shades lined the pathways traversing the property from the river all the way to the gated entrance.

My creation, he thought as he took a puff of the cigar and savored its rich tobacco flavor. Mine to protect. Mine to defend.

 So that's what I've got. Thoughts? 

Am I worrying too much?  Does the first line of the first chapter have the same impact on a reader when there is a prologue? 

Or maybe I just need to finish the book before spending too much time on this. I mean, who knows what might happen to Max between now and then!

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Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the power of love. She blogs here on the 6th and 22nd of each month. Learn more at leahstjames.com.
 

Are We in Prison? by Andrea Downing

When I realized my deadline for writing this post was looming, I dredged up what choices I thought I had. I’d just been in Wyoming for a month and wondered if I should share my photos with you all, but a number of them have already hit the pages of Facebook and Instagram so I nixed that. Then, of course, I had just attended a conference in Tucson so considered words of wisdom emanating from that experience, but so many of us have already talked about our conferences, I also let that idea go. Next thought to enter my mind was that I’ve returned to the traumas of selling an apartment—in NYC VERY traumatic waiting for Board approval on top of everything else—and buying a house, but all that is better left in the recesses of my mind.

     And then I was reading a wonderful book, Irene Sandell’s River of the Arms of God (highly recommended!) in which two women, one hundred years apart, are imprisoned in different ways. Well, that got me thinking! Prisons! As Sandell made me realize, not all prisons have bars. While one of the women in her book is in something of a ‘gilded cage,’ it struck me that her husband was as much imprisoned as she was, and at his own hand. He felt the compulsion to behave in a certain way and maintain his inheritance in the same manner his forebears had done, and there was no one else cracking the whip. How many of us do something similar to ourselves?

A friend and I have been moaning the usual array of rants against publishing and promoting the last few months. You know the kind I mean if you’re an author or work in publishing.  It’s the ‘gotta get that book out,’ gotta meet that deadline, gotta get that blog written or that Facebook post out, put something up on Pinterest or Instagram, show off my new cover, arrange that book signing, 'like' my friend’s page, comment on that author’s post, announce that five star review, and so on that we all have got ourselves into. In other words, it’s pressure we put on ourselves.  And to be perfectly frank, I don’t think I can stop! I can let things go for a while, but then when time permits, it’s a Murphy’s Law situation:  if there is time to be filled, it will certainly be filled (and probably something will go wrong as well!).

Behind this all is the love of writing, of course.  We want to create and get those words down on the page, hell or high water. There is that ‘something’ inside us that persistently nags us to write and if we’re not writing, we’re not happy.  Once that happens, of course, the rest follows. We’ve all thrown away the keys.

But I am curious:  do you feel you have other prisons you’ve created for yourself?

And so:  I just got a lovely 4* review from InD’Tale Magazine for Bad Boy, Big Heart, available at https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Boy-Big-Heart-Book-ebook/dp/B072MKG48B/:

“Bad Boy, Big Heart” is a fast paced short story with such beautiful descriptions of the Wyoming countryside, readers will feel as if they have been swept into the very pages of the book. One cannot help but instantly fall in love with the characters, feel their connection and share the struggle they face. .  . the writing is beautifully vivid and the characters likable, with a plot that any romance lover could easily sink their teeth into, especially if one enjoys a quick, enjoyable read.”

Dahlia Gosney

Anatomy of a Critique by Leah St. James

After an almost two-year “hiatus,” I’ve finally returned to work on a full-length fiction project. It’s the sequel to my debut novel ("Surrender to Sanctuary"), currently titled “Sanctuary’s Promise.” Before starting, I read through what I’d written and realized one reason why I’d stopped: I’d written myself into the weeds with a plot so convoluted, I couldn’t have hacked my way out with a machete!

To the rescue was my CP (a/k/a hubby). In my family we call him the “Plot Master” because he has this annoying ability to guess the plot of almost every movie and TV show (including twists and turns) within minutes. He spent about a month reading my draft and taking notes and giving me silent “What were you thinking?” head shakes. When he was done, he had filled a one-inch binder with notes and suggestions.

When I hefted the binder in my hands, my first instinct was to run back to my non-writing cave and lose myself in Facebook, but then I put on my big girl undies and went to work. After reading through his notes twice, I realized how right he was about much of it. Still, I didn’t agree with everything he suggested. In fact, our initial conversation went something like this:

Me: (Tosses binder on the couch and heads to the kitchen for a bracing cup of English breakfast tea.)

Him: (Shouting at my back) “I guess you don’t like my suggestions?”

Me: (Back in the living room) “I am NOT writing another how-to novel on erotic lifestyles! The sequel isn’t about that. It’s about the murder of (secret plot point) and the discovery of (another secret plot point)!"

Him: (Throws up hands) “Okay, fine. But what about the rest? You have the characters ALL WRONG.”

Me: “How the heck (word changed to protect this blog’s PG rating) would you know? They’re MY characters!”

Him: “You’re right, Leah. It’s your book. Do what you want.” (Turns his attention to his tablet for another game of solitaire.)

After several moments of self-reflection during which I felt like an a** because he had put a lot of thought into his suggestions and much of his critiques were spot on (and yes, I know how lucky I am that my husband cares so much and can share in my process!), I convinced him to sit with me to review and discuss in depth. We spent the afternoon brainstorming (he actually liked some of my new ideas!), and now I have a pared-down, streamlined plot that has me enthused about the story and about writing again.

Since then I can’t say I’ve been burning up the page count stats, but I am writing again, and I am enjoying the process. I’m looking forward to sharing my progress in the weeks/months ahead!

For now, I’ve dropped the price on that first book, and my second , to 99 cents through the month of September. They’re available only on Kindle and are included in the Kindle Unlimited program so subscribers can read for free.

SURRENDER TO SANCTUARY
Romantic Suspense / Adult (Erotic Theme)


FBI agents Anna Parker and David Owens go undercover into a world of domination and submission to solve a murder at the Jersey Shore. Read more, including the story behind the story and an excerpt here.

Amazon

ADRIENNE’S GHOST

Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novella
Finalist, 2012 International Digital Awards (short paranormal category)

When the body of an FBI recruit is discovered in the basement of FBI Headquarters, agent Jackson Yates teams up with paranormal psychologist Rachael Sullivan to find her killer. The ghost tags along to help. :-) More here.

Amazon




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Leah writes stories of crime and passion, mystery and suspense, and most of all love. She loves to chat with readers on Facebook and occasionally posts things on Pinterest (like recipes that look good that she’ll probably never make).

PET PEEVES

If you’re an author, you read.  And if you read as an author, you’re bound to be more critical than Jane Doe who’s just picked up a book for enjoyment.  Or maybe not….  I’m not sure because I’ve taught English Language at university level, been an editor, and worked for Simon and Schuster so being critical is really ingrained in me.  You can probably therefore guess that my pet peeves include bad grammar and lousy punctuation.  Over the years, I’ve loosened up on the amount of commas necessary in a sentence for clarity, but I remain fairly strict.  I’ve been told that in fiction we should use emdashes instead of semi-colons, but that doesn’t sit well with me:  an emdash is for an interrupted thought; a semi-colon is for a secondary idea of the same thought expressed in the sentence.  Yup, it gets complicated.

But now, I’ve got new pet peeves.  I hate, hate, hate anachronisms in historical books.  For me, it’s sloppy research and there’s no excuse for it.  When writing an historical book I work with the on-line etymological dictionary.  Of course, you have to think, ‘does this word need to be looked up?’ and mistakes happen.  But did someone really think a woman would refer to a man’s abs in the 1880s?  Or discuss accessorizing a dress? And then there’s referring to a song in the 1860s when the song wasn’t written until the 1920s. But then maybe I shouldn’t be so annoyed about that; I’ve been watching the series, ‘Underground’ about the underground railway prior to the Civil War, and they keep playing ‘Summertime’ penned by Gershwin in 1935.

Someone once criticized a book of mine because I had a character briefly speak. like. this. We do it to emphasize what the character is saying and how he/she says it.  Personally, I don’t see a problem but this obviously annoyed my reader. My publisher has a stipulation that the hero and heroine should generally meet within the first four pages.  An author friend told me she disliked books where the h/h weren’t described early on, and another author wrote she hated reading about "a single tear" making its way. She demanded, 'who has a single tear?' And then we ask ourselves what’s the inner conflict?  What’s the goal/motivation/conflict of the story?  Is there character development? Does the story move along and make sense—is it properly constructed?  Goodness, there’s a minefield out there of things to dislike. And that’s before we even get to the love/sex scenes and how they’re described and their length (OF THE SCENE!)

But as I’ve learned from being in three anthologies now, some things will eat at one reader and not in the least bother the next, while the book will hit the wall in the room of yet another reader.

So what are your pet peeves?  What do you absolutely hate to find in a story when reading, whether it is in the basics of good English or the construction of the story itself.  And please let me know if any of them are in Bad Boy, Big Heart. 

I aim to please.

Available at https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Boy-Big-Heart-Book-ebook/dp/B072MKG48B/

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