Hope Floats. (But my first line sank!)
Yesterday, I dumped the first line of Draft #1 on you,with a promise to re-visit it today. Sadly, my opinion of my work continues to bother me for a number of reasons, beyond its general state of sucking blowfish.
First, there's the "second person" voice to contend with. Normally, stepping outside of story to address the reader directly wouldn't represent my first choice of viewpoint. However, when I first dug into creating the original manuscript, I wanted to move forward into the thick of the plot as quickly as I could.
I'm the kind writer who has bumped into sagging middle syndrome more than once. And no, I'm not talking about my gut. I had hoped that by erupting out of the starting gate as if the hounds of hell yipped at my heels, sheer momentum would force me to tumble over my typical page 125 existential crisis. Hopefully, before the magic of my story got away from me. And it worked! I learned something new. However, I also learned that there is a huge flip side to runaway writing. My slop factor tends to increase proportionate to my keyboard velocity. (Where I'm from slop is what we feed hogs.)
Since I'm savant at speed typing, I'm able to lay down thoughts nearly as fast as the words flood into my mind. For that reason my writing comes out sounding like I'm talking directly to my reader. Now granted, this can sometimes be a good thing. My internal editor doesn't have a prayer of keeping up with the flow of my writing, so I don't struggle much with the sadistic witch anymore.
My old crit group used to say that reading something I'd written felt like sitting across the table from me listening to me talk. I do like that kind of intimacy in a story, particularly in a romance. Still, beginning a book with second-person writing flirts with a risk humongoid enough to warrant automatic REJECTION. Since I'm not a "known entity" in the genre I'm trying to break into, it would most likely behoove me to choose another approach.
Second, my writing reads very "southern." Almost painfully so. Yes, this is how I talk. I can't help myself there. But I think I could tone it down a bit as I polish this manuscript. Fortunately, the characters are traipsing about South Carolina's low country. They can get away with a "you all" every now and then.
Lastly, I have to ease into chapter one's reincarnation a renegade character (Ceci) who popped up during the first write of chapter three. Ceci got ballsy in her insistence that she'd play significantly in the book's movement towards the denoument. I can't very well do the surprise ending without her, so it wouldn't be wise to dump her into the picture like a big old red herring to neatly wind up my story. So, it would be wise to introduce Ceci from the get go, don't you think? (There's that second person voice sneaking out again!).
As my original draft stands, my first line read's like this: If you’re sitting there thinking that your love life is beyond reproach, then you’d best just sit down and cut yourself a big old slice of humble pie, because you’re going to be chomping on it come sundown.
Whew. Reading it still makes me shudder. Let me try this again. Shorter this time:
Saying that my love life was beyond approach was my first mistake.
Gak. First off, I don't like beginning sentences with "ing" words. Not that I'm not guilty of doing exactly that, but certainly never for a lead in. Still, the gist of the idea is a bit better.
To tell God and anybody else who would listen that my love life was beyond reproach was the first mistake I made as I prepared to meet my fortieth birthday.
Yawn. Granted, the line has moved out of first person, and reads much less like southernese. While I feel more like my main character has a comeuppance story to tell, the passive feel of it doesn't get me any closer to introducing Ceci on the first page. Now this new opening needs a major was-ectomy. Scratch it.
What if the reader's suspicion that Darcy is hurting for a comeuppance comes out of Ceci's mouth instead of Darcy's? Now, this I like. If I can manage to set the concepts of the original first paragraph into an exchange between Ceci and Darcy, then I've moved away from a retelling of events, and into the magical realm of show. My penchant for was-ing my reader into slamming my book shut dies a natural death.
Scene setting and dialogue to initiate charactization? Woah. An editor wrote that on one of my manucripts once.
I probably nailed my own casket shut when I went on and on to Ceci about the beatific state of my marriage to Byron. (Beyond the cliche of "nail the casket shut", I like where this is going...)
"Lord, Ceci" I sighed as she pushed my freshly low-lighted head back over the rinse sink. "Even if I died and went to Heaven this very moment, I couldn't want for more bliss than I've already known."
Ceci yanked my soaking wet head up from the sink, forcing me to look her eye to eye. "Girl, keep on like that, you'll be chomping on humble pie come sundown."
Ahhhh, now we're getting somewhere. The exchange has established that Ceci is probably a hairdresser (which she is), and that Darcy likely has a very inflated opinion of her own marriage. Nobody's marriage is perfect. A comeuppance tale makes itself imminent.
The fact that Darcy is getting low lights gives me a bit of leeway to begin to insert hints about her coloring. I'm thinking we have a bit of a slave to her own good looks on our hands, too.
I'm starting to like this approach. Dialogue. Action. Character development. Now here's some writing I can begin to work with. While the first line doesn't have the gotcha factor I envisioned, its a far cry better than my original start.
Not bad for a second draft. I think I'll run with it.
