taking the challenge myself

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October 29, 2006 | writing

Thank you to everyone who posted after my first page challenge–and keep on posting below if you’d like!

This challenge really helped me, because the major revision I had to do to this Modern Extra was to make the first few pages more dynamic. Inspired by what we’ve been talking about here, I looked at my first few paragraphs and decided that while I like them, they’re not the most effective way to begin.

Originally I started with the hero. I had a good reason for that–I had to introduce his situation, or else the mistaken-identity plot that was going to start in the first chapter wouldn’t make any sense. I also had to have a secondary character there, because the mechanics of the plot wouldn’t work without him.

And I do like this passage; I think it shows character, though possibly slightly more of the secondary character in the first couple of paragraphs. Here it is, and what I was trying to do with it:

“Jonny. Yo, Jonny.”

Jonny pushed his glasses up his nose and narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to concentrate on the HTML code on the laptop screen in front of him. Computer geek. In glasses. As a hero. Hooray!Thom’s voice wasn’t easy to ignore. It was loud, vibrant, and unabashedly Californian. Jonny typed in a line of code anyway.

“Jonathan Richard Cole Junior!” Jonny’s full name is very important in the rest of the book, though we don’t know that yet.Thom leaned across the first-class railway carriage table and waved his hand in Jonny’s face.

Jonny gave up and finally looked at his friend. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I was ignoring you. I gave you one condition for this trip when you kidnapped me, remember?”

“I didn’t kidnap you, dude!” Thom put on his fake-innocent grin. “I let you go get your computer and a toothbrush before I dragged you to the Penrith train station. And I only came up to get you in person because I know what you’re like when you’re writing a book.” A computer geek who writes books! Double yay!!

Jonny smiled, because it was nearly impossible to stay annoyed with Thom Erikson. The man was incredibly rich, incredibly generous, and he talked as if he had a surfboard permanently attached to his person. And he’d stayed close to Jonny, even when Jonny had left California to go back to England.

In a world full of transitions and disillusion, Jonny had learned to appreciate loyalty, even when the loyalty was also accompanied by unrelenting persistence.Something’s happened to him that makes him doubt the loyalty of people who are close to him; he’s disillusioned.

“You also agreed not to call me by my real name,” Jonny reminded him. “When I’m working with you I’m not Jonny Cole, I’m Jay Richard.” He’s hiding his real identity. Why?

***
Now, this is fine–it does what I want it to, and I like Jonny and Thom and their relationship. Problem is, that’s not where the greatest conflict is in this book. The greatest conflict is with the heroine. Therefore, I’ve inserted another scene to start the book. Here are the first few paragraphs:

***

I am absolutely fine, I am very good at my job, and you are never going to see me cry again.

It was Jane’s inner monologue, her mantra for the morning, so strong that she had to choose her words carefully to avoid speaking it out loud as she finished up her slide presentation and answered questions on behalf of her creative team.

Particularly because the person who was asking the most questions was Gary Kaplan, the senior account manager, who she had believed she was going to marry next June, and who had seen her crying five days before.

Well, there’s a problem. She’s split up with this guy she needs to work with. And she’s dealing with it by trying desperately to keep her dignity and her professionalism–both of which are vital to her self-esteem. And I have my theme established–Jane is pretending to be okay when she’s not, and in the next scene (which is the first one I posted), we learn that Jonny is pretending to be somebody else.

***
Hopefully this will work. What do you think?