Off to Some Kind of Start, Part 2

Remember a couple years ago when we were all going back to our old projects at critiquing our opening lines? It's that time again! Writing/blogging buddy Krystal Jane recently posted her new collection, and someone on Twitter just asked about favorite blog posts, so here we go for Round Two. I'll pick up where I left off and see if I've actually gotten any better at this. (I'm guessing not.)

 

Here's Part 1 to recap, from July of 2017 (apologies for the text colors, a casualty of the site redesign)

Hunting Astrid is still brand new and sparkly and shiny, so let's see how my latest release fares under the microscope.

 

“There you are. You almost missed all the fun.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Astrid hurried into the room and wheeled her chair out from underneath her desk. “Some sort of malfunction with the train. We were stuck for half an hour.”

Her coworker Lily snorted without taking her eyes off the screen in front of her. “So much for the best technology this corner of the galaxy has to offer.”

Hello, sci-fi! I've become a fan of starting stories in the middle of a conversation, like here. Not the snazziest, not the worst. I promise things pick up quickly in this opening chapter.

***

How about some fanfic? I did write a lot for Fire Emblem: Three Houses over this summer, which kicked my motivation for my original works into gear. Here's the opening for the first one, which was actually the first fanfic I wrote in quite a few years.

Aelfric couldn’t understand the strange looks and hushed whispers that had followed him around like an irritating swarm of bugs over the course of the evening. After all, why wouldn’t he have wanted to attend Sitri and Jeralt’s wedding? It was a joyous occasion, one the monastery didn’t often host. Such love should be celebrated, he declared to himself.

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of digging that first line. And a note to anyone who's played the FE3H DLC: FUCKIN' AELFRIC, MAN, AMIRITE!? (i rite.)

***

Let's take a look at Fire Beyond the Frost, whose long journey to publication has been chronicled here. To recap: the book was published a year ago after sitting on the shelf in need of a good cleaning for a few years. Before that, parts of it were originally a story written for a former friend's role-playing forum. I have no idea what got edited when, so here's a collection of words that were written sometime in 2019, 2013, and/or 2011.

Dr. Catalina Frost looked out the small window of the spaceship. A few men from the crew scurried around the launch pad of the Blackhill Spaceport. The vessel would be departing within moments. A pleasant female voice came over the intercom, informing the passengers to move toward their seats and prepare for takeoff.

All right, so we know Catalina's going somewhere, which is kind of the point of the whole book. Not too bad. I don't hate myself.

***

Rewinding a little farther, here's the intro to Closing Montage.

The large brown box sat on the doorstep, unremarkable, cast by the shadows of the dwindling sunlight. My heart raced as I pulled the car into the driveway. Though I couldn’t see any writing or labels from where I sat, I knew it didn’t contain another shipment of medical supplies or more useless gifts from well-wishers. This package was special.

You know, this one's better than I remembered it. It drops plenty of hints about the upcoming story, plus it has an element of mystery: what's in the box???

***

Lastly, because I like odd numbers for these types of lists, I'll give you a sneak peek at my WIP, Elemental Forces.

“On your left!”
 

Meg dove to the opposite side, tucking and rolling across the dusty field. The small dragon she’d been battling followed after her, but before it could launch another attack, Ronan brought his sword down on the creature’s neck. The sharp blade sliced its head clean off and it fell to the ground, sunlight glinting off its reddish scales as it gradually stopped twitching.

DRAGONS! FUCK YEAH! I wasn't lying when I said I like starting in the middle of the action sometimes. You know what I also like? DRAGONS!

So there's my latest compilation. Nothing downright awful in here, unlike last time, so maybe I am getting slightly better at this. One can dream, anyway!

Hilarity May or May Not Ensue

So, I think we've all realized by now that I'm not one of those people who is SUPER SERIOUS, ALL OF THE TIME about her writing. That's not to say I don't write serious stories, because I definitely do...I just frequently laugh at myself while doing so. To be honest, I often find people who always take things seriously (assuming it's not a life-or-death situation) to be exhausting, but hey, you do whatever you need to do to get through your days.

I won't make any comments as to whether or not I'm "funny," as I know how subjective humor is. Maybe I've made people laugh here a few times over the years, maybe I've just made them roll their eyes at my flippant attitude before they move on. For what it's worth, while I have my "fiction writing" voice, as we all do, my "writing about writing/blogging" voice here is pretty close to what real-life me is like. I've said before, while I'm sure I'm not everyone's cup of tea, I like to think I'm fun to be around in most situations. But again, who knows.

On to the writing about writing part! I've written in a whole lot of romantic sub-genres, but I don't know if I've ever set out to write a true "comedy." Some of my books/stories are intended to be lighthearted and maybe a little fluffy, and even in some of my darker stories, the occasional odd situation or snarky remark slips through. (That might be tied to my "real me" voice, but I digress.) And now that I'm thinking about genres, I'm starting to wonder—can you even write "just" a comedy without including some sort of sub-genre? (Romance, mystery, adventure, etc.) Like, is "contemporary comedy" a thing just like "contemporary romance" is? Clearly, I am not among the people getting paid to create categories on Amazon.

(I just took a tiny break from writing this blog post to take a look. Lots of romantic comedies out there. There was a "wilderness" comedy on the first page of Amazon hits, which I would file under "adventure." And Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was also near the top, which I did enjoy, and parts were funny, but I don't know if that was the point of the story? Moving right along.)

Outside of my little website here, I have written stories explicitly intended to make people laugh, in the form of fanfic. I'd even venture to claim I was successful, in that my old Dragon Age and Mass Effect comedies were always my most popular fics, and they're still getting hits and comments and bookmarks and everything 7-8 years later. (UGH, I'M OLD.) Recently, I've been experiencing the same trends with my Fire Emblem: Three Houses fanfic. So, I know I *can* do it, but I'm also aware of the contextual differences between writing something humorous in an existing universe vs. starting from scratch with everything.

I'm still making great progress with my new project, Elemental Forces. I'm still not sure if we've established it can be a "comedy," but it's definitely on the more lighthearted end of the spectrum. I'm not attempting to land joke after joke after joke, but I made an effort to set the tone early on, and that tone (hopefully) is "this book will make you smile and feel good." As I mentioned in my last post, it's heroic fantasy and, of course, romance, since I consider myself a romance writer first and foremost. Since it's romance, there will be some emotional and poignant scenes in addition to the fun ones, because I'd argue you can't really have a romance without those, but THAT is another topic for another post.

In the meantime, I'll switch back to my Word document now, because I am still writing up a storm and it feels GOOD! (Might as well end on a "smile/feel good" moment!)