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marycatelliOpened a story to start the second draft. Banged my head on the wall a few times.
Writing stuff down in the order in which it occurs is a good rule. It is a particularly good rule in the opening paragraphs of your story. Triply good if the stuff you want to work in happened just a few minutes earlier. . . .
Yet I managed to miss, in the first draft, that I was opening with the heroine musing about something that had just happened. I shifted the opening back a minute and had it whap her upside the head, but how did I manage to miss that while wrestling with how to open the first draft?
So I eliminated the past perfect from the opening. Always be wary of using the past perfect in your opening. It's a warning that you haven't started your story in the right place.
And it's more elegant if you notice while writing not revising.
Writing stuff down in the order in which it occurs is a good rule. It is a particularly good rule in the opening paragraphs of your story. Triply good if the stuff you want to work in happened just a few minutes earlier. . . .
Yet I managed to miss, in the first draft, that I was opening with the heroine musing about something that had just happened. I shifted the opening back a minute and had it whap her upside the head, but how did I manage to miss that while wrestling with how to open the first draft?
So I eliminated the past perfect from the opening. Always be wary of using the past perfect in your opening. It's a warning that you haven't started your story in the right place.
And it's more elegant if you notice while writing not revising.