Backflung, bebe. Awaiting the rest of it. The piece is a corker. I've done no hard editing on it, because I want to see the rest.

OK, so I'm trying to make sure all the essential stuff from my original first and second chapters makes it into the newer, better paced version, and I'm having trouble figuring out where to put the all-important fact that Lucy starts out the story in love with her cousin Sebastian. The place where it would fit most naturally is shortly after the scene where she meets James, the hero of the piece. It would work within the logic of the story, and the infodump portion of it would be far enough removed from other infodumps to not halt the story flow too much. But I'm nervous about withholding that bit of info until after she meets the hero. I do hint at it earlier--she refers to him once as "dear Sebastian," and we know she thinks he's very handsome--but it's more subtext than text.

Thoughts?

I personally think it needs to come far earlier than that - leaving it that late makes it feel like an afterthought, which it isn't. Either that or, worse, as if you were dicking with your reader, which you aren't.

Besides which, she's there in his family's house; that feeling would be with her every moment of every day, no matter how far in the background.

Early on, please.

Well, except the story doesn't open there in his family's house anymore. But other than that, point taken. The problem is I feel like I'm already cramming so much background exposition into 20 pages already--I'm introducing 6 characters and giving enough background that hopefully the reader can keep them straight, and spending quite a bit of time on Lucy's family background. Explaining the Sebastian thing right will take several pages, and will push back the all-important first encounter with James, because I really can't think of anything to cut from Ch. 1.

Ah, you've moved the opening setting? Then I've got nothing - when it opened there, it was natural to Lucy that her thing for her cousin be present in her own head. Outside that, you've got me. No clue.

Well, Sebastian himself is still there--I open when he, Lucy, and her aunt arrive at the castle where her cousin Portia will be marrying the earl. But it does change her initial focus from "here's the man I've been in love with for years" to "here's this new place unlike anywhere I've been before, and here's how the people, both familiar and new to me, are acting."

Stolen looks at him, perhaps? Silent admonitions to herself to not be silly about him?

Good idea. I'll look back over the chapter and see where I can fit them in. Then maybe I can do the more detailed bit with all the background on why he matters to her at the point right after she meets James where it wouldn't interrupt the story flow.

Susan, I don't know what else you've changed, but what about when she thinks about the welcome Sebastien has always shown her? Or when he defends her to Portia very early on? Seems like two natural places to say something as simple as "This is why I loved him, although I knew the sentiment was not returned" or something to that effect.

erika, got it!

Off topic, but also, erika, I friended you. Susan, would you mind if I did?

Susan, would you mind if I did?

Please do! And those are two of the places in the chapter I'm going to look to see if I can slip something in.