Challenge #20 (escape) is now closed.

This week's challenge is a "scene" challenge (like the very first one, which was to drabble 2 people seated across from each other at a table): a group of people is gathered together, and all of them are looking down. Drabble away!

t edit Heh -- Deb beat me by 12 seconds!

Very Cold Snow

I do a headcount as I walk into the dressing room: there are eleven people bending over the scarred old table, the round clean mirror, awaiting their turns, avid and useless.

Five are band members, three are roadies. The rest are groupies or sycophants, empty pathetic people desperate to rub shoulders with celebrities.

The lead guitarist glances up, a rolled dollar in one hand, the cocaine laid out on the mirror. He grunts, and goes back to his line.

There are days when I hate the fact that I have to be grateful my musician's main vice is only booze.

OK, I redid the opening of Anna to get into the story quicker by killing her husband in the very first scene. On the first page. In the second paragraph. No one can accuse me of wallowing in the backstory this time around! t shakes tiny fist at contest judges

Anyway, the way I handle it is by a two-paragraph semi-prologue in third omniscient before plunging right into third limited, hero POV, where the hero and heroine meet. They don't know her husband is dead, but the point of the intro is that the reader will, and will view the heroine's unhappiness with her husband (when we switch to her POV 7 pages in) through the lens of wondering how she'll feel when she knows the truth.

So. I'm rambling. Here's the intro:

CHAPTER ONE

Spain, June 1811

The mounted patrol, dressed in dazzling fur-trimmed blues that marked them as British dragoons, turned for camp. They had been out scouting for days with nary a sight of the French, and now their thoughts turned toward hot dinners and bedding their women, perhaps even in that order.

They were utterly surprised when shots rang out from a scrubby little copse on the hill to their north. A blond captain, tallest and handsomest of all the officers in the regiment, fell from his chestnut gelding, his forehead shattered by a musket ball.

My writers group thinks that I need to set the scene a little more, both in terms of descriptive detail and historical background. I kinda agree on the descriptive detail, though I don't want to overdo it when the whole point is to kill the handsome blond guy and get on with the story. But for historical background, really, I think most people who read the genre at all could get the basic gist from the location and the mention of the British and the French. I'm not expecting them to know enough to write a dissertation on the Peninsular Wars, but I feel like most people know this is the age of Napoleon, that he conquered most of Europe, and that the British fought him. But my writing group disagrees.

Susan, I agree with you on the amount of detail necessary in the above scene.

I also think that the rejection you mentioned before is probably something sent to everyone who submitted to that agent -- when another editor left where I used to work, there was no getting through her stuff and mine as well, but I had to reply to everyone (since she unkindly left a big mess in her wake). Form letters get the job done, but while they do suck, know that this one is probably just a matter of clearing up behind someone and in no way an opinion on your work.

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Drabble #21:

“It’s hideous.”

“Hideous doesn’t even begin to describe it.” But she couldn’t look away, even though dread and something close to nausea had begun to battle it out in her gut. Apparently the others couldn’t either. They huddled, squinting, furrowing, once even sniffling.

“But it’s…God, there are truly no words,” one of the others murmured. “What is that exactly?”

“I don’t think I want to know,” she said, sinking into a chair, still staring down at the monstrosity laid out before them. “It looks…rash-producing.”

“Synthetic.” The girl to her left shrugged. “Down to the lavender ribbon. Your typical bridesmaid nightmare.”

Hey Allyson, I'd read your stuff too, if you want. (I don't know that I could do fiction-writers any good.)

Susan, you know I say you rooooock a lot, and I do, I admire your dedication. I've always felt a bit disingenuous saying it, though, since I haven't actually read anything of yours. Because historical romances? Really not my thing.

That being said, those two paragraphs are a great opener, and I chuckled out loud at

now their thoughts turned toward hot dinners and bedding their women, perhaps even in that order

And I loved the "utterly" in the next sentence. Hell, I love the wry tone of these first paragraphs, it saddens me that you're going to change it to something different. You kill a guy in the second paragraph! It's great! I imagine the rest of the book is more serious and less whimsical, however.

And as for the detail, you've got British guys and French guys obviously in some sort of war situation, and someone gets shot. I don't think you need gobs of backstory just yet, especially because the impact of that killing is because it's so abrupt. You can fill in historical context after that if you want.

In other words, Susan, you roooooock.

Hey Jesse! Can you be brutal? I got some good brutality today that was really helpful. I can't help but think that beta readers are the only way it'll be read. I'd love to chat with you about a couple of thangs, too.

I don't know about brutal, but I'll give it a shot? Feel free to e.

Amy! That's perfect! Hee.

Susan, it isn't enough for me. But I'm not at all familiar with your genre, which is why I don't trust my comments on your work. So please feel free to disregard me.

AmyLiz, I love that drabble. Made me do the rare literal LOL.

You kill a guy in the second paragraph! It's great!

Just call me Tim Minear. Except the dead guy isn't especially lovable.

Hell, I love the wry tone of these first paragraphs, it saddens me that you're going to change it to something different.

Well, I'd hate to have to maintain that omniscient distance for any length of time! But I think most of my writing, though fundamentally serious, keeps a hint of the wry. Read Jane Austen enough and it rubs off on you.