Well, Anna is going to find out her husband is dead before the end of the chapter, probably about 20 manuscript pages in, and I could just have that be the first we know of it. But, dammit, I like having the reader know before she does! I think it adds a certain painful twist to all her reflections on what a mess her marriage is and how she wishes she hadn't been so romantic and impulsive as to rush into it.

I like the reader's knowledge before Anna. I think that's fine. Keep working the passage. It'll shake loose.

General agreement over here; I very much like the way the main scene runs, and I do understand your desire to have the reader know before Anna does. I'm just not sure it's necessary. Because frankly, I'd rather you showed me, through her reactions, why I should care about the guy who's just been shot at the beginning. I think I'm trying to say that, if you paint it properly, the poignancy of the situation (or irony) will come to me through her, rather than through a faceless narrator. And as a reader, I prefer it that way.

Argh. Not certain I'm being clear. Pinched nerves on both sides of my neck and the pain is clouding things.

This may be crazy talk, Susan, but have you thought about writing the prologue from the point of view of the shooter?

Something like, "A scouting party of Brits (whatever the slightly offensive French nickname would have been at the time), dragoons by their gaudy fur-trimmed blue uniforms now muted with with dust, rode over the hill....

"He sighted his rifle at the tallest of the officers, a blond captain. 'I bet the ladies like him,' he thought as he pulled the trigger."

Ginger, I like that idea. I may try it that way. (Which means I'd have to have the French at pretty close range, because IIRC they didn't have much in the way of rifle-armed sharpshooters in their infantry, and you can't aim a standard musket with anything like accuracy over any kind of distance, and here I am rambling and research-dumping in the way I can't in the book itself.)

OK. Here are a couple of rambling thoughts. Feel free to discard, obviously.

If the prologue is meant to add poignancy or empathy or anything else to Anna's later thoughts about the shooting? Then, to me, as a reader (not as an editor), the scene is too brief, too impersonal. I'm not talking about descriptions, or writing style; it tells me nothing that is going to add to anything later. If you want me to care later, it's far too detached. Knowing the set-up, I can read it as is, say OK, read on, and will presumably come to the moment when Anna is informed of her husband's death. But because you've already salted it with a very short and extremely impersonal description - we have no reaction from the troop other than surprise, nothing to indicate whether they liked the captain, or loathed him, or gave a damn about him - I, as the reader, am now detached.

OK, OK, I'll take it out, though I'll toss it in my deleted scenes and drabbles file rather than delete it altogether, just in case I decide to go back to it. But, dammit, I hate it when I think I'm being brilliant and it doesn't work. Feels entirely different than when something needs work because I wrote it while feeling blocked and dull.

Yes, definitely keep it to hand. The concept is a damned good one; it's all about the execution in terms of what purpose you want it to serve.

And sweetie, I had to dump close to seventy pages of "Weaver" because Ruth Cavin convinced me that my lovely 1817 scenes really dragged the book down. And she was right, damnit.

But taking it out and rewriting it entirely modern makes it a better book.

One of my writing books says that if a scene appears absolutely brilliant, then it's got a higher chance than normal of being deleted later

Thanks, Deb, for making clear what I was trying to say.

And I think you should hold onto it, too, Susan. There will most likely be a place --even a need--for it sometime.