Success!

I spent most of the day critiquing other people's work for this assignment. I'm a terrible editor and have no problems with admitting that usually my feedback is near useless, but everyone said they really appreciated my input, so I'm quite happy with that.

As for my goal to have the great opening line worked out, I think I did it. It's nothing compared to "Mother died today" but it's very specific to the main character of my novel and I think really sets up more about him than a full character profile would. The line is:

"For some people words mean nothing. For a poet, this is quite a problem."

Still a little rough on the edges, but says what I want it to say and it's ready to be refined when I reach that point. Now that I kind of have the critiques out of the way for one week and the opening line ready to be inserted into my assignment, I'm thinking of returning to my fantasy trash novel. The term trash isn't meant to be a derision of the genre, it's just what we at uni call fiction for downtime. Something light and fun that you don't have to put too much effort into reading.

I read over this old manuscript (if we want to get technical, I've been writing it since I was 15 in several different manifestations) and to put it in positive terms, it shows how much I've grown as a writer. Most of my language choices are still very appropriate, as the genre isn't really intended for post-graduate level readers. But the structure of the piece is awful. In the very first chapter it feels like I've completed half the story arc. Three major characters are introduced. The entire history of the fictional world is dumped on the reader in one paragraph. Problems are solved near instantaneously. I think tonight I'll extend the first chapter - maybe break it into two chapters. Get more character development into it and take out the providential problem solving.

It should be some easy writing after what I've been trying for the last 2 years.