Zara II

So, I'm back to struggling with my draft. For some reason, I was avoiding rereading the thing, hoping the solution for my last few plot problems would just come to me. Oh, yeah, right. So, I read some of it again today and was slightly reassured that it didn't completely suck on the second read-through.

I'm still having some problems understanding the motivations of a fairly important character toward the end of the book (a REALLY important character in book III, which I can't even think about yet.) That's the difficult part of all of this. I know what they want to happen, but that isn't enough. They have to have a plan in mind about how it would work...even if I already know it won't.

Plus, I'm suffering from first line syndrome. I love it when the first line of a book comes to me almost without any thought. More often than not, it's not the first line I write down, but it's close. With this one, I don't have it yet. I'm not happy with the beginning, the situation that starts everything out or even the actual opening of the story. Anyone out there got any ideas how to come up with a great opening line or situation? For the story to flow, I feel like I NEED to have that. I like summary opening lines. Like the one for The Silver Spoon.

"I was at the diner when I got my first real look at an Observer." Gives you the situation, the setting, and sets up that there's something unusual or, at least, rare about an Observer, whatever that is.

Or how about the revised version of Bitter Pill:

"They say third time's a charm. But I'm guessing that doesn't apply to root canals, bad marriages, and finding dead bodies."

OR

"Is there such a thing as death karma? If so, I have it."
(In fact, now that I'm thinking about...which of those opening lines do you prefer for Bitter Pill, an amateur sleuth mystery with romance?)

I don't really have anything for Zara II. I suppose I can't really until I have the opening situation nailed down, but I feel like I can't do that until I have the opening line *sigh*

I'm also panicking because I'm worried I've gone into wimpy mode. One of the things that I like best about Zara (I'm not trying to compliment myself here, to me they are real people, and yes, I know that sounds crazy) is that she's normal. By that I mean she can't always handle everything that's thrown at her very gracefully or for that matter, at all. She, at times, suffers from a shortage of belief in herself, just like the rest of us. Book I was about her discovering her identity. Book II is supposed to be about her learning to accept what that means, beyond "neat, I have powers...sometimes." It has all these large-scale, life-changing ramifications, ones that she's not sure how to deal with. My thought was that she's trying to manage it the same way she's managed everything bad so far in her life -- keep your head down and keep working. She's not one to run away, exactly, but she's not ready to step up to the plate in the way that's needed. At least not until a situation forces her to do just that. That's the whole point of the book, to show her progressing from a limited awareness that this is a problem to finally acheiving the change need to resolve the problem. But if she's backing away...does that make her wimpy? I don't know. I'm really wrestling with this one.

Okay, I think I'm done babbling on for today. I have to get going to kickboxing...