You've Come a Long Way, Baby Blogfest/Contest

It's time to dust off some of our old writing and take an unflinching look at how far we've come.  It's not too late to sign up to win prizes or to join the Blogfest. 

When I started writing "The Golden Gryphon" I was basically daring myself to write something.  Anything. Just write!

So I started with a place.  I made up a castle on a hill in a UK-ish setting, then I put some people in it and moved them around like paper dolls in my head.  Pretty soon they started moving around by themselves.  And talking. And feeling. Before I knew it, my first draft was in full, riotous gallop through my imagination.

This is that first paragraph.

Glenholm Castle stood in the rolling foothills of the Dagger Mountains. It was a squat stone fortress that had housed the Eorl’s ancestors for ten generations. Behind it, the hills sloped gently upwards until they finally crested with bare rock and then climbed sharply to join the mountains. The land below the castle spread out in a vast patchwork of farms and woodlands, with a village along the central road. On far side of the village, the Glenholm Road led down to the bank of the Silverbark river, which formed the eastern boundary of the Eorl’s lands. Crossing the river, it then merged with the Forest Road, which led through the Great Forest to the capital at Cairwyn, the western reaches of the kingdom and eventually the sea.

Now for the revision:

(chirping crickets)
 

There is none.  All that opening exposition got cut.  But it was a crucial first step in the writing process.

Actually, I did incorporate some of it into the description of the family's departure for the capital.

In the bottom of the valley the new crops grew in bright green rows, and sheep and cattle grazed on the lush grass.  Before them the Silverbark River flowed in a winding ribbon spanned by a stone bridge. On the far side, silver birches stretched along its banks, their smooth, grey trunks gleaming in the sunlight as if to live up to their name. Beyond them loomed the dark mass of the forest.

The party crossed the bridge, hooves clattering on the stone, and turned to look one last time at the slope behind them. There was the village, looking very small now, and the castle raising its towers in the sunshine, with the orchard in blossom tumbling about its feet. Behind it rose the hills in purple and grey succession, capped by the dazzling white of the morning peaks. It seemed impossible to Marenya, as she gazed upon its stalwart beauty, that any harm could ever come to Glenhym.

 What did I learn?  That setting needs to be tied to emotion. It has to mean something to the characters before it will mean anything to the reader.  

I also learned something that has become my writing mantra: It is always better to have something horrible to edit, than to have written nothing at all.

Enjoy the entries and the contest!  But don't forget to "Write first, blog later."