: Re: Improving my story opening? I'm writing a story about a woman driving cross-country in search of her childhood home. There, she discovers the small town has grown to a suburban sprawl, and she's

@Holmes449

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I will attempt my own rewrite to achieve what I will later call.
However I'm not a native English speaker so grammar will suffer.

Grace came here expecting changes. The lines at her face, the way she wakes up tired even after a full night's sleep, the way her
interests waned in saving the world. She herself changed so how much
did the world change?
She came fully prepared, yet that helped little. It is like reading on
a piece of paper the destructive power of nuclear explosion and
actually witnessing one with your own eyes.
Thus the sight she did behold was like dropping a nuclear bomb at the
cradle of her childhood. The Dangerous highway 9 that she was warned
countless time not to come close to, and as an ever shy child she was
to happy to oblige her mom, now avoids town and makes all those
warnings meaningless. She looked at curved places that was etched in
her own imagination as straight and would not have crossed her mind
the can be changed. And perhaps the greatest horror of all to the mind
of her 9 year old self. The saltwater pond that she and her friends,
and perhaps half the neighbors children, used to gather around like a
sacred shrine dedicated to amusement. That most important landmark
that children flocked to day and night is now reduced to a mere pond.
She squeezed her cellphone in her hand in a nervous gesture that she
herself was not certain what it meant. A quick open and close of it
proved useless. Taking a deep breath she continue her journey. She
has never being a quiter, when she did X [Honestly just introduce
whatever you feel like here. For example she did a difficult task at
her job] And she won't back off now. It is too late. Too late to look
at the old sights again and too late to turn back.
Even with the help of he phone she was not certain that she will be
able to find her birthplace at a such alien land to her, especially
given the late hour that as always made her long for sleep that would
abandon here whenever she lied in a bed and night or tried to catch it
in a morning nap.
She searched and searched. A woman of X age frantically looking for
her home at 3 AM in the morning. And finally a recognizable feature
greeted her, and to her troubled and exhausted state it seemed like a
lighthouse beckoning her home.

Now let me try to explain what I did.
First I tried to express what she is. Whenever you write something it must build the world and characters. You can't simply be like: she worked as a programmer at X. It's like: she liked the flexibility and pay of her programming job, but as someone who believed they can change the world with her codes she detested the mega-corporation mentality that prioritized money above all else.
Again the first is what you would do introducing her to people. The second does exactly that but also gives you an insight into who she is. I think the second is obviously how writing can be.
So after reading my own rewrite we communicated several things.

She is changing, and she is getting older.
She is shy.
She is a determined person.
She suffers from insomnia or something similar.

The first thing is that he is aware that she has changed. Which I touched lightly upon with comparing her to the place. I also sat up that changed is going on and still made it impactful. It's like I was ready for a beating but man I was not read for that.
And I have tried to weave emotions with vivid images with memories all into the passage so that it is reasonable to follow the writing and understand what is going on and get a glimpse into her world and emotions. Again you can be like: she feels sad, she found the place, she remembered it differently...etc
Again I love vivid images and ideas. That's why the pond line, in my opinion, makes so much sense. What you wrote is a mere description like a crime scene. But she came back to experience the loss and changes of that place and so adding on stuff about how those things changed from such a sensitive period of her life, again that is me, adds a lot of punch to the whole thing.
Now this did take me time, again writing in English takes me more time, but I actually think that we can even improve on the opening but I'm a bit too lazy to do so. Also it is all about your intent.
Anyway always continue to connect things. The highway line was given but also in a way the tells she was shy. The part about not finding her house easily is also given but again we remembered her doing X.
And the sleep part I think again is connected to the overall story as the late hour is making her yearn to sleep but she is actually denied sleep.
Personally I think there is a flow to writing.
Overall I think I feel that what I wrote is not very catchy which is actually intended.
I have a story about a very strong young wizard that starts with him doing chores for his teacher at school and him complaining for a bit of the first chapter.
I like the opening because things will get crazy, like real crazy, later.
I refuse to believe that all stories need to have super duper catchy lines and neon lights and super heroes fighting against immortal aliens and stuff like that. If the tune of your story is X then write and opening that is X and be simple and honest.
Anyway this is my very first attempt to do this here, so I really don't know what I'm doing. However if it helps then please tell me and in what way.

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