Picking up from last week’s How Jerry and Betty Became the Least Entertaining Couple in the Neighborhood (Part 1) (or “What’s Wrong With This Story?”), how do we fix the opening without violating the theme of the story?
The original versions were in Betty’s POV, and I still believe her POV and experiences are the throughline of the story; she will go through some real horror here.
But I also realized while traveling through Revisionville was Jerry also goes through horror. A different kind, and still horror (which is now realized at the start of the story).
The solution is to start with both POVs and wean the reader from one or the other as the story progresses.
Here’s the new opening. Let me know what you think.
How Jerry and Betty Became the Least Entertaining Couple in the Neighborhood (first section rewrite)
Jerry didn’t feel right since he returned from Thorine-7. He wiped condensation off the bathroom mirror and stared at himself. All around him pillows of steam pulsed like airborne jellyfish. Their tendrils traced his skin like cold, deep sea tentacles.
Dr. Koss brushed his concerns away with a wave of his hand. “You are experiencing readjustment anxiety, Colonel, and are teaching us much. You traveled the farthest and slept the longest, but nothing you describe is new. Is Betty concerned? Shall I discuss this with her?”
Jerry shook his head. Betty didn’t like Theodore Koss. “I don’t care if he’s NASA’s Chief Medical Officer, I don’t trust him. He makes me feel like everything’s an experiment to him, like he’s waiting for something interesting to happen so he can write it up.”
“Would you rather I not go, Princess? If you don’t want me to go, tell me you don’t want me to go and I won’t go.”
Betty, folding laundry in the living room, three stacks for him, one for her, snorted. “Yeah, right.”
He came up beside her, pulled a pair of his sweat pants from the pile, and folded. “Come on, Betty. I mean it. Just tell me – ”
She took the sweat pants from his hands and refolded them. “Like this. They’ll stack easier.”
“Someday I’ll get it right.”
She put his correctly folded sweats on top of a pile and turned to him. “I’ll make a deal with you.” She handed him a maroon pair of her sweat pants. “Fold those correctly and you can go with my blessing.”
He folded slowly, conscientiously, correctly, and handed them to her.
“You can go.”
He quickly picked up one of her bras, put it on his head so a cup covered each ear, and held a folded pair of socks up to his mouth like a microphone. “Colonel Jerrold Fortin reporting, Admiral. I have the go-ahead from Home Command. Repeat, Home Command responds affirmative.”
She laughed and pulled the bra from his head.
A steam tendril crawled over his shoulder and brought his attention back to today, to the present, to the here-and-now. It seemed the steam thickened for a moment. He caught something in the mirror, behind him, by the shoulder where the steam tendril called his return.
He turned. Nothing.
He mixed shaving soap and water in his shaving mug and lathered his face.
(end of first section)
This is better because…?
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So shorter than before, more is revealed without hitting the reader over the head, and a real threat is established.
Questions or comments? Bring ’em on. They’ll help me craft a better story.
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