First line: majority rules

 

Here's what NY agent Betsy Lerner had to say about my first line:

Winter was coming – I could smell it.  

I liked the simplicity here, too. We have no idea who the speaker is, who the first person narrator is, but I feel  like I do. I think this simple sentence is filled with foreboding. Winter is coming, no doubt, but what else: Trouble? Pain? Violence? To me, it's pregnant with possibility.

And so, given this and what many others had to say, I'm sticking with it. Happily, I should add. (See my post below for the alternative.)

Do check out Lerner's blog: The Forest for the Tress. She's irreverent, poetic, caustic, shocking and moving. Her book by that title, on writing, is also very good. 

Now: back to the rest of the puzzle of The Next Novel — which I've now titled: This Bright Darkness. 

What do you think?