I'm writing a middle grade fantasy about kids who ran from a horrible amusement park, where they were forced to fight each other. Both girls have the ability to see and communicate with magical creatures, and they end up in a twin town where every enemy they had has a twin. I have two beginnings in mind: one where they've already escaped and are walking down the street in a fictional town, when the owners of the amusement park find them, and the other when they're escaping from the amusement park. Which one is better? First one Cathy was miserable. She’d been walking since dawn, and she was exhausted and hungry. A bruise swelled on her left temple, and her torn lower lip pulsed and throbbed with every heartbeat. She could still taste blood, metallic and acidic. Things just couldn’t get any worse. “They’re behind us.” Ruby tugged on her hand. “They’re following us.” Cathy glanced over her shoulder, and chills ran down her spine despite the Californian early September midday heat. Their pursuers were half a block behind, Angelina and her crazy cousin, Sheriff Buddy, the Glock in the holster on his slim hip swinging with every step. “They’re going to take us back,” she whispered in a choked voice. “I can’t go back to that amusement park. I won’t.” "Niether will I." Ruby squeezed her arm. "Let's get rolling. The girls bolted, which wasn't an easy task in a busy street in downtown Mirage. A German Shepherd leapt out of their way with a frightened yelp as they zigzaged around businessmen in flapping black suits that gave them the appearance of crows in flight and loud shoppers with colorful, overflowing shopping bags. Cathy scanned the crowd desperately but kept coming up short. She couldn't sense anything. The power of commonucation didn't work, as if she had no reception in this urban setting. What's the point of having special powers if you can't use them when you need them the most? Second Five steps to freedome. Might as have have been five miles with Sheriff Buddy sitting slumped against the door, snoring like gravel turning in a mixer, the Glock on his holster glistening sinisterly in the moonlight that slanted in through the barred window, the only one the the huge room she and Ruby shared with two grownups and ten other kids. "They're all sleeping. They won't bother us." Ruby advanced toward the door. "And don't worry about sheriff Buddy here. He's passed out from six beer cans and a little something extra I put in one of them. And that pill's strong enough to knock down a horse." "Then maybe you should've kept some for the dogs," Cathy whispered. The five Rottwielers patrolling the amusement park at night weren't pets. They were guard dogs traied to tear to pieces any kid who tried to escape. "You deal with the dogs, and I'll deal with this pile of trash." Ruby bent down, grabbed Sheriff Buddy by the upper arm and the front of his shirt, and dragged him away from the door. But she lost her hold on him, and he dropped to the floor, hitting his head in the process, his shoulder-length, dirty dishwater blond hair bouncing. The thud was like a gunshot in the quiet room. Cathy held her breath. Sheriff Buddy hoisted himself to a sitting position and waved a feeble fist in the air. "Pay me down the money you own me, you cheating bastard," he slurred, his blue eyes glazed under bushy eyebrows. "You got your money, Sheriff Buddy, baby," Ruby croned. "I already payed you." "Oh, that's right. You did." Sheriff Buddy blinked a few times, and then his head dropped on his chest, and he resumed his snoring.
Let me ask you this, though I feel you'll think I'm being irritating. What sorts of writing styles are you trying to go for here? Do you have any particular series novels in mind when writing this? What do you often read? I ask these things because I see a lot of redundancy and cliche, as well as expository dialogue. It's okay, happens to the best of us, but I think you need to recognize that both these introductions, which fall in media res, commit the same errors. I'm also not convinced you have a particular narrative plan in place before you started writing. A general idea, but not a plan. I too like to just see where something goes, but you need a lot more than four hundred words to see where something is really going as you write it. What I would suggest with both of these is to read an egregious amount of literature in the chosen genre, homing in on relative narrative plot scenarios so you can observe what works and what doesn't. Read their works aloud, especially in the dialogue portions. I won't get into actual editting, because this is the wrong section and you have to post two edits of others work before you post your own, but attention to detail should be paid to grammar and typos. Read a bunch. Then come back to it and design your novel's narrative arc. Doesn't need to be a full outline, but at least know what the objectives of your novel are. By then you won't be choosing between intros. You'll already know what way you want to go.
I don't read often, and actually, I thought if I could get a book published, I'd make some money on the side. Nothing I take seriously, more like a side job, moonlighting. Not really sure it's right for me.
I'm not saying give up writing. It can really be a rewarding skill to grow. But it's a skill that you really need to love the end product for. If you're in it for solely making money on the side, it probably isn't the best profession for you to moonlight. Pennies on the dollar and day are what most anyone makes who actually even have a hope of traditional publication for years. Kind of a labor of love. Just go out and read a good number from the genre you want to write in. That'll give you a good base point to start looking. I've found that most the best writers read a ton. A lot more than they write.
Arguments can be made in favor of either approach. In the first you give the character a name right off the bat. That helps inform how the narrative proceeds. The second starts with action. I have used both. It really depends on where you want the story to go.
I found the second one better, but I think it might be a factor of the ideas being clearer in your mind the second time you came to it, rather than it necessarily being a better approach. If you re-wrote the first one again bearing the other feedback in mind, it could be the stronger one. I haven't looked through the first one so closely, but this one seems to have a repeated problem of sentences overrunning, and words repeating. This can happen when the brain is in too much of a rush. It's best to read things back to yourself and edit before showing to people, as whoever you show can then be more helpful. The long part about how the MC does the sleeping pills is telling-not-showing by using the pov character, but it's also redundant and can probably just be cut. The detail of how many in the room is similar. It needs to either be shown in an earlier scene or cut out. We can see there's ten as they escape, perhaps. I don't like this trend that YA or younger stories have to have action on the first couple of pages, but of the two scenes, I thought it had fewer issues and was more readable.
