Then & Now: A Year In Writing

By Lori Scharf

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It’s pretty hard to believe how much has happened this year. It seems like every time I turn around lately, another month has gone by. However, when I look back at my writing, I realize just how much has changed. I’ve come a long way from the girl who struggled to finish a page, much less a chapter.

I joined YWW in August of 2022, knowing pretty much nothing about writing but with a head full of ideas and ready to learn. I thought that it would be cool to publish a book someday, but I was sure that was miles in the future, and of course, writing could only ever be a side hobby, never an actual job. Little did I know that not only was a writing career possible, but I could start now.

I’ve come so far in this last year, and now I want to share some milestones with you guys.

First off, here’s an excerpt from one of my very first projects, Warrior: Darkness Rising:

I, JENNIFER ANASTASIA REDMAN (my friends and family call me Jenny), feel like a normal 13 year old. Well, as normal as a girl can with her mother yelling at you to ‘hurry to finish your chores so you won’t be late for school’. I hurried. When I was finished I kept hurrying as I went to the front porch to pick up my backpack. Of course Jeffery and James had beaten me there. Somehow, no matter how much I hurried they always managed to get there first. One time they hadn’t finished their chores and dad had found out about it. Let’s just say they didn’t do that again. Mom handed me my backpack, and I swung onto my bike and headed to the shed at the end of the driveway.

 Dad had built it a couple years back so we would have somewhere to wait for the bus in the winter and stash our bikes in the summer. It was just an insulated shed with a bench, but we are sure thankful for it on those really frigid days.

 Right then he was mowing the west ditch. As we waited (we were outside since it was so warm and the bus would be here any minute) dad swung by on the mower and said,

“I’ve got everything ready for the lesson later. I assume you all know the drill?”

“Yes Dad!” we chorused. We had been doing this for years.

“Ok,” he said, “I’ll send out a group text.”

 I climbed onto the bus and headed toward my usual seat and sat beside my best friend Jasmine just as her phone dinged. She looked up from her phone and smiled at me.

“Hey girl! I just got your dad’s text about the lesson for this afternoon! There’s nothing like a good sparring match to break-up a boring week.”

“Your Dad gone on another business trip?” I asked

“Yeah, it’s been real quiet at home.”

Jasmine’s family is REALLY tight knit. Her dad is the type who you couldn’t be in a room with for more than 30 seconds without bursting into laughter. Naturally, he’s in public relations. Unfortunately, that means he was out of town quite regularly. Jasmine and her Mom tried to make the best of things, but it was still pretty quiet around the house when he’s gone.

“He’ll be sad he missed a lesson. This’ll be the first one he’s missed since Caleb….” She trailed off. 

Jasmine’s brother Caleb had been killed in a car accident a year earlier. He had been the #1 student of her dad’s lessons, and he had been coming home from one when he was hit by a drunk driver. Jasmine might have been in the car with him if she and I hadn’t had a spur of the moment sleep-over. Ever since then, her family had tried to spend as much time as possible together.

 Jasmine’s phone dinged again, and she shook her head and read the text.

“On a lighter note, my mom just texted to say that we are going to try out the new sushi place after the lesson, and that you’re welcome to join us, she’s already cleared it with your mom!” 

“Sushi!?” I said, “Count me in!” 

Jasmine laughed

Warrior: Darkness Rising, Chapter 1, January 2022

As you can see, the beginning is full of info-dumps, run-on sentences, and not very engaging. I know now that the first chapter of you book is the absolute most important part. This was written 6 months before I joined YWW. In that time I wrote a total of 3 chapters. I was not at all consistent, and really had no idea what I was doing.

About a month after I joined YWW, I went back and basically re-did the entire thing, changing the Main Character, Point of View, and even the world it was set in.

“One day the Warriors will come, and on that day, all darkness shall flee.”

~Zanilda, Messenger of the Shining One

Veanna still remembered the first time she heard the Story. She couldn’t have been more than 3 years old. She had heard fragments about ‘the Warriors’ and ‘The Second Half’ of course, but she didn’t really know what they meant. Then one of the Elders held a meeting of all the children who were going into their 4th year, and told them the Story. This is how it is every year. And then they are told the Story over and over, until they can tell the Story themselves, beginning to end. Her village lived and breathed the Story because it was their only hope. The Warriors must come, or they will be thwarted, snuffed out. Vee believes the Warriors will come. Someday. The Shining One wouldn’t preserve them this long, and then let them be destroyed. Would He? 

This doubt is spread throughout the village. Some have given up hope that they will ever come. Everyone at least pretends to believe in the Story; but many do not have faith in their hearts. She has faith in The Shining One, so she would always have hope, but she also thought the Warriors will take part in His plan of deliverance. 

Warrior: Darkness Rising, Chapter 1, September 2022

As you can see, this beginning is much more engaging. It’s still a bit rough, but not nearly as bad as the original.

Fast-forwarding another month, we come to Inktober 2022, and my next project.

Priscilla edged around the side of the castle, waiting for Thomas to distract the guards so she could sneak in the side door.  There was a loud snap and then a blaze of light. Good. He’s setting off the Flash Fires. The guards went running towards the woods, leaving only one distracted looking guard at the door. She picked up 5 similarly sized pebbles, then with a flick of the wrist, tossed them, one at a time, in the direction of the forest. The result was what sounded like footsteps on the gravel. The guard looked up, then cautiously walked toward the sound, sword drawn. That was all the break Priscilla needed. She ducked into the door, fastening it behind her. Now to get past the guards at the inner wall. Thankfully, there was a merchant’s cart standing right against it. Using the additional height that gave her, she took advantage of her strong yet petite form, jamming her fingers into the crevices between the stones and started climbing. She knew it was about 35 feet tall, and highly defensible. But no one was expecting anyone, much less a girl, to be climbing straight up the castle wall in the middle of the night in a time of peace. When she got to the top, she crouched and servade her surroundings. She saw a side door that was unguarded. The soldiers were all in a jumble, pacing and muttering about the commotion outside. She crossed the top of the wall, which was about 12 feet thick, and leapt to the roof of the nearby chapel. Why Elwseia even had a chapel was beyond her.

  It was times like these that made her thankful for her elven genes, they allowed her to climb, jump, and move quietly but quickly along any surface with ease. Quickly, she slid off the roof and onto the ground. Then she scurried through the door on the side of the castle  and turned to lock it behind her. When she turned around she inhaled sharply, stifling a scream. There was a huge eagle, perched on a piece of stone jutting from the wall! And it was looking straight at her, wings raised. She stood there, petrified, waiting for it to move, to attack. It didn’t. Then she realized it wasn’t alive at all, it was only an intricately carved stone gargoyle. She sighed in relief and headed toward the large spiral staircase in front of her. She had to get to the prince, before it was too late.

Prince’s Bounty, Chapter 1, October 2022

The formatting and grammatical structure of this snippet isn’t perfect, but I still think this is pretty good. You get a pretty good idea of who the character is and the state of the country she’s in just from this first paragraph.

Skipping ahead to April of 2023 (around the same time I launched this blog), this Is an excerpt from near the end of one of my shorter projects.

Phoenix had been ignoring Conner’s calls all week. She had left a voicemail telling him the full extent of what he had done. Aya was distant. Violet was quiet and moody. Phoenix felt as if her world was coming apart at the seams. She sat alone at the kitchen table. Joe was at a friend’s house for the night, and the big house felt hollow. Suddenly the doorbell rang. She got up and went to the door, opening it to reveal Conner himself.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, turning all her pain to ice, all of which was infused into her tone. 

Conner looked taken aback. “You wouldn’t answer my calls or my texts! I didn’t have any choice but to come in person!”

“What’s so important?” she asked, still pure ice.

“I just… I wanted to say I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t mean anything by it! I just wanted a front page article.”

“Sorry doesn’t alway fix everything. Ayden had to skip town because of that article, breaking two hearts in the process! There are people after him, Conner! You put him, as well as everyone who knows him, in danger!” Conner began to speak, but Phoenix went on. “More than that, you broke my trust.” Phoenix felt her walls of ice begin to melt under the fire of her emotions. “I confided in you as a friend, and you took that trust and used it for your own gain!” her eyes filled with tears. “I trusted you. And now things can never be the same.” She closed the door in his face. 

There, in the darkness of her foyer, she slid down the closed door to the floor, sobbing.

When Past Becomes Present, Chapter 10, April 2023

The comparison to her internal thoughts and feelings to ice works super well here. As you can see, my word craft has gotten better in this interval.

Now let’s go to the first chapter of my Inktober project from this year.

Rain’s shoes scuffed along the road of packed sand. She’d been wandering around the capitol for days and hadn’t gotten much work as a carrier. Usually there were at least a few late night deliveries of black market items, but not this week. 

Thrist tugged at the back of her throat. She needed to find a pub soon, as the desert heat was taking its toll. She’d thought the drought had been bad in the northern cities, but this was worse than even she’d imagined. Of course, the Royal Family wouldn’t mind the heat, they had the Fire Gift after all, but Rain was already sick of it. She passed through the gates of the palace, aiming for the other side of the town where most of the pubs were located, instead of going all the way around the huge structure. Rain’s head swam as she stared up at the spiraling towers, which were fairly glowing in the heat. Black began creeping into the edges of her vision. No! Not here, not now! She took a few wavering steps, trying to orient herself. Water. I need water. But it was too late. Her world descended into a spiraling mess, then darkness. 

Thicker Than Water, Chapter 1, October 2023

I still love this beginning. It’s fast-passed and attention-grabbing, like all first chapters should be! You get a glimpse into her character, as well and the world and her surroundings, all without info-dumping.

Now, here’s an excerpt from the most resent thing I’ve written, Snippet 15 of City Ablaze. (Super sorry I didn’t get this up on Saturday guys, hopefully this will tide you over.)

Fin tensed as the lock on the door scraped open. He shot a glance at the dark corner where Keira resided, using what little power she had left to conceal herself. She had told him about what she had heard from the guards about what had been done to people who crossed the Rulers, and his gut clenched. This would not end well for him. 

The door swung open and a flashlight was pointed at his face. “Up!” The guard barked. Shackles were clamped on his wrists as soon as he stepped foot outside the cell. He was pushed along a corridor, the hard metal bodies of the Trupers pressed in all around him. They passed through a maze of stairs and corridors until they came to a heavy metal door with a small thick glass window near the top. The head Truper pushed it open, and two others dragged Fin through the door. A man, tall with dark hair, stood gazing out the window at the City, glowing in the mid morning light.

“Sit, we brought the prisoner, as you requested.” The head Truper said.

“Yes, yes, very good. You may leave us now.”

The two Trupers holding Fin up dropped him to his knees, then left the way they had come. Fin resented this pose, but was too weak to stand up again, especially with his hands shackled behind him. He waited in silence for the man in front of him to speak, knowing that’s what he wanted. 

Finally the man turned. He was young, good looking too. And strong, in more ways than one as his high position as Supreme Dictator, ahem, that is, president. Fin didn’t believe a word of the supposed democracy surrounding this man. They were all puppets; pawns in his game of power. “Well, long time no see.” He said it so nonchalantly, like they were two friends casually meeting on the street. 

“What do you want, Drake?” Fin growled with more bravado then he actually felt. 

Drake laughed. “Please, you know what I want. And please, drop the formalities, brother.”

City Ablaze, Snippet 15, November 2023

As you can see, things have changed a lot since the first chapter of Warrior.

If you’re just starting out, I hope this post will encourage you to keep going. The only way to get better, is to keep writing, reading, and learning.

I still have a long way to go before I’m ready to publish, and in the meantime, I’ll keep learning.

Until next time,

-Lori