Elizabeth Jane Morgan

Conflict is what makes a story. Without it, you’re just reading about a character going through events with few, if any, problems. My favorite example is “Mary went to the store and bought some milk.” Not very exciting. But, what if I told you that “Mary went to the store, bought some, milk, and was abducted by aliens”? Now, you want to know what happened. Why would the aliens abduct Mary? Why are they here? Can Mary escape?

Recently, my mom read the sample of a book. She told me that the story was awful. So many bad things happened to the main character, all in a short period of time. There was too much conflict. While my example with Mary and the aliens is straight forward and is more interesting than when she simply went to the store, the sample that my mom read doesn’t seem to know when to quit. Nothing is going right for the main character. She has absolutely no friends and the whole thing sounds miserable. Maybe if the story was about clearing her name and some friends helping her along the way, but no, the story just piles one thing after another onto the main character’s shoulders that you feel exhausted for her. That isn’t a fun story. That’s depressing.

Any story written for fun, should be, well fun. It’s okay to be entertained. Readers want to escape into a good book, follow the characters on grand adventures, and ultimately watch them triumph. That’s what conflict in a story is all about. We want the main character to overcome these obstacles and become a better person. Conflict can help with that, but sometimes, it’s all just a bit too much. The books that resonate with me the longest are the ones with happy endings.

After finishing my book, Silver Rose, I started working on a sequel, Silver Crescent. Earlier this month, I finally finished the rough draft and started editing. I would like to share with you, my dear readers, a sneak peek of Chapter 1 from Silver Crescent.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: The Rhythm of Memories

A flash by the window caught my eye, startling me back to my surroundings and the present. Slowly, my heart racing, I got up and crossed the room to check. My eyes were adjusting quickly to the dark, but I still almost tripped over a loose floor board. Stifling my cry of surprise, I felt my way cautiously, until I made it to the window and looked out.

Whatever I had seen had disappeared. I was staring out at the dilapidated, old town square of Tealeaf, my home town. The village had been destroyed eight years ago, when a powerful golden dragon invaded and attacked, all in an attempt to find and kill me. My mother, Alice, was a witch. She fought and drove back the fearsome dragon, buying us time, but not enough. She managed to escape with me, my brother Malcolm, and my sister Lydia in tow, but our father died in the attack.

As the terrified villagers fled for their lives, Tealeaf was razed almost to the ground. A few buildings survived, like my old house, but even then, it was crumbling.

“Penelope, what are you doing up?”

I spun around, but it was only Mag, staring at me sleepily.

“It’s nothing, Mag. I thought I heard something. Go back to sleep.”

Mag nodded, dropped her head to the floor, and instantly began to snore.

Spoiler Alert.

It’s no secret that good plot twists can make a dull book good and a good book even better. Take City of Bones by Cassandra Clare and The Blacksmith Queen by G.A. Aiken Both have plot twists, but both handle them in different ways. Please note, whatever my own feelings on these books, they are still good books. I just feel that one has a better plot twist than the other.

In City of Bones, we follow Clary Fray, a normal teenager who discovers that she is descended from demon slayers, known as Shadowhunters. During the story, we meet a boy named Jace and Clary gets a crush on him. At the end, it is revealed that Clary and Jace are not only brother and sister, but their dad is the villain, Valentine. Now, this is a good twist. It plays with our emotions, since we want to see Clary and Jace together, but we also don’t want to see it at the same time. It’s a conflict for the reader.

At the time of writing this, I’ve only read about two-thirds of The Blacksmith Queen, but I’ve already gotten past the major twist, so I think it’s fine. The story as I’ve read is that a king has died and his brutal sons are fighting each other for the throne. A blacksmith named Keeley doesn’t see this as a bad thing, since it means more business for her, until a prophecy names her younger sister Beatrix as the new queen. Now the sons are after Keeley’s entire family. Keeley is a talkative character who is friendly with all the good guys, but starts smashing people with her oversized hammer during battle. Beatrix is a quiet bookworm, who is already aloof and very queen-like. Also accompanying them is the middle sister Gemma, who is a warrior. Gemma and Beatrix hate each other. The three of them, along with a couple of other friends, have made it to the Witches, a group of women who mostly focus on math and logic, but they have a seer in their midst. The seer names both Keeley and Beatrix as queens. This should be the twist, right? Well, not quite. Keeley and Beatrix are talking quietly, when Beatrix suddenly pulls out a knife and stabs her sister, almost killing her.

Here’s the problem: is it unexpected? Yes. Is it good for the story? I’ll leave that up to debate. As for me, no. I don’t think it’s good for the story. Throughout the entire first part, everyone we meet has said that Beatrix is plain-looking and that she wastes her time reading. As an author and a reader, I find this rather insulting that reading is seen as “a waste of time.” I wanted to see Beatrix succeed, to prove everyone wrong. She was the underdog hero. I was annoyed when Keeley was named a queen too. It seemed to take away from Beatrix’s victory. Now, it turns out that Beatrix was the bad guy all along. I haven’t been too eager to finish the book, since my favorite character up to this point is suddenly trying to kill her own family. It feels like a twist for twist’s sake to me. Beatrix didn’t have enough of a personality to make her a hero, so let’s just make her a villain instead. And her motivation is that she doesn’t want to considered plain. Great? I don’t know. Maybe the rest of the book picks up, but at the moment, it feels more like a chore to read after this “twist.”

In my opinion, the best twist is the one set up from the beginning. Clary and Jace meet in the first couple of chapters, so they have plenty of time to develop crushes on each other, before it’s all ripped away. In The Blacksmith Queen, it just seems to come out of nowhere. If this is the type of twist you like, I think you will really enjoy this book. As for me, though, I think it’s time for me to move on and read another book.

On October 8th, my family and I took a trip to The Living Desert, the local botanical garden and animal park. It was me, my parents, two brothers, and nephew. We were there for about three hours and it was three hours well spent. The three most interesting animals were the coyote, mountain lion, and bobcat.

We saw the coyote first and we must have shown up during meal time, since at least two of the coyotes were running around, excited. The third coyote just stared at the other two from where he lay, obviously wondering what all the racket was about. One coyote even stood on a rock and howled. I’ve never actually heard a coyote howl before, so that was exciting.

The mountain lion was active. A couple of people were there with a child. The lion kept running at the glass, trying to get to the little girl. It reminded me of when I was about three and looking at a leopard. The leopard paced on his side of the glass, licking his lips, thinking that I might make a good snack. I ran and hid behind my mom’s leg. The big cats’ natural instincts are to hunt small prey and this child looked like prey to her.

The cutest out of the three was definitely the bobcat. He was playing with a ball, batting it to and fro, acting like a housecat. As we watched, however, the ball came rolling toward us and got tangled in some wire. The bobcat pawed at the ball, until he got it free, at which point, he started playing again. He actually knocked the ball into the air, brushing the leaves of a low hanging tree.

All in all, it was a fun day. We saw so many cute and interesting animals, like a bighorn sheep standing on its own private rocky hill, a tortoise flipping another tortoise from its shell back onto his feet, and even a couple of wolves chasing each other. The animals were truly a joy to see.

On the Friday before Labor Day, I had to take a train. I was going to meet my parents, who were working to clean out our condo, so they can sell it. I stayed for five days, before heading home. My trip down, however, was more eventful than I expected.

When I got to the train station, I found out that Labor Day weekend is very popular for travel. It didn’t really mean much to me at the time, because my destination was only three stops away. The train arrived and I headed for one of the rear cars, thinking it would be more peaceful and quiet than if I was in the front. The trip went well. We got past the first two stops and I grabbed my bags in preparation to get off. Just before we stopped, I headed for the doors and they wouldn’t open. I could see that we were in the right station, but I couldn’t get off the train.

Panicking, I started looking for another door, even heading back through my car, desperately searching for a way out. I even asked some random passenger if he knew the way out. Finally, I found my way to a door with a guard… just as the train started to move. Panting, I hurried to the guard and tried to explain the situation. Luckily, it turned out that this was planned. The guard told me that they were just pulling up slightly and that they would let me off. I practically ran onto the platform, once the doors opened.

I found my parents quickly, so they were the only people still waiting on the platform. Once I calmed down enough, I learned that because Labor Day is a popular travel day, the train employees had added a couple of extra cars to the end of the train. They weren’t able to let me off originally, because my car wasn’t in front of the platform, but still in the middle of the track.

Well, I was able to help my parents clean up the condo, but I learned an important lesson that day: do not underestimate the popularity of trains on Labor Day.

I self-published Silver Rose back in October 2017. Since then, I’ve been working on the sequel, Silver Crescent. And working, and working, and working. I must have started and restarted that book at least two dozen times. I just couldn’t seem to get the beginning right. Then, a couple of months ago, I restarted again. This version is actually working.

In the last couple of months, but especially in August, my writing’s been going much better. I’m currently around page 64. I’ve added thirty pages in the last couple of weeks alone! Writing is so much more fun when it’s going well.

Silver Crescent Sample Paragraphs

I jerked awake to the sound of beating drums. The sound was loud, persistent, and unsettling, like somebody’s irregular heartbeat right in my ear. After a few moments, the sound faded away and I was left alone with the crickets and my two sleeping companions.

Just a dream, I thought, closing my eyes, but sleep eluded me as my mind raced.

Ba-bum! Ba-bum!

I sat bolt upright. There it was again. I glanced sideways. My friends, Mag and Artie, didn’t even stir.