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Wet and the only exit results in a cliff.

Skilled or not, criticism that harsh would make me want to stop writing. I'm sure her work is great, but I'm also sure I'd like to avoid her reviews.

-Elisheva

Eeep! I am suddenly very glad she's never caught wind of my work.

-Elisheva

I may not be entirely accurate, but I'm going to attempt some advise-giving here...

In my opinion, the easiest (not the only) way to get a reader to care about a character is to make them relatable. This doesn't mean making them your average Joe or just a regular chip off the ol' block, otherwise no one would care about my dragons (and we all know everyone loves Noi. Or, at least I do). Instead, they need to have a uniqueness about them that the reader can relate to, whether that's through themselves or others. For instance, my dragons are not only siblings, but complete opposites. Dea has a temper while Noi is happy-go-lucky. Either of those traits, or even their relationship with each other, can be relatable to the reader.

In your first chapter, you have two best friends, which is a great thing for the reader to relate to as most of us have at least one good friend in life. I would have them converse with one another as they climb down. This would extend the chapter, avoid taking anything away from the action, and give the reader some insight into the characters.

If you have any troubles squeezing it in there, try writing just dialogue first and filling it out afterwards. That's how I wrote this short story: https://www.thenextbigwriter.com/postin … ance-21833
That first section of dialogue was what I started with and all the description was added later. It really helps to get the scene going as dialogue writes much faster than anything else.

-Elisheva

Hmm... A good suggestion. Now I'll have to figure out how to work Pinterest...

-Elisheva

Hey Kennedy. I'm not sure your whole first chapter got posted, unless you're updating it as you work on the chapter?

Also, we all play hookie at one time or another.

-Elisheva

If you want some simultaneously witty and profane writing advice, you can always go here.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/10 … vel-month/

-Elisheva

I love dragons of all sorts. That's one of the neat things about dragons. As long as it's a winged reptile, it pretty much counts as a dragon, so there's a ton of variety when it comes to different dragon "species".

-Elisheva

I think I might have to write it from the PoV of about three different purses (like three best ladyfriends, or maybe one of them is a "murse"? ), especially considering the variety in purses. For instance, mine has a dragon painted on it (what else?!) and my mom's is like a freaking Black Hole of Doom, and my grandma's is all sparkly and has loads of gum in it (she used to smoke). I might just have to give them names for the sake of silliness. Painted, Stuffy, and Sparkles, maybe?

-Elisheva

Haha! I am crossing my fingers that this scene doesn't extend into multiple books.

I do like to explore different PoV's, though. It's probably one of my favorite things about writing. One of these days, I'm going to write a short story about a woman's life from the PoV of her purse. It sounds like so much fun!

-Elisheva

I've decided to spend my next three-ish chapters describing the same event from three PoV's and none of my characters understand 100% of what's going on. This is going to be interesting.... and will likely take me a while to finish, though I suspect when I do finish it, all three will be posted at once.

Wheeee!

-Elisheva