Introducing Murdered Darling Mondays

Murdered Darling Mondays? Since when? It's a new feature that you'll be seeing once or twice a month. The reason I'm introducing the feature is because--

1) I love teasers. It's one of my favorite features on other blogs.

Plus--

2) I think teasers are a great way to create a fan base. If I like someone's teasers, I have a huge drive to follow their publication progress and read their book when it comes out.

But Murdered Darling Mondays are not quite like Teaser Tuesdays. Any of the teasers you read here really are murdered darlings. For those of you new to writerly slang, that means bits of prose that I loved, but for whatever reason, didn't make the final cut.

Okay. I see some people raising their eyebrows. Why, you may be wondering, does the distinction matter?

Really quick lesson in copyrights. Once a person writes anything (in the US,) they automatically have the copyright on that work. The moment a person shares their work in any public forum, this may, or may not, be considered "publishing" it. This isn't such a big deal in the physical world of hardcopies. If you print off a draft of your WIP, nobody is going to run around congratulating you for getting published. No publisher is going to get upset if you later try and sell the work.

Where this idea of being published matters is on the web. On the web, information is both public and permanent. What you or I post now may live forever in archives and may be read by millions. And later on, if you intend to try and sell the work, having bits of it already out there makes the real publishers squirmy. Will they refuse to publish the book? Probably not. Will they ask you to stop posting teasers? I've seen it happen before, yes.

So. Back to murdered darlings. I have concluded that I love teasers, they make for bigger fanbases, and this is the perfect way to showcase work I loved that has no other opportunity to see the light of day.

"Well Great Scott," you cry, "Why bother telling us all that? Why not just post the teaser and be done with it?"

Well. I'm an overly conscientious person, that's why. Murdered darlings are scrapped work. The quality isn't always fifth- or sixth- draft. It might be first draft, or second. I'll skim for errors before posting (no screaming errors) but it won't be shiny or anything. And I thought you deserved fair warning.

Today, because this was an introductory post, I don't have a full-fledged darling for you. But here's a baby teaser just to give you a taste of what's to come.


Today's teaser from MIRRORPASS, draft 1, chapter 1.
Cut in draft 3.

* * *

Distantly,

A sound.

A thin whistle made by rock plunging through the atmosphere.

Its cord trailing behind, igniting from friction, disappearing in an instant.

The crystal burned, but did not burn up. It pierced the wind, pulled by something stronger than gravity, by a current stronger than that of the deepest seas. It had become part of Aria. It followed her, even though its glow had died and its depths were empty. All it could do was send out a shockwave vibe of her essence, of the last things she’d felt before passing through the sphere. It called to her, to the universe.

"Help me. Help us. Come!"

Around the world, a thousand murmurs reached to the sky. Did you see it? That flicker, there? Did you see?

It fell, and the whistle sounded like a name cried endlessly.

"Aaaaairaaa…"

* * *

MIRRORPASS is a YA Science Fiction novel currently undergoing edits. To learn more, check out the WIP page.

Do you like the idea of Murdered Darling Mondays? Want to join me? If you decide to participate in this feature, feel free to linkback in the comments, and share the murdered darling love!

Truly and always,
-Creative A