From Draft to Hook: How I Found the Real Opening of The Upcoming Donna: Dahlia

---

Behind-The-Scenes: I Cut 1,000 Words from Chapter One--Here's Why

Reading time: ~6 minutes

I thought my book opened with a secret recording in a high school classroom. It didn't. It started the moment the pen touched the paper.

Before vs. After: the real opening

Before: the original opening (cut)

Note: This is from my earliest draft.

Scorched Earth

***

August 1^st, 2020—Rockcrest Harbor High School

From the hall, Mariam’s voice is unmistakable—Thomas’s, too. I lift my phone and record, steady as a scalpel. When they finish, I slip away with everything I need. I flip through the pictures, texts, and videos of evidence I’ve gathered. My fist clenches.

This city belongs to them—my family. Mariam has always acted jealous whenever I display any sort of happiness, my father’s comments are barbed, and my mother never believes me when I tell her about it. I don’t know what has made them decide to ruin my life, but I refuse to let them think they have a say any longer.

My grandmother Jane is right. I shouldn’t trust anyone in this city. I thought Thomas was going to be my good luck charm, he is the reason I stayed here, but looks like three divorces is my end result. In one month, I’m gone. But first, I salt the earth.

I slide into my car and turn on the engine, letting the Bluetooth thrum to life between the car and my phone. Then I slide my sunglasses into position and toss my long black hair behind my shoulders.

I double-check the time, realizing it is evening where she is before I give in and call my grandmother Jane. We’d only been talking for a year, but she’s one of two people I trust. She quickly answers with an excited tone.

“Good evening, min kjære (my dear)!” My grandmother’s voice rings clear as I put the car in drive and pull out of the parking lot right as my sister and husband walk outside while adjusting their clothes; thankful they don’t notice me, but I see them and I grin. “I take it you got what you needed?”

“Ever since we got you the keys to that place, they’ve been trying to find ways to get access to it.” My grandmother sighs, her tone sounding disappointed and I hear a few things ruffling in the background on her end, my focus on the road but I glance at the phone. “They just want another way to control you.”

“I thought Thomas was different, but I was wrong. Who knew this is how my life would turn out?” I turn my car toward home. “I don’t even want to give him a chance to contest it so it’s for the best I make sure the house keys are in Dominique’s hands first. Plus, I’m planning the reveal. They can’t know that I know until the right moment.”

I had to deal with my parents and sister bugging me about the property alone. Anyone I take a true liking to, they isolate me from, especially people who would care, and places I can feel safe in. The mansion is the first place they haven’t been able to reach.

Now that I know this has all been a ploy to ruin any chance I have at happiness, I’m no longer going to hold back. The fuse has been lit, the party is going to be explosive, in more ways than one, and I’m here for it. I’m going to enjoy watching everything my family loves fall apart.

“You’ve been holding back on your ruthlessness for a long time, haven’t you, min kjære (my dear)?” She titters in glee; happy I am finally biting back and I am biting hard. “I always told you to stay quiet and smart but pay attention to how things make you feel. Tracking down this phone number for you was all I could use my resources to do and that took me TOO long. Now, they’ve turned you into a scorned woman.”

I press my tongue to my teeth, eyes flicking to my backup phone in the console before looking back at the road. My grandmother isn’t wrong. I’ve been renting out my mansion occasionally—they have no idea. With access to my new funds, I began looking at the reality of my situation with my family and my sister’s clear favoritism.

I moved to an apartment; soon after, I met Thomas at my favorite coffee shop. The man I married is a figment of my imagination, the real Thomas cheats on me with my sister and makes plans with her behind my back to ruin my life and steal my property. I angle my head back, eyes narrowing. I’ll make them pay for this.

“They all hurt you. But they took it too far this time.” My grandmother snaps me out of my thoughts, and I park the car then lean back in my seat. “I feel like I could have done more, but because you were getting too wise to their mental and emotional abuse when you were a child, they removed my place in your life. I’m so sorry, Dahlia.”

“It’s not your fault, Gran-Gran.” The real me bleeds through, my cold and distant image shattering. “My father and mother used friendships you didn’t expect them to have, and almost got you deported.”

Thomas thinks I’m dependent on him entirely; I just let him pay the bills. I have just enough money saved up to pay for the trip to where my grandmother is. The only thing I’ve paid for is a maid to come cook and clean at his house.

“I just can’t believe it. They put all three of those men on your path just to hurt you.” My grandmother sighs softly, and I open the car door outside my small mansion. “How could your mother allow this?”

“Honestly, by this point, I am no longer surprised. The only thing that prevented me from leaving sooner was the hope for love.” I get out of the car, balancing my phone in one hand, purse in the other. “I was going to tell Thomas in April about my plan to move… when I caught him in bed with Mariam.”

For some reason, that woman wants to ruin me. Their plan was to keep me quietly at home so they could continue treating me like a slave, until I break mentally, physically, and emotionally. I pull my keys out of my purse before unlocking the door. Come to find out, I can’t trust anyone in this city. Just a few more weeks and the mansion will be out of their reach.

***

August 16^th, 2020—Faking It

With the sale to Dominique complete, the makeup anniversary party to replace the one I canceled four months ago—and my husband’s and sister’s ruin—begins tomorrow. Everything is going perfectly, and Thomas is completely unaware. I am also ready to leave everything behind.

My grandmother secured the ticket with funds I’d secretly transferred, and only Dominique knows my destination. The plan is to buy back the mansion from her once the divorce is complete, and rent it out so I will have a steady income while getting back on my feet.

Thomas walks in late from work, as usual, and kisses my cheek from behind as I start preparing dinner. Heat climbs my ears as he wraps his arms around my waist, but my mind is already gone. There is just one thing left to do. I need to get his signature on the divorce papers by the end of the night.

All I have to do is ply him with drinks then mention the remodel he thinks I have been working on at the mansion needing his signature since he’s ‘paying for the remodel.’ He is, in a way, paying for my mansion’s ‘remodel.’ It’s getting all new furniture on his dime so my future rental customers can have something nice with their temporary stays.

“Sorry I’m late, honey, I got caught up at work. I only work tomorrow morning then took the rest of the day off for our anniversary, though, so I’ll make it up to you.” He smiles apologetically. “Tonight, I just want to relax with you.”

“You’re so sweet.” I know he’s lying about working late, he was with Mariam, but I keep my silence with a smile that shows none of my thoughts. “Let’s have some drinks with dinner. A pre-anniversary celebration with just you and I before we see everyone tomorrow at the party.”

“I’m not looking forward to seeing your family again.” He gripes in what I now can see is fake annoyance as he crosses his arms over his chest. “But they are still family so I’m sure they will not cause a scene.”

That’s all I need to know—they’re planning something. I heard whispers of some kind of plan to make this anniversary unforgettable. Good thing all my plans are set in stone. I have enough evidence to ruin them. Dinner is cooked and on the table in minutes.

I try to not gag when he slides his hands up and down my sides. My skin crawls beneath his touch, my mind flashing images of those same hands on my sister. I force my lips into a smile, grateful that the knot of emotion that once tightened my chest at his touch has dissolved into nothing.

Just one more day. One more performance. He presses his back against me and kisses my neck, but I shrug my shoulders and giggle like I’m being playful, then playfully slap him away. Thomas chuckles and walks toward the table as I start setting it.

“What do you do all day, honey?” he asks as he sits down, and I sit next to him, hoping he hasn’t noticed I’ve been planning to leave him, and my fingers tense in my lap as the idea of my plans being ruined has fear building in my chest until he clarifies. “What I mean is, I know you stay at home all day, but what do you do while here?”

“I cook and clean, mostly.” I lie with a sweet smile on my lips, mixing in some truth. “Especially with summer around the corner, I want the house to be clean so we can go on our usual vacation with no worries. Spring is cleaning season for a reason!”

He knows my routines. My father’s tracker sees to that—Mother called it “for safety.” His glass empties and I quickly refill it with more liquor while we eat, knowing his limit is three full glasses of this particular brand. I want him just drunk enough that things are blurry. It doesn’t take long for him to get wasted.

I know what I am doing is wrong, but so is teaming up with my sister to ruin me. Plus, the signature isn’t my only lever. With all the evidence I’ve collected over the past few months, any attempt to tarnish my name will be canceled out by just how messed up what they’ve done to me is.

“Mariammm….” He slurs his hand sliding around my waist, and the contact makes a shiver roll down my spine. “The plans tomorrow…”

I shake my head. I have something more important to do right now, whatever they’re planning won’t overshadow mine. I spent months planning for this moment and cannot fail to get the signature before I leave for Arkden Way, my grandmother’s hometown. I can submit the document tomorrow.

I’ll do it before going to the anniversary party his partners and family are hosting for us as part of a gala to support divorcées.  That will definitely hurt his image. Getting served at a gala for divorcées? Delicious. I present the divorce papers beneath some fake paperwork for the remodel I drafted on my computer.

“The contractor needs your signature for the remodel,” I say softly, watching as he takes the pen and looks through drunken eyes at the paperwork, before I point at the signature line at the bottom of the page. “Right here, honey.” After: the final opener (publishing soon!

Note: This is the version you'll see in Chapter 1.

Scorched Earth

***

August 16^th, 2020—So begins

His pen scratches the line. The weight lifts. He doesn’t read; he never does. My fingers trace over his signature slowly, my breath steadying. It’s done. I exhale sharply, a sound that feels like triumph. I’ve taken my life back. I shift the papers out of his sight, then take his hands.

Thomas is a good-looking man—short black hair, brown eyes, fit but not bulky. He acts sweet. I know the truth. They’ve been having an affair our entire relationship. Looking back, I can see how obvious it was that I almost want to slap myself for not realizing it sooner.

Despite claiming to hate her, I often caught him glancing at her assets. Sometimes I caught him flirting with her, and he’d play it off as mocking her for not being married. He can pretend all he wants; now that I know the truth, I won’t keep up the act.

Why I changed it

• Start with agency, not discovery

  • The signature is a decisive, irreversible action. Starting there puts Dahlia in control from the first line.

• Pacing and momentum

  • The classroom scene was lurid and expository. The final opener compresses motive into subtext and rockets forward.

• Tone calibration

  • I swapped melodramatic vows ("burn their world") for a colder, surgical voice ("salt the earth," "The weight lifts.").

• Ethical/practical stakes

  • I shifted the evidence reveal to an audio-only plan (faces blurred, location masked, timestamped metadata). It feels smarter and safer--and says a lot about the narrator.

• Reader trust

  • By removing repeated sighs/eye-narrows/touch beats, the prose reads cleaner and more intentional.

What I cut (and what I used instead)

Draft Element	Why it got cut	What replaced it
On-page sex recording	Sensational but slowed the narrative; front-loaded exposition	The pen signature (agency + consequence)
Repeated "burn the world"	Dramatic echo diluted impact	One signature line: "But first, I salt the earth."
Frequent "I sigh/my eyes narrowed" tags	Told feelings; risked melodrama	Concrete physicality: "The weight lifts." "Heat climbs my ears.
Long courthouse info-dump	Momentum drag	Snappier exchange + clear call to watch the reveal.
Vague revenge mechanics	Credibility gap	Audio-only with masking + timestamps (plausibility)

Craft takeaways

• Open on consequence: If you can start at the moment a choice becomes irreversible, you've found your opening.

• One signature line > three echoes: Pick the sharpest phrase and let it carry.

• Subtext beats summary: Let a single specific (pen scratching; a breath that feels like triumph) do the work of a paragraph.

• Plausibility is a power-up: Tiny choices (audio-only, masking, tracker logistics) increases reader trust--and tension.

• Scene economy: One motive per scene. Cut digressions, bank the energy for the next turn.

Process notes (for fellow writers)

• I wrote 1,000+ words of a discovery scene I loved. Cutting it hurt. But when I grafted the "signature" paragraph to the front, everything downstream got faster, meaner, clearer.

• Litmus test I used: If a paragraph didn't change the situation or escalate the risk, it left.

• New habit: I read the first page out loud. If I could feel a speed bump, I cut or tightened.

Content advisories (for readers)

• Themes: Infidelity, domestic/emotional abuse (non-graphic), alcohol use, revenge plotting.

• No explicit sexual content; no graphic violence. Suggested rating for this chapter: Teen/16+. Suggested rating for the book? Mature/18+.

Tell me in the comments:

Would you have opened on discovery--or the signature?