Endre carefully scored the sheet of glass with the blade. Then grasping it in his gloved hands he broke the piece off and placed it in the stack next to him. There were only three days before the opening of the church and he needed to finish this piece, the greatest piece he’d ever been commissioned to do, before then.

As he concentrated on how quickly he must work, the blade slipped and he scarred the glass and ruined that section. Endre sat back. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He needed to focus on the glass, not on how short a time he had.

Opening his eyes, Endre concentrated on the blade touching the glass and drawing it across cleanly. There was nothing else in the world but blade touching glass. There was nothing in the world but to travel that line.

[Timer ran out.]

Opening his eyes, Endre touched blade to glass. There was nothing else in the world but blade touching glass. There was nothing in the world but to travel that line from one end to the other. He drew the blade across.

And there was the final piece. The apprentices came to whisk away the pieces to set them in the frame.

Oh, wait, I was picturing Endre as a master. Maybe he’s an apprentice and a master is not-so-patiently waiting for the final piece to be cut. And there’s an apprentice hovering too, waiting for the piece. I like that better. More tension and perhaps could be reworked to even make sense.

As far as the energy that Roberta Allen said to look for, I like “Endre touched blade to glass. There was nothing else in the world but blade touching glass. There was nothing in the world but to travel that line from one end to the other. He drew the blade across.”

At least I got to the conflict this time and it comes to a conclusion.

Joyce

Let’s see if I get any better after a week or so.

Dordrenna fingered the scar that ran the length of her cheek. She wished it had never happened, of course, but the scar had become a sort of reminder to her not to trust anyone.

When the man entered into the tavern she eyed him warily her fingers itching at her knife. He looked about, scanning the busy crowd. Her eyes rested on him and wanted to remain there though she knew it did not serve her. When his traveling gaze came to hers, it stopped and held hers. He approached.

Crap, she thought. He was easy to look at but she shouldn’t have.

“Dordrenna?” the man asked.

“Yes,” she said, hesitantly, caught off guard. How did he know her name?

“I have a message from your mother,” he said. “My name is Eldrick. She says I’m your father.”

Dordrenna felt the world shift beneath her.

So maybe he gave her the scar and scarred her further by leaving? (I’d have to change the part where he says “She says I’m your father.”) Hopefully he scarred her accidentally! Or maybe like in “A Boy Named Sue” he did it to make her tough.

So I’d need to pack a whole backstory into a single sentence:

Dordrenna fingered the scar along her cheek that her father had given her as a parting gift …

Dordrenna fingered the scar along her cheek, a parting gift from her father before he left her and her mother twenty years ago.

Dordrenna fingered the scar along her cheek, a parting gift from her father before she and her mother fled from him nearly twenty years ago.

Maybe she had a mark on her cheek … maybe there’s a prophecy about a Chosen One …

Hmm. Well, it has possibilities! It might be too much story for a little bitty thing but that could be the challenge of it!

Dordrenna drained her mug of ale as she waited in the tavern for the merchant who had hired her team to guard his shipment. She dragged the back of her calloused hand over her wet lips then across the scar on her cheek. It was a parting gift from her father before she and her mother fled from him nearly twenty years ago into a nervous existence at the fringes of the empire ruled by the demon king.

Finally, a month ago, after nearly fifty years, the demon king had fallen to the arrow of The Marked One just as the prophecies had foretold. Dordrenna and her friends had taken advantage of the ensuing chaos to hire themselves out as escorts. It was the first steady income she and her mother had enjoyed in their twenty years of hiding.

A man entered the tavern. A splotch of red marked his cheek. Blood perhaps? His gaze edged through the crowded tavern like a tower guard seeking aberrance hinting at danger. His clothes were dark and lived-in unlike the merchants who stupidly wore their wealth like banners. When his traveling gaze came to hers it stopped. He approached.

“Dordrenna?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said taking on the wariness he had brought with him. She sucked in her breath. That mark on his cheek wasn’t blood. It was The Mark.

“Your mother told me you would be here. I’m your father. Now that the demon king has been destroyed I can tell you why you needed to flee twenty years ago and why I needed to remove the mark on your cheek that matched mine. May I sit?”