To give you guys an idea of what I’m talk­ing about, here are the open­ing para­graphs for both the new and old ver­sions of Quiver. (A caveat: The for­mat­ting is prob­a­bly going to be wonky. For some rea­son, Word­Press doesn’t like me post­ing in info from other pro­grams, like Word. Ah, well): 

NEW VERSION

 I never set out to be an outlaw.

As Gwen­dolyn Frost, my days and nights were filled with the duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties of any young duchess of my wealth and station.

I never meant to become a vig­i­lante, a ruf­fian, a fiend. Cheered by some, cursed by oth­ers, hunted by many. I never meant to res­cue a hero, take down a tyrant, save a kingdom.

It just sort of … happened.

And it all started, inno­cently enough, deep in the for­est with a sim­ple bow and a quiver full of arrows …

OLD VERSION“You’re going to miss.”

The gruff voice sounded close to my left ear. Foot­steps smacked on the cob­ble­stones behind me, and a body leaned for­ward, brush­ing against my own.

“And miss badly,” the flat tone con­tin­ued in my right ear.

I blocked out the voice. Blocked out the con­stant scuff of foot­steps cir­cling around me, the gloomy words of doom, the warm breath tick­ling my ears and nose with its sharp fla­vor of liver and onions. I blocked it all out until there was noth­ing left but the smooth bow in my hands and the small red smear of the tar­get in the distance.

I lifted the bow to my shoul­der, notched the arrow, and drew back the string with one fluid move­ment. A com­fort­ing motion, as famil­iar to me as a waltz or reel might be to any other young lady of my station.

“You’re going to miss,” the voice repeated, but it was a mere mur­mur now, a buzzing bee in the back­ground of my mind.

My green eyes nar­rowed as I stud­ied the tar­get, using the faint cool spark of magic that I pos­sessed to pull it into focus, until the red smear filled my vision with crys­tal clar­ity. A breeze gusted through the stone court­yard, barely a whis­per against my cheek, but I adjusted my aim accord­ingly. My fin­gers rested on the bow­string the way a musician’s might on a cher­ished violin.

“You’re going to miss—”

I let go.

The arrow sliced through the air, a flash­ing sil­ver blur, before hit­ting the tar­get a hun­dred yards in front of me. Dead center.

So what do you think? Good, bad, indif­fer­ent? Crap­tas­tic all the way around? Share in the comments.