Wench Pat here:
Ah beginnings! I may have mentioned before that I adore beginnings, so much so that I could easily spend a hundred pages writing an opening rather than dive into the conflict. I love world building. I’d happily build churches and businesses and cottages and castles and people them with the inhabitants of my imagination if anyone would buy books like that. But for some odd reason, readers want characters to DO something, not just stand around engaging in witty banter and intelligent discourse inside my lovely crystal ball.
As I told Loretta, she may have writing gods, but I have writing imps who fill my brain with lots of lovely scenery, then disappear into the trees to laugh and giggle while I struggle to figure out which scene to 
use where. Because I learn about story and character as I write, I usually dump tons of information into the opening that doesn’t need to be there. So once I’ve decided on an opening scene, I have to sit down and squeeze all my perambulations out of the verbiage until I reach the essence, then rebuild again to form the picture I want.
But as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, so does the idea of what is essential for an opening. I adore writers who can write great opening lines like: “Hughes got it wrong, in one important detail. You will have read, in TOM BROWN, how I was expelled from Rugby School for drunkenness, which is true enough, but when Hughes alleges that this was the result of my deliberately pouring beer on top of gin-punch, he is in error. I knew better than to mix my drinks, even at seventeen." (George MacDonald Fraser, FLASHMAN) Doesn’t that give you an immediate picture of Flashman?
Or how about an immediate picture of story: “My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor's army blew a hole in the wall of God's eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment....”( IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN by Sarah Dunant) If you don’t keep reading after that line, you must know the book already!
Openings like those are an art form and convey the voice of the book in hopes of catching the attention of readers who appreciate that particular style. I, on the other hand, am victim to a Uranian tendency to vary my openings to suit the story and characters without much thought to voice or style. I’m a pragmatist, after all, and prefer to provide the reader with as much information as possible to to entice them with characters, situations, and settings. (After all, my world building tendencies have to have an outlet!)
I’ll give you a sneak peek at the opening of my July book, MYSTIC RIDER, as an example. For the fun of it, see if you can tell which paragraphs (blue or red) are the final copy and which are early drafts.
A curl of smoke from Aelynn’s peak dimmed the quarter moon’s silver glow, creating a black sky for the stars to dance and spin across, speaking a language known only to the Ancients.
Smoke rising from the Mystic Isle’s highest peak dimmed the glow of the quarter moon, casting a foreboding shadow over the drooping leaves of the tropical jungle at the mountain’s foot.
Gripping his six-foot staff with practiced hands, Iason Olympus effortlessly swung the stout oak between both hands in faster and faster circles over his head, while gazing upward into the starlit bowl of the heavens. The tropical night was humid, and beads of moisture gradually formed upon his brow as the staff spun even faster.
Undeterred by the prophetic gloom, Ian Olympus gripped his six-foot-tall oak staff with both hands and adjusted his breathing until he reached the center where his soul resided. As the island of Aelynn’s only Sky Rider, he was attempting his visionary journey once more in an effort to subdue the abnormal weather that was crippling his home and his people. Previous efforts had failed, but perhaps this time…
The actual excerpt is on my website at www.patriciarice.com. You’ll find your answer there.
Once you see which paragraphs will go into the book, can you see why I revised them? Surprisingly, I actually used the same opening scene as I started with. The example above isn’t the very first draft since I edit as I write, but it’s several edits and revisions from the final.
You won’t hurt my feelings if you prefer one over the other because I wrote both the way I did for a purpose, but I’d like to hear opinions of why you prefer them. I can tell you that I was trying to achieve atmosphere in first draft, and then edited to add facts and situation, probably not the smartest method of moving forward. But that scene was clearly in my head and I needed to get the feel, color, scents, and sound in place before I fretted over extraneous detail. <G>
I’ll send a copy of MYSTIC GUARDIAN, the first book of the Mystic series, to a random commenter. (hmm, all my comments are random…) And if you’d like to hear more or discuss other facets of the writing life, stop by my daily journal at patriciarice.blogspot.com. I'm out of my office this week, so I have no writing life, but I'll be back shortly!