100 % Review Forum Two intros to choose from - He..

tdd

Two intros to choose from - Help?

10 Years Ago

Hello people,

I don't like to share my work with people who actually know me so I thought I'd give strangers a shot. I have a book I've written that I'd like to market to the teen/pre-teen demographic. The original intro is a little dark so I've written an alternative intro that is much more tame and now I can't decide if the original is really that bad.

Here is the static portion of the intro (it's the same for both versions)

"Wake up!" pleaded my wife as her hand violently shook me awake. For being the petite woman I had married, she sure was unusually strong. "It's your turn." Her voice was tired and raspy.
            I responded by mumbling something about motherly responsibilities as I tried to shove her off the bed. I knew it was a battle of whoever ended up with their feet touching the floor. Those were the rules. Instead of falling off the bed however, she used her super woman strength to push my flailing legs off of the bed and onto the carpet.
            "Fine" I said in defeat.
            "He's getting worse honey." The worry in her voice woke me up completely.
            "I know. I don't know how to fix this!" I rubbed the sleepiness from my face. We had discussed solutions before but neither of us knew quite what to do. We both felt like terrible parents as we listened to our son scream and cry in fear night after night, unable to help in anyway.
            "I know you'll think of something." she confidently said as she put her arm on my shoulder. Now I was at risk of letting two people down. I stopped at my night stand, reached into a drawer, pulling something out that I quickly stuffed into my pajama pockets.
            His name was Johnny and he was only eight. He was a sweet boy with good intentions all around. Unfortunately he had inherited my own wild imagination rather than his mothers. While when she was a child she spent her time playing tea party with stuffed animals and hostage siblings, I was busy growing up fighting blood thirsty monsters and riding off with criminal cowboys into the sunset. Now I watched as my son spent his time in castle dungeons fighting monsters and ninjas and robots and monster ninja robots. At the end of the day however, everything he had defeated followed him home to his room in the form of shadows and noises.
            His imagination at night was like a 5000 ft tall puppy in downtown Tokyo. Although it plays carelessly, it is haphazardly toppling buildings, fetching 747 jets and over all just scaring the crap out of all the tiny Japanese citizens.
            Before on occasion we would hear him wake up and scream for one of us to come. We would come in, check the closet, under the bed, show him the window was locked and turn on the night light where he would soon fall back asleep. Lately things had become much worse.

Version 1 - Dark:

It all started when a friend of his had become sick. That is all we had told him. She had developed leukemia but she still made it to school from time to time and he was still able to play with her. Her name was Lindsey.
            Sadly one day Lindsey couldn't fight on anymore and her poor little body gave up. Johnny's school teacher didn't tell the students what had happened; instead she contacted all the parents and let them know. I guess the teacher didn't want to have the awkward "what happens when we die" talk with twenty five kids whose parents all believed something different. So she left it up to us.
            When we found out we were heart broken. We also weren't sure how to approach the situation. This was a first for everyone. So we didn't tell Johnny anything. But as all good public schools do, it taught him things that we didn't want him to know. At least, not yet. Not for his sake, but we weren't sure we were ready.
            Over the weeks we watched as he pieced together what had happened to his friend. And the pieces that were missing he filled in with his own. We tried to help him understand as best we could but like I said, we weren't ready either.
            I staggered into the crying boy’s room and flipped on the light switch. The monster killing light did nothing to calm Johnny. I tried to remember what it was like to be afraid of the dark, believing that every crack and crevice in your room was full of goblins or aliens waiting to take you someplace horrible and torture you. I wondered what I would tell him to get him to go to sleep tonight. I had tried to appeal to his logic several times before but as illogical as his imagination was, it seemed to have much more credibility than me. I ran through some of our former conversations trying to recognize mistakes I'd made so I could avoid them this time:
            "What are you afraid of?" I had asked, to which he responded "Monsters."
            "Where are they?"
            "Under my bed, in the closet, outside my window." he answered.
            "How did they get here?"
            "They took the monster taxi. It takes them into my closet like in that movie Monsters Inc."
            "Thank you Pixar." I muttered softly. "Well what do they want?"
            "They want to eat my brains so they can be as smart as me." he whimpered.
            I wanted to laugh, but I knew he was really scared. At these times I often ended up sleeping on the floor next to him. Sometimes he wouldn't fall asleep at all and he'd end up taking a sick day because he'd be too exhausted for school.

            I could hear my wife in the back of my head pleading for me to help him as I heard Johnny begging me to make the monsters go away.
            "What's wrong?" I asked in my most comforting voice.
            "The monsters are coming to get me like they got Lindsey." said the soft quiet voice of my eight year old son.
            It may have been quiet but I had never heard something so loudly in my life. My heart dropped into my stomach. It was official; I was the worst parent on the planet. I felt the air get heavier as my thoughts reconfirmed that tonight was the night I needed to make something happen. I couldn't let my son, my wife, or myself down anymore.
            I paused to clear my throat and then pulled up a reading chair next to Johnny.
            "I'm going to tell you a story." I began in the same tone of voice I used when he was in trouble. It let him know I was serious and that he needed to listen. "But you can never tell anyone this story OK?"
            "Can I tell mom?"
            "Especially not mom."
            "Did you do something bad?" He was probably asking that because on many occasions when one of us had broken something and we had made pacts not to tell her.
            "No. But this story is so special to me that only a few people know it. And if you tell it to anyone else, they will call the crazy hospital to come and get you."
            I had his full attention, despite his ADD. I continued.

Version 2 - Tame Version:

I staggered into the crying boy’s room and flipped on the light switch. The monster killing light did nothing to calm Johnny. I tried to remember what it was like to be afraid of the dark, believing that every crack and crevice in your room was full of goblins or aliens waiting to take you someplace horrible and torture you. I wondered what I would tell him to get him to go to sleep tonight. I had tried to appeal to his logic several times before but as illogical as his imagination was, it seemed to have much more credibility than me. I ran through some of our former conversations trying to recognize mistakes I'd made so I could avoid them this time:
            "What are you afraid of?" I had asked, to which he responded "Monsters."
            "Where are they?"
            "Under my bed, in the closet, outside my window." he answered.
            "How did they get here?"
            "They took the monster taxi. It takes them into my closet like in that movie Monsters Inc."
            "Thank you Pixar." I muttered softly. "Well what do they want?"
            "They want to eat my brains so they can be as smart as me." he whimpered.
            I wanted to laugh, but I knew he was really scared. At these times I often ended up sleeping on the floor next to him. Sometimes he wouldn't fall asleep at all and he'd end up taking a sick day because he'd be too exhausted for school.
            I could hear my wife in the back of my head pleading for me to help him as I heard Johnny begging me to make the monsters go away.
            "The monsters can’t get you. You’re safe in here." I explained in my most comforting voice.
            "The monsters are coming to get me and you can’t stop them." whimpered the soft quiet voice of my eight year old son.
            It may have been quiet but I had never heard something so loudly in my life. My heart dropped into my stomach. It was official; I was the worst parent on the planet. I felt the air get heavier as my thoughts reconfirmed that tonight was the night I needed to make something happen. I couldn't let my son, my wife, or myself down anymore.
            I paused to clear my throat and then pulled up a reading chair next to Johnny.
            "I'm going to tell you a story." I began in the same tone of voice I used when he was in trouble. It let him know I was serious and that he needed to listen. "But you can never tell anyone this story OK?"
            "Can I tell mom?"
            "Especially not mom."
            "Did you do something bad?" He was probably asking that because on many occasions when one of us had broken something and we had made pacts not to tell her.
            "No. But this story is so special to me that only a few people know it. And if you tell it to anyone else, they will call the crazy hospital to come and get you."
            I had his full attention, despite his A.D.D. I continued.

Years ago a friend of mine passed away from leukemia so when I was writing the original intro that just slipped out. Looking at it now, I think maybe it's just too much for the demographic I'm trying to target. Could some people please tell me their thoughts on version 1 vs version 2? It would be much appreciated.