This post is a prompt from Brenda Lee Drake’s site at http://brenleedrake.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-on-auntie-bs-book-club-blogfest.html
This contest is looking for 250 words of anything that has characters between 12 and 25. There are 4 judges who are college students. So, check it out; comment/critique if you like and hop over to the other participants’ entries at Brenda’s site.
Title: Inside The Teardrop
Genre: YA Contemporary Novel
Pitch (35 Word Logline):
The shattered pieces of their own lives bring these five girls closer together than they ever could have imagined. Life is about giving, not always taking and through it all they find forgiveness and love.
Excerpt (250 Word Opening Page Sample):
LIBBY
Her heart was pounding in her ears, thump, thump, thump. Her hands were sweaty. Just a few more feet and she would be at the door. Keeping her eyes straight ahead, one focus in mind, legs beginning to shake, Libby reached her right hand out to push the door open, keeping her left hand in her pocket, shielding, protecting, not letting go.
Two more steps. Run! Libby’s feet were pounding the ground. She never stopped running until she reached the front steps of her house, her stomach starting to squeeze up into her throat. She bent over holding her stomach, realization of that throw up in your mouth, sick in your stomach feeling.
Libby stayed there until she was breathing normally again and her heart stopped racing. She was glad her mother and sister were out. They had moved here about two months ago. She lost count over the amount of times they moved in the last nine years of her life. Libby just wanted to stay put and have a normal teenage life. But, Libby’s life has never been normal.
She walked up the front steps of their latest rented place, through the door, and up to their apartment. Before plopping herself on her bed, she reached in her pocket and pulled out the silver heart necklace she had just stolen from Bangles, Beads & Bling and tossed it into one of her boots on the floor of her closet.
She opened her laptop and started to type.
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If you like, leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you. Please stop by Brenda's Blog to visit the other participants' entries. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my story.
5 comments:
Maeve, first I have to tell you I love your name. It's the name of the main character in one of my manuscripts.
The 2nd line of your pitch is very general. If you can make it more specific to your story, it would serve as more of a hook. As it is, it reads more like the theme than a hook.
Your opening is very active so if you change the verbs to active verbs, I think it will have a more positive impact. Her heart pounded....the sweat glands in her palms kicked into overdrive... You get the idea.
I wasn't expecting to find that she was clutching a stolen necklace so that was a nice punch.
If you've written this from 5 different POVs, my hat's off to you. That's incredibly difficult to pull off.
So far I'm intrigued, though.
Shelli's comments are good and are pretty much what I would have said.Love the exciting feel of the opening too.
Ditto, Shelli's comments. My first response was to delete the 'was' usage. Good luck.
I agree with the above-use more active verbs. The action comes across but the pace of the writing is a bit slow for the scene. Otherwise, it's interesting. The log line is a bit general, but it's still interesting.
I'd like to see that she stole something a little bit sooner. Not right away, of course, but maybe above the info about her mom and sister. Other than that good job and good luck in the contest!
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