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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

25 Words #22

TITLE: The Measure of Angels
GENRE: Urban Fantasy Thriller

To a selective mute, talk therapy was a personal hell.

If Kate Hayden wanted early admission to the forensic science PhD at John Jay, she'd
have to endure.

7 comments:

  1. I like the tone you're trying to set up with your MC but I think it's just a little disconnected.

    I'm assuming a 'selective mute' means Kate prefers to keep quiet, but I'm lost as to what talk therapy has to do with admissions and what the connection is to forensic science.

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  2. I'm marginally familiar with selective mutism - it's an interesting hurdle to give to a protagonist. I'd keep reading for that reason alone, but you've also set up the conflict succinctly and clearly - she wants the early admission, but she can't unless she gets through talk therapy.

    And then I wonder when the fantasy/thriller elements come in...

    Yup, I'm hooked.

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  3. I think you can tighten it up a bit. Whether or not she wanted early admission, the class was going to be a challenge. I think you can bring us closer to her in this opening scene. Something like "Kate Hayden cringed when she..."

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  4. I liked it, but it did have a disconnected feeling. I think it's the two separate paragraphs.

    Seeing the second paragraph automatically set my mind to see what comes next as something different, another thought, and it's not. It's a contuation of the first paragraph. Perhaps keep it all in one paragraph. Other than that, I thought it worked well.

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  5. Interesting. So is talk therapy a requirement of the forensic science PhD? Why? Is it a forensic psychology program?

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  6. Nice smooth sentences but you might need to connect the two. how bout adding a "but" before your second sentence?

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