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Thursday, June 27, 2013

First Sentence #13

TITLE: Bling Bong the Witch is Dead
GENRE: Urban Fantasy

I've always thought that Slacking has been severely underrated.

37 comments:

  1. No.
    This seems like someone musing, but without any context to ground us I'm not hooked.

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  2. No. Don't like the title and the tenses seem wrong.

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  3. Yes.

    I do like the voice in the first sentence, but I agree with shortygirl that it does seem a bit unfocused and musingy (yes I just made up a word) for a first sentence. But I really want to find out why "Slacking" is capitalized. If it's just the regular sort of slacking, I might stop reading pretty quickly. I also want to find out (based on the title) if this is a Wizard of Oz story.

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  4. No. Grammar is a bit messy. It'd be simpler to simply say, "Slacking is severely underrated."

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  5. Yes

    BUT! I do agree with most everyone else that this could be shortened to really punch it up. But the idea was fun enough that i would keep going. Frankie's version, though, would erase the filtering of "I thought" and bring us closer to your characters POV

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  6. No. I think it's the passive "has been" and the capitalization of "slacking" that are making me want to stop reading.

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  7. No. Aside from the fact that I think 'slacking OFF' would be more specific, I'm not really rooting for your character after this initial statement.

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  8. No - feel like it should be slacking off, and the "has" puts me off a bit.

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  9. No. Tenses kind of threw me off, but I am intrigued that "Slacking" is capitalized and that the title includes the words "Bling Bong"--haha!

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  10. No... the combination of passive voice plus slacking makes me think the next few sentences will be about said character slacking - or, in other words, doing nothing. While that may or may not be true, it's not a very intriguing feeling for a first sentence.

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  11. No... the combination of passive voice plus slacking makes me think the next few sentences will be about said character slacking - or, in other words, doing nothing. While that may or may not be true, it's not a very intriguing feeling for a first sentence.

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  12. A qualified yes.

    This made me laugh. But I was confused as to why slacking was capitalized. It didn't sound like you meant a proper name of a person or a city. I assumed it was a typo and took the sentence as a statement of the MC's philosophy.

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  13. No. Slacking shouldn't be capitalized (unless it's a town or person)and you have tense issues.

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  14. No. If it is a statement of the narrator's personal philosophy, he doesn't sound like my kind of person.

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  15. Yes. It made me smile. The capital on "Slacking" threw me though.

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  16. No. Awkward sentence construction and the musing wasn't enough to draw me in.

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  17. No - character doesn't sound like they're going to be doing anything exciting.

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  18. No... but a borderline no. There's good voice here but I don't feel compelled to read on. There's not a suggestion of something good to come -- I don't especially want to be lectured on the virtues of slacking.

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  19. The title draws me in, but I agree with the comments about the tenses in this--maybe just "Slacking is underrated" would be punchier.

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  20. No. I'd suggest rewording to make this sentence more active and give us a reason why. Why should we care what the MC thinks?

    Also, the word "that" is a common crutch word and should be used only when necessary. To see it in the first sentence is a red flag and I'd recommend running a search through the entire first chapter to see how often it is used.

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  21. No. It sounds like the character is a slacker. I don't want to read about a slacker. I want to read about someone who does something. And even though Slacking is capitalized and might mean something entirely different in your world, I don't know what else it could mean so it doesn't grab me.

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  22. No (sorry!)

    I just see various ways I'd tweak this line, which makes me think the rest of the book wasn't quite ready for me.

    I also don't love love the title.

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  23. Yes. I like the tone. I have the sense that this is a clever and interesting slacker.

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  24. Don't capitalize slacking, please.

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  25. Yes! Heck, it made me chuckle and summed up my 4 years of college in a nutshell. Lol. --I like it. I'd read more.

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  26. Yes. But only after some work. The capitalization of Slacking in conjunction with your genre makes me think that something very interesting is going on. That being said, so many people though it was an error that maybe you should save it for deeper in the manuscript, after you established a teensy bit of the world. Unless the context comes in the next sentence.

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  27. No
    I hate to repeat what everyone else has said, but when I say 'slacking' capitalized, it's the first thing that drew my attention away. Sorry.

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  28. Yes. Because Slacking is capitalized, I'm expecting it to mean more than goofing off, so I'm intrigued.

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  29. No. (Sorry.) There's something clunky about this sentence, and it makes me worried that the rest of the story will have a similar feel. I do like the idea of slacking being overrated - I'd reco tightening. Maybe just: Slacking is severely underrated. You don't need to tell us that they think that - the simple statement tells me this, because the book is in first person.

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  30. No. The tenses are messed up and, while I read tons of fantasy and am used to the convention, the capital "Slacking" is too specific to work for me. It makes me think we're talking about sitting around doing nothing, which sounds boring.

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  31. No. I can almost hear your voice but not quite.

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  32. No--The sentence should be - I've always thought slacking is severely underrated - so your construction makes me think I'll get more of the same as I read on.

    And it tells me nothing. Where am I? When am I? What's the problem? All I can infer from the opening is that this is the story of a slacker. Not compelling.

    Obviously, this will be about something more than that. Start with the problem, with you MC in a situation. Let her do something instead of talk.

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  33. No. Exactly what Judy Mintz said above—don't like the title, and the tenses seem wrong.

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  34. Yes. 1. I agree with the character =) But that's also part of why I said yes. The trick is to keep me engaged afterward.

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  35. No--sorry, this doesn't quite work since Slacking is an unknown at this point. The phrasing seems odd, I think this can be reworked to get to what you mean a little better.

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  36. No. Read awkwardly and I didn't understand by you capitalized Slacking?

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  37. No. The title and genre and sentence don't mesh for me. And I don't know why Slacking is capitalized.

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