GENRE: YA
Theodora sat in the principal’s office, again. Across from her sat Mr. Silver, in his dress shirt and tie and his perfectly combed gray hair. He never wore a suit jacket and the kids at West Chester Middle thought he did it to look cool, more approachable. It wasn’t working. His rolled up sleeves didn’t help him either. She was pretty sure no one liked him in all of 6th, 7th or 8th grade. Well, maybe the Business Club kids liked him. They came to school dressed as his clones when they had their meetings. They probably liked him, she thought.
“Why did you do it?” Mr. Silver asked in a somewhat defeated tone. He seemed tired. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger and took a deep breath in. Theodora sat in silence staring at her band-aid covered fingertips and wished today wasn’t the day she chose to stop her bad habit. The words, “great timing” kept rolling around in her head.
“Why did you decide to fight? What made you so angry? How do you manage to end up in my office every week, Theodora?” Mr. Silver’s interrogation continued with hardly a breath in between the questions. “I want an answer today, young lady. I will not let you ignore me,” he pushed on, just like all of the other days.
Theodora sat there, head down, long brown curly hair covering the sides of her face, just like all of the other days. She was the kind of girl who wasn’t into perfect hair or makeup or glitter nail polish or jewelry or pens with feathers and dangling pink hearts. None of that was her. However, she was a beautiful girl.
When she pulled her long brown hair back into a pony tail her face would show, glow really. Her skin was striking so were all of her features. She had big, light brown
eyes with dark eyelashes that looked as if she’d curled them and applied a fresh coat of mascara. She had never worn mascara in her life.
I think it's a great start, and you can even retain the beautiful girl comment, and Theodora being aware (in her opinion) that it's her sole strength. I'd save the physical description for later. The scene with the guidance counselor is much more compelling. The comment about being 'a beautiful girl' can just inform us about Theodora.
ReplyDeleteI'd give you a few more pages, but if it was more of the same, I'd stop reading. I think it lacks tension, especially when you launch into the physical description of Theodora. I want to know why she's fighting, more about her from inside her own head, maybe her disgust at the other girls who wear glittery nail polish or loads of makeup. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteWord mobs. The description is beautiful, but please hit enter more. The perfectly uniform paragraph lengths are hard on the eyes.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I'll give you a few pages before I put this down.
You had me until the line, "However, she was a beautiful girl." From that point, you slip out of Theodora's POV and voice and go into a laundry list of physical attributes. Characters don't monologue about their own looks. It's like, have you ever walked down a street and thought to yourself, "I have big beautiful eyes and pouty lips?" No. Because it's not a natural thought progression. Also, folks generally don't make a note of physical features they've had their entire lives.
ReplyDeleteNot hooked. You lost me when you launched into Theodora's beautiful attributes. I liked hearing about her fights, her "bad habit" she quit, and how she didn't like glitter nail polish and girl stuff. The last paragraph isn't natural at all. If I knew more about the plot, I might keep reading for all the good stuff I mentioned. Cut down on the forced character descriptions and I'd be more captivated.
ReplyDeleteAlmost hooked, but I got lost at the physical description. I love knowing what my character looks like, but I should see it throughout, not all in one lump up front. Good call on the bandaged fingers and Mr. Silver's eye rubbing- those are the unobtrusive details that add texture and life to any story.
ReplyDeleteNo...I'm sorry. I had a couple disbelief things going on here - (why didn't she shorten her name to something hipper like 'Theo') and (would a principal really rattle off questions like that?). Then I got turned off by the gratuitous examination at the end...
ReplyDeleteI like some of what's going on here--especially the parts in Theodora's head--her censure of the principal and the business club kids, her regret at stopping chewing her fingernails.
ReplyDeleteI like the principal's interrogation method, too--pushing for answers without giving time for Theodora to answer them.
I'm not fond of the bit at the end, though. I don't know any teenage girls who think they're beautiful--even girls who truly are. Their mothers or their friends or their sisters or their boyfriends know they're beautiful, but the best I've ever heard a teenage girl rate her own looks at is OK. And the first few paragraphs of this don't read like Theodora is an extraordinarily confident girl. So this ending feels like I'm falling out of the POV I've started to like.
Still, I'm interested enough to want to see where this is going.
No, sorry, nothing here grabs me.
ReplyDelete~Merc