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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

FS11

TITLE: Ripped
GENRE: YA Sci-Fi



A dozen flashlights flitted across half-empty shelves.

19 comments:

  1. Not sure about this - it's a little awkward to me and I think you could give us more details here.

    Also, can flashlights flit? Would it be "the light from a dozen flashlights flitted"?

    And i'm also wondering about the half-empty shelves. Half-empty of what?

    I'd love more details here to pull me into the story

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  2. Nope. Too brief, with too little info. Plus flashlights and shelves seem too much of contadiction in concepts. It's hard to explain. I apologize.

    Amethyst

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  3. The sentence needs work. It's not enough to totally capture my attention.

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  4. Do you mean flashlight beams flitted across? Or the actual flashlights? I think this needs a little more something. A main character holding a flashlight, looking for something, maybe?

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  5. It's got my curiousity piqued but the image doesn't seem right. I keep picturing floating flashlights and I'm pretty sure you met the light was flitting.

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  6. I think there are several problems with this:

    Do flashlights flit? What does that mean? And can they flit across shelves that are only 'half-empty'? That means they are half-full, so where's the room to flit? Or do you mean the beams of the flashlights? If it is, in fact, beams, then is the problem that something highly important was on the shelves and is now gone? Is that why a dozen people are looking for it? Too vague to be meaningful to me.

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  7. Unless the flashlights are animated, this doesn't make sense to me. But perhaps they are?

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  8. Not thrilled with this sentence, but there is an element of suspense. Work on the sentence and I would probably read on.

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  9. Flashlights don't flit unless the batteries are going dead.

    I'm sure the next sentence is more of a hook and that's hard to convey here. I would read because you haven't smushed sentences together to jam the hook down my throat. I feel your writing would be succinct and easy to read.

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  10. I would probably read on. I would like to know what is on the shelves.

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  11. Sorry, no. It's description with no characters, and because of that, I'm at first not interested and also, the actual description isn't that interesting in and of itself (which I think you need if you start this way).

    Good luck,

    ~Merc

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  12. I'm with PCB - my first thought was, "Whoa! Animated flashlights?"

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  13. My first thought was someone bumped into a shelf half-full of flashlights and they went rolling (or, in this case, flitting) around....

    That might just be me.

    I think I know where you're going: dark warehouse-y kind of place, sculder, mully and friends with a dozen or so flashlights moving around trying to find something that really doesn't want to be found...

    not enough in this sentence for a real hook

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  14. Not bad, but I've had better. I'd read the rest of the paragraph to see what's up.

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  15. Agree with some of the comments above. First thing I thought was "flashlights flitted"? Should it be "The light from a dozen flashlights flitted..."?

    I'd still probably read to the end of the paragraph to decide if I'd read more.

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  16. I think this works. It instantly paints a picture of a room with lots of shelves that, for some reason, is in the dark...so it's probably night-time and there's definitely no electricity. It also portrays a dozen people looking for something. That's a LOT of a scene to have portrayed in one sentence.

    So while it's not a strong hook, it's a very strong sentence that pulls us right into the scene. Which is good.

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  17. Without the rest of the paragraph, this doesn't tell us much. Sometimes it just has to be that way.

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  18. I think once you fix the problem with flashlights flitting, you have a good sentence. I'm drawn in and have an instant visual of where the story begins.

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  19. Sorry, I'd pass. While I hate when too much info is rammed into the first sentence, I want it to mean more than just an obscure visual. I'f you're gonna start with a visual, it better be compelling and it better be descriptive. I'm sure that when you say "half-empty shelves" you have something in mind, but why give the reader the empy part? Why not give the reader what the half that does have something on it contains? So many flashlights, but you confine them all to some empy shleves. If there are that many flashlights, it stands to reason there might be a roomful of half-empty shelves being searched by Watergate burglars or high school kids. Well, if you're going through the trouble of telling the reader there are shelves, may as well tell him what kind of shelves they are. You don't want to hide things from the reader he's about to find out in one or two sentences anyway. It's not like you're divulging the plot.

    Fred

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