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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

FS16

TITLE: Oracle
GENRE: YA Science Fiction

Lexi’s sister and brother-in-law hadn’t even been gone for half a day and she already had to break their rules.

15 comments:

  1. I'd read on to see why she 'had to', especially given the book's title. (My blog reading seems to include many oracles these days...maybe it's a sign!)

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  2. I think there's a little verb tense shifting there, but fix that and I'd look at the blurb.

    Amethyst

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  3. I like the title, the sentence not so much. I'm not sure if I'd read on or not.

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  4. The idea here feels to cliche to me. There's nothing to make this stand out from other books with people breaking rules.

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  5. Personally, I'm not drawn in BUT I think this might be on target for a YA audience. Kid having to break rules is exciting right? :)

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  6. I think this has potential, but needs a little more oomph. It's also a bit awkwardly written.

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  7. The verbs tense needs tweaking, but otherwise good. I'd keep reading.

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  8. I'd leave out the qualifier ("even") and shorten to:

    "Lexi’s sister and brother-in-law were only gone half a day before she had to break their rules."

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  9. ditto puzzlehouse...much better that way.

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  10. I like the set-up, but not the actual wording you have. I do like puzzlehouse's suggestion, though--something like that could make it really shine.

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  11. I got a good vibe from this one, so I'd keep reading.

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  12. A little torn: on the one hand I want to know why she has to break their rules, on the other, I'm not sure I care.

    Would probably read the paragraph to really decide.

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  13. Sorry, I'd pass. The fact that the sister and brother-in-law are gone could be rolled into divulging exactly what it was that she was doing for them, presumably at their house. Was she dog sitting? Baby sitting? Hose sitting? No reason to wait to tell the reader.

    Also, half a day seems too ambiguous because it could mean half a work day or 12 hours. I'd go with something like "It only took six hours of baby sitting for Lexi to break her sister and brother-in-law's rules." so you get some more meat into the sentence without losing any of what you tried to convey and in 3 fewer words.

    Fred

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