TITLE: TRAVELER
GENRE: YA
LeeAnne is a 17 year old who has very recently been betrayed by (Kellan) someone she loved and thought was going to be able to help her finally move past the last of the pain she carried from her father's death five years earlier. Glen is her best friend.
By the time they finished their dinner and their chemistry homework almost an hour later LeeAnne’s protective bubble, afforded her earlier by endorphins, was completely gone. She was feeling weighed down again and finding it harder to concentrate.
“I need a break,” she told Glen as she closed her book and pushed it away.
She tried to fight off the dark feelings by making herself move. She reached over and stacked up their plates and stood to put them on the counter. Thoughts of Kellan pushed themselves into her mind and she began falling fast. Glen put the silverware in one of the glasses and then slid both glasses toward her. She placed them on the edge of the counter and reached for the milk. As she turned to put the milk into the refrigerator she bumped a glass with her elbow and sent it crashing to the floor. It shattered into a thousand little pieces against the tile. Suddenly it was as if she was looking at herself shattered and spread across the floor. She stood immobilized and whispered through frightened tears, “I don’t know how to fix this”
“Stay where you are. I’ll take care of it,” Glen responded protectively, immediately getting up to get the broom. He carefully took the milk from her and put it away as she stared tearfully at the floor.
Miss Snark's First Victim
The feeling is there and very taut. I think the third paragraph, especially, is strong, as it balances the tension of her attempting to control her emotions and the bubbling effect.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the sentences do seem pretty wordy to me. The first sentence could be tightened a bit. It's also missing a comma:
"By the time they finished their dinner and their chemistry homework (an hour later) COMMA, LeeAnne's protective bubble (afforded her earlier by endorphins) was completely gone."
I would take out the parts in parentheses, and for a bit of extra oomph, you could change "was completely gone" to popped.
In the third paragraph, "shattered into a thousand pieces" seems a bit cliche to me. Besides which, I've never seen a glass break into nice, simple tiny pieces. I see big chunks and a couple hundred I can't make out which are uber dangerous.
The dialogue was good. And I liked Glen's response at the end.
The first sentence was too long for me (and is missing a comma as FT noted).
ReplyDeleteHer reaction to the broken glass is good. I like the double-meaning in not knowing how to fix this.
I'm not sure you need the word "protectively" in the last paragraph. His words and actions SHOW that, you probably don't need to TELL us as well.
Your first sentence definitely needs to be tightened. You're missing a comma after "an hour later", and I don't think "afforded her earlier by endorphins" adds anything. In fact, it makes the sentence excessively wordy. I'd think about paring this down, and maybe even breaking it into two sentences.
ReplyDeleteThe third paragraph is definitely too wordy, and far too concerned with minutiae. I strongly suggest you remove "She reached over". I say this as someone who has been dinged by her editor on multiple occasions for using variations of "to reach" when it's unnecessary. I guarantee that will be held against you by agents and editors. You lose nothing by saying "She stacked up their plates" instead, and it will tighten things considerably. You use reached again just a couple sentences later when she "reached for the milk". Since we can see in the next sentence that she actually gets the milk, there is no reason to describe her reaching for it.
In general, I felt like there was just far too much description in that paragraph. We don't need to know every detail of their clean-up. It lends nothing to the narrative. I get that you're describing how and why the glass ends up on the edge of the counter, but it honestly didn't require so much detail, in my opinion. I used to struggle with very similar issues of overwriting. For me it was motivated by a concern that the reader wouldn't be able to see the scene as vividly as I did in my mind, or that if I didn't explain how I got from point A to point B in excruciating detail, they wouldn't fully appreciate what was happening.
My editor taught me a very valuable lesson. Trust the reader. They can and will fill in the blanks when it comes to this level of unimportant detail. So use less words to describe the clean-up and how she knocks the glass off the counter, because the important part is that she shatters a glass, not that there was silverware in that glass, etc.
I would personally get rid of the "thousand little pieces", too. For one thing, I doubt there is literally a thousand pieces of glass on the floor, and even if there were, I doubt LeeAnne would actually know that. It just doesn't ring true.
Last comment is that I would consider removing the "protectively" from Glen's dialogue. Show us that he's protective through his actions and you won't need to tell us with an adverb.
I think you're on the right track to a strong scene here. :)
I love the comparison between the LeeAnne's feelings and the broken glass. But you need to break the glass quicker. Too much detail leading up to it.
ReplyDeleteYou've got some excellent comments here and I agree that the third paragraph needs to deal with the critical action more directly.
ReplyDeleteIf you pare this right down, you'll have a very powerful piece.
I loved her line 'I don't know how to fix this.'
Lose protectively and you've got a strong finish here too.
Just as a suggestion re adverbs though, do a ctrl f of your 'ly' words and see how many you can eliminate.
Only use those that are absolutely necessary and I think you might be surprised how much tighter your writing will be.
I'm a bit late getting to these, so I'll just agree with the comments from the others. This could be pared down to about 25% to get the action going. There's some good stuff buried underneath.
ReplyDelete