TITLE: BLACKWOOD
GENRE: YA
Luke and Evangeline are two pre civil war ghosts (former fiances). Piper (17 year old girl) and Luke are in love but he is bound to the plantation. Evangeline finds out Piper can see the slave Evangeline murdered.
“You had no right to do that to her. She’s a little girl,” I screamed back at her, unable to control my outrage.
“She was my property. My slave. I own her!”
Evangeline’s anger electrified the air in the room and her hair blew like the wind as the currents surged through her. I gasped and choked, unable to find any oxygen. Luke called out to me but his voice was distant and fuzzy in my ears. He slammed into her and forced her farther away from me. I sucked in a breath of fresh air and shouted, “There are no more slaves and you can’t have her.”
She struggled to untangle her arms from Luke’s grip and when she couldn’t get free, she reached out, clawing the space between us. I backed up against the vanity and nearly toppled it over. Before it crashed to the floor, I turned to catch the edge of the table and settled it back on its feet. Evangeline retreated from the doorway and Luke let go of her. In that split second she slipped past him and knocked the vanity to the ground, shattering the mirror into a thousand pieces.
I fell to my knees screaming, “No, no, no.” I bowed toward the floor and my tears fell onto the tiny shards of silvered glass. I scooped up a handful and crushed it in my fists, letting the pain replace the utter loss of hope.
“Piper stop. Stop it! You’re hurting yourself.”
I think the writing is overall pretty good. I have a good picture in my mind of what is going on, and there's good tension between the three characters.
ReplyDeleteA few notes: usually when someone shouts or screams, you should end the sentence with an exclamation point. For example: "You had no right to do that to her. She's a little girl!"
There's also a bit of excess wordiness. (It's ironic that I notice this...) The sentence "Evangeline's anger electrified the air in the room and her hair blew like the wind as currents surged through her" could be tightened pretty easily. --> "Evangeline's anger electrified the air in the room. Her hair blew like the wind from the currents."
I know we like commas. But in most "action" scenes, in which I would include high-emotion scenes, short, blunt sentences tend to work better. See where you can break apart the sentences and play around with it. :)
Sorry to be dense, but I was confused. I understand that some of it is just the issue of Drop the Needle, but I didn't know who "I" was until the end.
ReplyDeleteAnd it took a reread to get that Evangeline said "she was my property..."
same with the third paragraph's opening "She."
As I said, maybe its me and the fact that I'm coming on a scene in progress.
But besides that I agree with the other comment- good tension between the three.
I agree with the above, and only wanted to add that there are a couple of spots where the tense is confusing. If the slave girl is dead, she was a little girl, not is, and if she was Evangeline's property, she owned, not owns, her. Or does it only appear so because we only see this bit?
ReplyDeleteOther than that, well done.
I would agree with the comments above. Mark's comment about the tense issues ("She's a little girl", "She was my property", "I own her", etc.) particularly jumped out at me.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing I'd add is that you have a very similar construction for two clauses:
unable to control my outrage.unable to find any oxygen.I would change at least one of those, if not both. "Unable to find any oxygen", in particular, seems a bit casual for the act of suffocating. :)
It took me a second to figure out who your POV character was. I like this scene--your idea about the ghosts is really interesting. I would work a little bit on the imagery showing the ghost Evangaline getting angry. The other line that bothered me was bowed towards the floor--maybe she just say bowed because towards the floor is understood?
ReplyDeleteI was confused by this, although it could be due to dropping in in the middle. I thought it was a bit overwritten and wordy, but if it were edited, including fixing tense problems, I would read more; I like the premise a lot.
ReplyDeleteExample:
She struggled to untangle her arms from Luke’s grip and when she couldn’t get free, she reached out, clawing the space between us.
to
Struggling to untangle herself from Luke's grip, she clawed out at the space between us.
Even though that sort of loses the part about not getting free, I think it makes it more visual without losing anything important.
Thank you to everyone that critiqued my DtN submission. Everyone's comments were incredibly helpful. I really appreciate the comments that included ways to correct the problems they found. It's refreshing to see your work through other people's eyes.
ReplyDeleteThank you!