TITLE: Just Jezebel
GENRE: Contemporary YA
If life were a ship, my mother was the suicidal passenger. She just had this amazing ability to always end up overboard, whether she was already there or just working her way toward it. I didn’t know if she did it because she knew no better or if she did it for the simple fact that she could and no one would stop her. When I was old enough to realize this and recognize the signs, I made it my job to stop her before she could get that close to the railing. But my mother was a character and I spent more time fishing her out of the water than holding her back from it.
Once upon a time, this sort of limitless behavior had scored her the successful husband, the big house in Upper Eastside Manhattan, and all the money. But now all her extravagant and needy nature got her was a nasty divorce, a troubled daughter, and an affair gone wrong.
He was my father’s business partner and I met him in a less than likely place. Before that, I’d always known him in a not-so-important way. Name: Kennedy Myer, alias: Mr. Myer. To me, he was the man my father worked with, the man he spent all his time with. But one snowy night at a Manhattan social scene, Mr. Myer had earned a new name: the man my mother was having an affair with.
In some sense, I’d known she wasn’t happy.
I like the ship metaphor but as I'm reading this I can't help but wonder if this is a story about the daughter or about the mother? Since it's YA, I'm assuming it's about the daughter so you might want to sprinkle this back story about the mother into the narrative instead of starting up with it.
ReplyDeleteThe writing is good though. :)
You write beautifully. I do think that this is all backstory until the last paragraph. Maybe start there and give us the rest in bits as the storyline progresses? I know it's important for you to know all this information while you're writing but the reader needs spoon fed :D
ReplyDeleteToo much mother, not enough mc. But nice writing.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your voice and enjoyed the opening paragraph. I thought the rest was well done, but it was all backstory. I think your first paragraph is probably sufficient to tell the reader why the mother is currently in a predicament. I would have loved it if you had introduced the trouble after the opening paragraph. You can dribble in the backstory later. I say this to help make your piece stronger, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and would have kept reading.
ReplyDeleteI like the writing, but agree it doesn't flow well. I don't like the passive voice. Saying, "...my mother was the suicidal passenger..." makes her sound dead. Why can't the whole passage be present tense? I think this would help us really feel for the mc. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, there's no story here. Nothing happened. This is all explanation - explaining things to the reader instead of starting the story.
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest starting with sticking your MC in a location and have her facing a problem. You certainly have the material to make it an interesting problem with the mother you've created, so show that rather than having the MC explain.
Unless you're writing a memoir, you shouldn't be talking to the reader.
A daughter's relationship with a difficult mother is a great basis for a story.
ReplyDeleteThe mother certainly sounds like an interesting character, but I think she would be more vivid and real for the reader if you showed her in action rather than telling the reader about her.
I also had trouble getting a sense of who the main character was and seeing this appears to be her story, I felt that I wanted to be able to engage with her right from the start.
You write beautifully. I loved the ship metaphor. Even if nothing is "happening" as mentioned above, the voice and writing still hooked me. Excellent.
ReplyDeleteGreat first line. It says a lot about their relationship. Your intro was interesting, and I'd keep reading.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the paragraph gets a little muddled, and really needs to be clarified.
Also, the issue at hand seems more about her mother than herself. I would be very careful about this. But good job, overall.
Nice characterization of mom but I'd rather see it through out story...have her be active and we will understand MC's feelings.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone else. Your writing is excellent, which is more than half the battle. What does need improving is the actual flow of the story. As others have said, this is all backstory. I'd keep some of the first paragraph, then show us the MC and the mother. What happens to swing the MC's life off course? Is it the discovery of her mother's affair? Or does the story start afterwards, once the mother is divorced? Pick a pivotal scene and show us the mother's extravagant and needy nature. You are a great writer so this shouldn't be difficult :-)
ReplyDeleteThere's no solid hook here. It's kind of confessional but there's a lot of backstory before I have any forestory.
ReplyDeletePutting it anaother way. Somehow looking as I write this, wouldn't it seem more interesting to start off with the last sentence? That has some kind of hook here to wonder why and who wasn't happy.
I could be wrong, but I think your opening sentence is a bit off. Shouldn't it read "my mother would be" a suicidal passenger. Because the previous "were" is indicative of the subjunctive in a conditional clause? Might sound convoluted and I might be wrong. But I thought I'd point it out, either way.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else, I think you should focus more on the MC, less on the mother. And it is, basically, all back story. So you might want to start at a more engaging point. But props, definitely, for a great voice :D
Each paragraph here goes on just a sentence or so too long. But the beginning definitely drew me right in...if you could just cut the last line or so of that paragraph.
ReplyDeleteOverall pretty good, but I'm starting to wonder about your main character now. This seems to be all about other people, in particular, her mother. What about her??