TITLE: Sparks of Light
GENRE: YA Urban Fantasy
Lead in: Emma discovers her crush, Kieran, is a being from another realm sent to protect her.
She felt as though she was standing in quicksand, and the space began to slowly spin out of focus. The only things she could see were his tantalizing eyes. He started to tilt his head down to hers, and she forced herself not to faint. He gazed at her through his lashes and slightly parted his lips, leaning closer. Everything around her disappeared.
Their eyes were locked and searching as he slowly tilted his head closer. He brushed the side of her nose with his, a sensual caress that caused her lips to part. As Emma closed her eyes and let her lips meet his, heat rushed into her cheeks and enveloped her completely. Her lips seemed to tingle against his as he formed the kiss, gentle but firm lips moving in a slow rhythm. His hands found her shoulders and gingerly traced her skin up to her jaw. She held her palms against his sides, wanting to pull him closer, then her hands traveled up and into his hair.
As he tenderly pulled back, he placed his forehead on hers and took a deep breath, eyes still closed. She opened hers to look at him, aching for more, but not daring to spoil such a perfect moment. Her breath shuddered out as he opened his eyes and sweetly smiled at her.
This was a really slow, sweltering and hot kiss. I loved it. There's some little mechanic things like word repeats (hard not to do with lips being the major players in a kiss) and I think you could highlight some statements by just making them their own paragraph. But overall, this is great.
ReplyDeleteWow! I loved this. The only thing I didn't like was the word formed, it just sounded strange. Otherwise gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteWell done. :)
ReplyDeleteI liked this but didn't love the first couple of sentences. The "space began to slowly spin out of focus" doesn't relate to the quicksand and the word "tantalizing" took me out of the scene. I wonder if you need those 2 sentences at all.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, very nice.
Ehhh... not the type of kiss scenes I enjoy. Personally, I like more emotion and thoughts and less description details of what is where.
ReplyDeleteBut that doesn't mean the writing isn't good! So, well...I guess I'm not much help.
I, like Kathleen, am not a huge fan of these types of kissing scenes, so maybe I'm just not the best judge, but I think this could be stronger. It seems like Kieran's leaning/tilting for the first half of this, and in the second half, every other word is hands or lips. That's the tough thing about including a lot of description - you end up having to use a lot of the same words over and over.
ReplyDeleteAlso, watch the adverbs. Most of these you could ax without losing any meaning. (Like the "slowly" in the first line of the second paragraph. Given the situation, I assume he's tilting his head slowly. And the "gingerly" later on - you've already got a great verb there, "traced," and a trace is always ginger.)
Hope that helps.
P.S. It was the title of this one that caught me, by the way. I love it.
This is good and the descriptions quite beautiful, but for some reason, I didn't connect with this scene. It's a little too over the top for my tastes. I think it reads a more grown up than YA, but hey, that's just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
I felt a little detached from this scene as I read it. I think, like some of the others said, that I'd prefer more of her thoughts/emotions and less physical description of the kiss.
ReplyDeleteThere are also a few phrases/sentences where the POV isn't completely clear. If everything was firmly in Emma's POV, that might help.
When you used tilt twice I had a picture in my head of his face turning more or less upside down. Other that that, it was a great kiss. I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI felt this scene, well done. Just a couple of sentence structures that bothered me.
ReplyDeleteThe first was "Her lips seemed to tingle. Either they did or didn't. I don't think she took the time to think it out during the kiss as to did they or maybe they did. Just a thought.
The other were thewords "shuddered out". It spoils the flow of the rest of the sentence. Perhaps delete the word out.
Otherwise, loved it.