TITLE: KAT GAMBLE AND THE RISE OF THE ROMULAIRES
GENRE: YA Urban Fantasy
"What do you mean I'm dead? What the hell is that supposed to mean - and I'm sorry...
but who are you?" I scoffed at the potentially gorgeous guy that for some reason was standing in my room. I say potentially gorgeous, as right now I wasn't too impressed with what he'd been saying.
I wasn't trying to be rude or anything, but come on! What normal person waltzes into someone else's room, wakes them up from an incredible dream about almost naked male movie stars, and announces to them that they're dead? I mean, who does that? Unless of course, I wasn't actually awake - which I had to admit, was entirely possible.
But as I blinked almost in slow motion and scanned my surroundings, I suddenly realized something that was stranger than the fact that this guy was telling me I was dead.
We weren't in my room.
Oh, my head was starting to hurt. And as I raised my hands to my temples, to rub away the soon to be headache I knew was coming, I felt the scratchy plastic bracelet that circled my wrist.
Huh. That pale yellow color was so not in season right now; I mean after all, it was mid-August and nowhere near spring time. So why would I be wearing a bracelet that wasn't remotely chic or in fashion, let alone made of plastic? Ew.
I rolled the bracelet around in my fingers and realized it was a hospital I.D. band.
Nice. There are a ton of books like this out there, but I like the voice here. Good job and good luck!
ReplyDeleteVoice was awesome! I'm hooked!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I'd suggest is she says the guy's potentially gorgeous, potentionally because she doesn't like what he's been saying. But if he's gorgeous, he's gorgeous. Maybe go with "potential crush" or "potential boyfriend" because that takes into account looks and personality.
-WriterT
Mostly hooked. Great voice and lots of promise here. The last two paragraphs lose a little of the tension. You use a lot of lines to tell us about that bracelet. Maybe cut that down a tad, but overall, you have my attention.
ReplyDeleteNice job on the voice for sure. I'm not sure if I am fully hooked, but I would continue to read.
ReplyDeleteThe voice is fantastic, and makes up for a story (person wakes up 100 years later, wakes up dead, has amnesia....) that potentially seems like it's been done before... a lot.
ReplyDeleteActually, the story seemed fresh until she found the hospital id band around her wrist. That's the part where I thought, oh, this I've read before. I would still read on because of the voice, though, just to see if the story shines.
Whoa!!! Hold the phones...
ReplyDeleteHooked. And not just a little hook.
HOOKED!!!
I don't see a lot to change in your submission. You introduce the character, her problem (holy cow, a BIG problem) the conflict and manage to do this in excellent form.
The 'gorgeous' conversation threw me. Maybe you could come up with a better word? He is either gorgeous or not. How about 'sane'? Or something that work with the 'potentially' aspect. You can make him 'gorgeous' but potentially gorgeous makes the reader stumble.
But Really Excellent!!
Best so far.
I liked the title. It's kind of campy and fits the tone of the narrator.
ReplyDeleteI thought the opening would be much stronger if you showed us the scene where he wakes her up and tells her she's dead instead of telling us it happened.
And it has been done a lot, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. It could be done a lot because people like this type of story and it sells.
Loved the tension of this piece.
ReplyDeleteWasn't sure about the potentially gorgeous guy - wanted to know why it was just 'potential'.
I also liked the dry humour of this piece.
This is fast-paced, gives us an immediate sense of the narrator and her issue, and does it all with a humorous edge. Good!
ReplyDeleteBut here's the bad news: As others have said, there's A LOT of stuff like this out there already (and at least 50 submissions like this sitting in my query box right now), so whatever follows this intro has got to be original and fresh, or this will get lost.
I would definitely take a peek at more to see where it's headed.
Close, I think. I like the ideas behind this.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that I don't feel like I'm *there*. I'm not grounded. The narrator tells us there's another person with her, but he never actually does anything for the reader to see. We get into the story with a minor rant, and then she half-changes the subject.
She seems to have an attention span problem. We move from being dead to movie stars to dreams to surroundings to headache to what colors are in season...
I think this is a good start, but it needs more focus. Line of direction -- making the connections from one subject to another absolutely clear and easy to follow -- is really important in this, especially since the narrator seems kind of flighty.
I don't normally get hooked by books that start with "I just died" but I did like the character's attitude here, she's so superficial, it kept me reading when I would otherwise have moved on. I would like to see the gorgeous guy do more too, though.
ReplyDelete