TITLE: Courting Greta
GENRE: Contemporary fiction
Samuel's personal history was littered with awkward moments, but this topped the list. He made a kind of lunge to reach her face and missed the mark (he was afraid to really look at her), and it took his lips a panicked moment to find her mouth, which was tight and closed. But it was too late to turn back, so he kissed her in the way he thought a woman should be kissed, which was longer than a few seconds. And once he was there with his eyes closed, he touched the side of her face, too.
And then, quite suddenly, she was kissing him, pushing him rather violently against the iron bench, robbing him of breath altogether. Her fingers closed around his bicep, and her body was heavy on top of his.
After perhaps an eternity she paused for air.
A gallon of pure oxygen flooded Samuel's lungs and with it he gushed, "Greta, I want to--"
She pulled back. "What?"
He wanted to make love to her. Right now. Possibly several times.
"Nothing," he said.
Wonderful. You put so much emotion into such a small selection. "He wanted to make love to her. Right now." Was so sweet and true.
ReplyDeleteI love awkward kisses, don't ask me why! So I thought the first paragraph was really sweet. "the way he thought a woman should be kissed" - hee! Greta's sudden enthusiastic response was a nice shift. It makes me curious about the history of these two characters.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely love this. It feels real and Samuel's internal thoughts vs "Nothing" adds to the effect. Great job.
ReplyDeleteLOL...this is awesome. So realistic. I'm already drawn into this story.
ReplyDeleteAnd my favourite part - when he says "Nothing".
I wish you had given us a little blurb on what your story is about because I'm curious about the storyline.
Love this so much! This is great! My favorite so far.
ReplyDeleteSpot on with the last line. Perfect ending to an awkward, yet lovely, kiss.
Oh, I loved this one. The voice is wonderful. He's awkward, but not over the top. I could absolutely see this play out.
ReplyDeleteI also would have liked a single sentence to set things up, but I'd guess they are in their twenties?
Would love to read more!
I liked this too, the awkwardness and tenderness, and the last lines are great.
ReplyDeleteMy only comment is that there are a whole bunch of incidents of "was" which for me were distracting. Can you come up with stronger verbs?
Otherwise, it's my fave so far!
I just wanted to add my "ditto" to all of the above. Absolutely lovely!
ReplyDeleteMy only thought was I would like to see her thaw and get into it a little more instead of the "quite suddenly". There must have been a moment when her thoughts moved her from the tight lipped to the counter attack kissing.
Still loved all of it!
Very nice description of the kiss as well as his internal thoughts and emotions. I even get a good sense of Greta and her emotions. Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteJust one nitpick. Perhaps cut 'perhaps' in 'after perhaps an eternity . . .'
This is one of my favourites out of the bunch. It manages to be awkward, sweet, passionate, and sexy at the same time. The tension is perfectly there. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThis is quite fun, and somehow tragic. Just from this blurb I get a huge sense of who he his, and now I am curious about her.
ReplyDeleteNot sure when it's okay to "reveal" myself, but I just wanted to thank everyone for the comments. Makes me think maybe I don't suck at this whole writing thing after all. :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway since a couple of people asked, sorry there was no blurb at the beginning... I thought the scene spoke pretty well for itself without setup. If you want to know more about the book (which I'm querying now), feel free to check out my blog.
I think this is almost there, I like the tone and the emotional feel. However, it may need a bit of tightening. You have a lot of sentences starting with conjunctions. Are they all needed? Also, being robbed of breath altogether sounds painful to me.
ReplyDeleteI do like the last few lines. Well done.