TITLE: Beautiful Disaster
GENRE: Paranormal Romance
I immediately recognize the white pillared house outside the passenger window. After all, I've been avoiding it my whole life.
The porch is crowded with costume clad teens smoking cigarettes, someone's throwing up in the bushes, and I can hear music and yelling from our parking spot across the street.
Miss Snark's First Victim
I think you have something interesting already...an avoided house. Personally, I would lose the "after all" and the "I hear." Just tell me how it is since you're first person. Good Luck : )
ReplyDeleteThe first para hooked me. Absolutely wonderful opening. :) In the second para, you say "our", which makes me assume (s)he's with someone. I want to know who, as well as more about this party, and the house that the MC has been avoiding.
ReplyDeleteI would keep reading, for sure.
There is too much detail in the second sentence. The way you've written it, it sounds like he/she can see all of this in the time it takes us to read it but I would expect it to take much longer. She/he would see the porch. The costumes. The smoking. Someone puking. Music. Yelling. Not everything at once.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as written, it kinda sounds like the music and yelling is coming from the parking spot. This might flow better if you tell us the car is parked across the street right from the beginning.
I do wonder why she's there now if she's avoided it her whole life, so there's a hook there for me. (good wondering)
ReplyDeleteBut if she recognizes the house, why not say why? Did she live there once? Was it a friend's house, a local hangout? Did something awful happen there? The reader should know what the MC knows, and I don't. (bad wondering)
I like the writing style and voice of the first paragraph. You kind of slow down and slop it up, just a bit, with the second. I'd still read, but I'd be wanting more of the beginning voice to hold my interest.
ReplyDeletehooked
Thanks for the feedback! You guys are awesome :)
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by the question of why the narrator has been avoiding the house. I do think that first paragraph could be stronger -- maybe get at her emotional reaction (maybe shown through a physical reaction) to seeing the house, rather than just saying she recognized it. The second paragraph is a little crowded, but I think simply breaking it into three separate sentences might help. Still, there's a lot of setting and not quite enough about the narrator to place her in it. A few specifics might clear this up (e.g., "We parked across the street from the house I'd been avoiding all my life," then get into her reaction and the setting).
ReplyDeleteI like the tense approach and the voice is clear here - some minor nits, though. I agree that "after all" should go, and also I feel like the narrator is closer than "across the street" by her descriptions in the first section, but then we find out s/he is in a car.
ReplyDeleteNot a big deal, just an observation.