TITLE: The Road to Pieces
GENRE: YA Urban Fantasy
I once fell slowly--off a motorcycle. At the time, it didn't feel like it hurt, although I know it did because I still have the scars. I didn't remember what made me get on top of that black Harley in the first place, but once upon a time I took a quiz made by some idiot on the Internet that said I would survive a fight with God for 0.99 seconds. What sucked was that 0.99 seconds was exactly how long I managed to stay on the motorcycle.
I just remembered that falling was the most beautiful sensation in the world. The stars swelled out of the sky, and the whole world froze so that there was just me. Falling.
And when I hit the ground, I learned the hard way what happened when you decided to punch your destiny in the face. I was fourteen and too young to understand that running into the walls of your own prison gave you nothing--just a headache. So I lay on the sidewalk thinking about how nice it would be to have another sweatshirt, and how if anything, I would rather not lie on the sidewalk and bleed in the dark.
Miss Snark's First Victim
Interesting!
ReplyDeleteThe first line seems a bit weird to me, sort of clumsy. But maybe that works when you are talking about a motorcycle spill?
I'd like to feel more about what made her/him fall, not just the fall itself. Did she topple? Did he hit the sidewalk itself?
I'd read more.
I find this beginning really interesting. I'd love to hear more about the crash and I agree with @kaurelius about the first paragraph being clumsy.
ReplyDeleteStick with the bones. The MC is falling off a bike, great hook, show us more, bring us there and then explain.
I really hope this helps because so far the premise is good. Keep working at it! :)
Disorienting, but the sort of disorienting that makes me sit up and read more closely. The world of this character better open up soon, though. I can only stay in this tunnel vision so long. How do you fall slowly off a motorcycle? Was it parked?
ReplyDeleteThe first line didn't work for me either. I felt a little lost in the first paragraph. This opening kind of wanders and I don't get a good sense of what's going on or what's going to happen. Why is the character thinking about something that happened in the past? How does this connect me to the story going forward?
ReplyDeleteNice writing! But for me, it was a lot of rambling. The narrator is talking all around what happened instead of showing us what happened.
ReplyDeleteI would have preferred to see a fourteen year old kid (Male or female? I don't know.)get on the bike and experience the crash. And then show it in slow motion. Let him think whatever he thinks and feel whatever he feels, and that way, the reader experiences it with him instead of being told about it after the fact.