TITLE: Dream Maker
GENRE: Modern Fantasy
He looms over me, eyes tight, lips pulled into a thin line. He’s watching me. Judging me. Waiting to see what I’ll do next.
"Again," I say through clenched teeth as I pick myself up off the ground. I can’t tell if it’s relief or surprise on my father’s face. It’s because of him I’m on the ground, clothes caked in mud and soaked through to my skin from melting snow. He’s knocked me on my ass today more times than I care to count. Or admit. Nine times out of ten, I put up a better fight. Or at least remain standing long enough to defend myself.
"The problem is," Dad says, between breaths as he crouches lower into his normal fighting position, "you need to get out of your own head. You're thinking too much. You’ve got to relax. Your life, as well as the Dreamers, depends solely on you."
"Easy for you to say. You’re not the one being shipped off across the country. I'm going to fry in the south, risking my life, while you’re here, enjoying the breeze over Lake Quannapowitt." His stance tells me he wants me to charge, so I run at him as fast as my bruised legs will move. Before I can blink, he hits me—hard—and with little effort he flicks me off like a bug. My back smacks into the slush and air rushes from my lungs. I lay down on the cool earth until I can breathe again."
I care less about the training here and more about what the main character is thinking. I don't even know their gender, and I'm really interested to know how they feel about being shipped off. With more emotion and voice, I think I would sympathize with them a lot.
ReplyDeleteTwo things here kept me from being hooked, though.
Firstly, there are a number of cliches here: 'lips pulled into a thin line', 'nine times out of ten', 'get out of your own head', etc. While the ones spoken in dialogue are understandable, the ones in your description aren't very evocative, having been used many, many times before by others. You might want to portray more uniqueness on your first page.
However, the bigger problem I see is the amount of things you're trying to squeeze into each sentence. Of particular note are the following two sentences:
"The problem is," Dad says, between breaths as he crouches lower tinto his normal fighting position, "you need to get out of your own head."
"I'm going to fry in the south, risking my life, while you're here, enjoying the breeze over lake Quannapowitt."
In the first sentence, you split the dialogue with a tag that is longer than the actual sentence being split. This feels cludgy to me, like tossing a ball in the air and trying to sputter out a limerick before it hits the ground.
The second sentence felt like blatant info-dumping me, just short of saying, "As you know, dad, we're at Lake Quannapowitt." I think that whole sentence can be deleted, the scene would feel more realistic. Especially since, while training, one typically is short of breath and not spouting out long sentences.
I really wish i knew the character's gender by the end of this page. I think it would affect how i read this scene, if i knew the dad was wailing on his son, or daughter. It would be easy to stick in with a body or clothing comment in realtion to the mud and snow.
ReplyDeleteI also feel like it could be tightened some. I agree with Chro about the slight tendency towards info dumping. At the very least, i'd ditch the name of the lake. I think that's what triggers the info dump feeling for me.
I agree the name of the lake feels forced in the dialogue, but I think it could work if included in the setting. My guess is this lake and the area around it is where the character considers home, and he/she is not happy about being shipped off somewhere else. It would help with context to say what the character is being shipped off to do and why. I think what's lacking here is a concrete concept to hold on to. One line to explain why the kid and father are fighting would also help.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the genre: is this YA fantasy?
I’m hooked and would definitely keep reading on this one.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t care for the first paragraph. I would remove it completely and start with the second one. That gets you right into the actions for your MC.
As with the other commenters I don’t know if this is a girl or a boy MC. I assume a girl because a large percentage of YA is in female voice. Or maybe because I like a strong, fighting girl, but I don’t know for sure.
One thing stuck out and irked me a little. You change between father and dad as you talk about your MC’s parent. This could just be my own preference, but father is what you call someone distant while dad is a term of affection. Since your MC gets along with him I would change “father’s face” to “dad’s face”.
YES!
ReplyDeleteHooked. Must read more of this.
There's an urgency to the style - I know who the MC is, and what's going to happen from the get-go. I can feel the bruises on his legs, and I can see his father training him.
I assumed gender was male.
I did not like the Lake name, and it startled me out of the story.
Overall, yes, I must read more of this story.
Good Luck!
No, but that's probably because I don't know if the MC is male or female and that really affect how I feel about them.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to tell us where they are don't infodump in the dialogue. Show us. Maybe later though. In action scenes the characters don't have a lot of time for taking in, or talking about the scenery.
But I disagree w/others. I liked the first paragraph, but I felt like the rest of the story doesn't live up to the emotional buildup you gave us in those first few lines.
I'm going to echo most of what Chro said.
ReplyDeleteI also think you could skip the chunk of narrative from "It's because of him..." to "to defend myself." I would find maybe a more subtle way of showing irritation and let us guess that the training session is especially rough today. That would let you get more information about the hook-y ship-off onto the first page.
Btw, you move from a sense of mud and snow melt to "cool earth" by the end, which makes my image of the setting inconsistent.
Oh, yes, I'm hooked. I don't need to know the gender of your POV character to compel me to read on. As for emotion, I think you hit it spot on without using sappy references to feeling, but using the events and the character's thoughts to subtly convey the obvious. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteThat last paragraph of dialogue appears to be an info dump, as some others have already remarked. But you're off to such a great start that it's easy to forgive, and easy for you to fix.
All this being said, this intro mirrors the opening to the movie "Abduction." That could be worrisome.
There's something odd about this excerpt that I can't put my finger on. I don't mind not knowing the character's gender, but the dialogue feels forced and unnatural, like it's there for the readers' benefit rather than the characters.
ReplyDeleteI like the first line. it's tense and exciting and when we discover its Dad who is the aggressor, it's kind of a surprise.
There's something odd about this excerpt that I can't put my finger on. I don't mind not knowing the character's gender, but the dialogue feels forced and unnatural, like it's there for the readers' benefit rather than the characters.
ReplyDeleteI like the first line. it's tense and exciting and when we discover its Dad who is the aggressor, it's kind of a surprise.
I'm on the fence about being hooked.
ReplyDeleteIs this YA or MG? Like others, I have no idea what gender your MC is, but just based on action alone I would have to say male. As others have pointed out, some of your dialogue feels forced. In natural conversation people generally won't bring up their place of location.
I get the training but what interests me more is the Dreamers reference and the shipping off across the country.
It's YA. MC is male. Sorry for confusion. Characters name is chapter title and I didn't think about that for this contest.
ReplyDeleteUnsure on this one. Thought a better job could've been done w/feeding reader the info. Also, last line: "I lay down on the cool earth" I thought it should be: "I laid there until I could breathe again." since MC has already smacked into the slush. Otherwise it sounds like MC purposely lays down to rest.
ReplyDeleteI also would like to know the gender sooner. You can do it with one quick description as #1 does with the "scratch the stubble on my chin" line. I actually pictured a girl, because maybe I always do that...
ReplyDeleteI thought this was going well until the end. The 'Easy for you to say' bit is clearly there for the read. They both know where they are, and he probably wouldn't say it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it doesn't realte at all to Dad's comment about getting out of his head. He is out of his head. He's not thinking about fighting at all. And the scene itself, being taught how to fight by one's mentor, has been done a lot. You might consider another opening.
That should be 'reader' and 'relate.' Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating scene that is replete with dramatic possibilities - none of which need to be explored yet but can lie in the reeds througout your book. It is riveting. I would like to recommend you rent an old movie called "The Great Santini" starring Robert Duvall and Michael O-Keefe and watch the scene(s) where father and son play basketball together until one day son beats father - and watch what happens. Great job. (Lose the location btw) :)
ReplyDeleteI'm totally intrigued that this is a father doing this training with his son. But the dialogue did not work for me.
ReplyDeleteHe first said, "Again." And then his next words are whiny, totally not what I wanted to hear from him. I wanted a real sense of this boy's character and who he is made of when he's been beaten and yet has just asked for more after having picked himself up off the ground.
The lake name didn't bother me as much as the rest of that dialogue line.
Need to know more about the character or story here to truly grab my interest ...
ReplyDelete