TITLE: Cracked
GENRE: YA urban fantasy
In this scene, the MC (Meda) and her two friends, Chi and Jo, are being attacked by demons. Chi and Jo love each other, but they won’t admit it. Jo’s been pushing Chi away for years to protect him, while he never thought she cared, since she’s been so awful to him. But now, they’re pretty sure they’re about to die.
Chi’s not done with his declarations. “So, Jo, you know I love you, right?” He grunts as he ducks a demon’s swing.
Jo kicks out with her bad leg, catching another demon on the knee. The demon loses his balance and, with some help from me, his head.
I can’t see Jo’s face as she answers, but I recognize her “back-off” tone. “Chi, I...” she starts. The only thing more ridiculous than Chi choosing now to tell Jo he loves her, is her bothering to pretend she doesn’t love him.
“Jo, we’ve got like a minute to live,” I say, exasperated. I duck under a swinging arm and relieve its owner of his intestines. “I think you should tell him.” Yes, I did just give love-advice with a fist full of demon guts.
“Fine,” Jo says, even though we’re anything but fine. She dodges a demon’s grab and hip-throws him in my direction. I give him a stay-down stomp. She pauses briefly to look at Chi, and I cover her back. She starts to respond when a demon dodges in on her left-side. She ducks and rolls him across her back, and ends up shouting, “I love you too, Chi!”
Romantic, very romantic. Just like the movies. But it works for him—Chi grins, then ducks an attack, spins, and kicks some guy’s head off. You know, had I imagined a Chi-Jo love-declaration, I would have pictured it amid demon decapitations.
I really like these lines:
ReplyDelete"The only thing more ridiculous than Chi choosing now to tell Jo he loves her, is her bothering to pretend she doesn’t love him." and
"“Jo, we’ve got like a minute to live,” I say, exasperated."
I like the pacing and the mid-battle reflection from your MC, which is funny given what she thought about her friends choosing this time to declare their love.
I would suggest watching for repeating words. "Ducks" is used two times and "dodges" twice. Both great word choices but in such a short space it's repetitive.
I think the humor works but is a little generic. "kicks some guys head off.." could be more descriptive, so the result is that the scene falls a little flat.
ReplyDeleteThis is classic humour. Almost like a movie- wait didn't you write that already?
ReplyDelete2nd last line. Kicks some guy's head off can be replaced with some more demon joke - like kicked off a demon's head with the laces in?
Its quite interesting.
The humor within action is an intersting tactic. I'm not sure it works for me. Something as mundane as a declaration of love is not enough to sustain the scene or provide enough humor to save it. It undercuts the tension but not in a good way.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, although I would never call a declaration of love mundane, I agree with Jasmine's comment.
ReplyDeleteActually, there's lots of potential tension in both scenarios that are playing out - but neither of them work because you're trying to do too many things in the one scene and miss both opportuntiies.
There's nowhere near as much tension in the declaration of love as there could be.
And they seem to be killing demons as easily as swatting flies, so there's no tension there, either. The way it's written, they just need to keep dodging and ducking and disembowelling and they'll be home before supper. Make those demons more threatening and the reader will be entranced!
I really liked the scene and I didn't notice any of the problems that the others noted. My only bother was the last sentence. I don't think you need it and I don't even know much about these characters. Maybe it would be better placed after the scene and have it be something your MC says to Chi and Jo as a comic relief to the crazy situation they just endured (assuming they all survive!). Nice job, you had me smiling with the humor.
ReplyDeleteI understand that to any grown up person what your scene does is silly but to a teenager it just might seem important so good for you. If Chi and Jo are in love then they know it and everyone around them knows it so what happens here is probably anti-climactic. But the humor is a fun thing in any scene, but demon heads are being popped off left and right so I wonder what danger there really is? I mean, either these are the most inept demons in the universe or there really is not a danger. Maybe, instead of an "I love you" moment - which is cringe worthy to anyone obver 14,,,they could argue about something that SHOWS they obviously love each other. and later they can do the I love you thing.
ReplyDelete