TITLE: Feathers Of Blood
GENRE: YA Contemporary Horror
Gertie, OMG! I miss you! I thought when mom died it was the worst day of my life, but no –not two years later, Dad joins the stupid National Guard to “find his purpose . . . serve his country” and gets shipped off for three months to boot camp. He just dumped me at my relative’s farm in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. I don’t even know them! He’s ruined our whole summer! Doesn’t he know we’re starting high school this year? Doesn’t he know how important that is? Doesn’t he even care? I hate him! I thought this place would at least be a nice, little farm with white picket fences, cows or horses and chickens running around – but NO!!! IT’S A DUMP! The barn is nicer than the house. They do have the chickens, though . . . gazillions of them Aunt Agnes is nice, but old. She looks like my Nana – that’s kinda weird. Uncle Murfee yells a lot and smells like chicken poop– it’s so gross! Can I come visit for a couple days? PLEASE? Ask your parents if I could stay for a week or two . . . or the rest of the summer – PLEASE! This place totally sucks!
Send. Send … SEND! SEND!!! It was bad enough not having good cell phone reception, but email was completely useless. Maybe I’d find a better signal strong enough to cut through the thick, sticky pine and dismal mountains that surrounded this place. Maybe I’d get out a text.
It's an interesting (and risky) idea to start with a text message. It seems a bit long for a text message with backstory incorporated into it in an unnatural way - "I thought when my mom died" two years ago..then Dad has joined the NG etc...decriptions of the place...etc - all read like something that a kid would not put into a text. But, on the other hand, the voice with which these are expressed sounds genuine. I would however caution that starting with a frantic, bitter MC can be a turn off - and having her state she hates her widowed father who is - gasp - serving his country does not endear her to me as a reader. Perhaps all these things can be brought in slower and in less of a childish pique of woe is me emotion - maybe ease the reader into it.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Happy Dolphin.
ReplyDeleteI will add that I loved "looks like my Nana — that's kinda weird." and "Uncle Murphy yells a lot and smells like chicken poop — so gross."
I do agree with the comments above about the email - it seems like a lot of information right up front and doesn't endear you to the character. I love your descriptions, though, and the voice in the email. So funny! My opinion, but I would suggest introducing with her actually experiencing it, then jump into an email later.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I'd use this email for an opening paragraph for a horror novel. It's a bit chatty and there's no tension.
ReplyDeleteThe idea works though, being sent out to the country after her (his? I'm not sure the sex but I'm guessing it's a her) father leaves is a good start. Creepy stuff always happens in the country!
And it IS super frustrating when your phone doesn't work, that's a great touch.
Best of luck.
I liked the voice of your text message. I'd try to shorten it, maybe by half.
ReplyDeleteafter "gazillions of them" there should be a period. Would be interesting, but probably a bad choice, to make the whole text message full of gramatical errors that text messages are full of.
also the first line after the text didn't make sense to me. I think that cell service would be much more important to your MC than email. I'd revise to:
Send. Send … SEND! SEND!!! It was bad enough not having email, but on top of that, cell reception was practically useless.
I think what bugged me more than the email was the fact that there is no way you can tell this is supposed to be a scary story. I like to know up front whether or not I'm in for a good spooky tale.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mark - Start from the Send send send part, have us curious as to what's so important about this message she's sending, and introduce your backstory later.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I am not sold on this. It is a risky start, but it doesn't do the job for me. It has no real tone. IN fact, the tone is a bit silly. And I don't know if that's what you are going for. It says horror. But I don't know. And I didn't like the rambling on. And it doesn't feel like a text, but a really badly written email.
ReplyDeleteSorry. I wouldn't read on. :(
I found it too jumbled to read on.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd anchored me a little better in terms of where we are and who the character sending the text is before launching into the message, I might have been okay with this.
I would love love LOVE to see more horror out there, but as is, this isn't really drawing me in. As the others have said, the text message isn't quite the right tone - I'd be more interested in an opening that sets the scene, with at least a hint of the tension to come.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your MC would talk about her backstory in a text message to her best friend - her friend presumably knows all of this already. I'm much more interested in the hints of the setting in the second paragraph, and I get a better idea from that of where the horror will come in.
Good luck!
Boy you folks are all spot on... I totally struggled with the "first 250" words. First version included the "backstory" setting the scene for horror, but it didn't start w/ my MC ... it started with chatter between the aunt and uncle! Not defending, just, ya know, thinking out loud. I had a 50/50 shot of chosing one scene over the other... thanks so much for all your great ideas!
ReplyDeleteEh... I don't have a lot to add that other people haven't already said. I especially agree with Happy and Becky's comments.
ReplyDeleteI just didn't want to not comment. (I'm trying to get them all this time.)
As I read Happy Dolphin's comment, I thought that (s)he said everything I was thinking as I read the excerpt. I would only add that I think it's natural for a child to feel a sense of abandonment if the father was deployed, so soon after having lost the mother.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder whether the dad's motivation to enlist was to escape his unhappy life rather than a sense of duty to his country.
Author, you dont need to give the reader so much backstory in one fell swoop. Let your readers wonder why your MC has found him/herself in that situation first, then drip-feed the rest. Think of it a little like a strip tease.
I’d read more. I liked the email and thought it suited her age, but if this is horror, I’d be hoping for something to make it feel that way—some eerie tone and mood, as well as a hint as to what the horror in New Hampshire was.
ReplyDeleteThere's always a line between voice and too much voice, and you're tipping towards the latter. I'm uncertain whether this is a text or email, either way, I'm not a fan of starting an ms this way. Backstory dump and the exclamation marks turn me off. And a character starting out by complaining about the cell service, while it is conflict and the reader can relate, it's a bit cliche. I'd much rather see the character slip on said chicken poop than hear her complain about it.
ReplyDeleteThe voice and setting don't lend itself to the genre--horror. Reading the passage, I forgot it was supposed to be horror, thinking it was light contemporary until I looked at genre again.