TITLE: YA
GENRE: Secret
Gemma didn’t recognize the boy sitting at the table by the window, but Annalisa said he’d asked about her. He was cute, in a rough sort of way, his short cropped hair forming a rounded widow’s peak, his nose wide and mostly flat. He caught her watching him from the café doors and gave her a sharp-edged smile, his laser-beam eyes flashing.
With the force of a whirlwind, she was sucked back, reliving the worst moment of her life. The noise. People screaming and running. Panic. The gun, shockingly-black and grotesque, like an appendage growing out of Kyle’s hand. She closed her eyes and mentally shook herself, silently repeating the words as her therapist had instructed: I am safe. I am protected. This is not real.
Exhaling, she grabbed a white cotton apron from the wall peg and pushed through the swinging doors. Tying the strings around her waist, she approached his table.
Contemporary
ReplyDeleteRealistic fiction.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Gemma has PTSD from an event with a boy named Kyle. Now she flashes back. Maybe she actually knows the guy at the table (who looks like Jonathan Rhys Meyer) but her PTSD is keeping her from remembering him.
Contemporary
ReplyDeleteI admit, the laser-beam eyes had me considering sci-fi, but everything else seemed focused on a near-death experience the mc is trying to put behind her.
Mystery. To me the way she describes the boy (SHARP edged smile, Laser-beam eyes) suggest a mystery, as does her past. Since the boy reminded her of a negative event.
ReplyDeleteMystery. To me the way she describes the boy (SHARP edged smile, Laser-beam eyes) suggest a mystery, as does her past. Since the boy reminded her of a negative event.
ReplyDeleteThriller
ReplyDeleteThe flashback seems a little too violent to fit under mystery or contemporary.
Psychological Thriller.
ReplyDeleteThe flashback pushed me to thriller.It's intense. The smile/eyes that sent the MC to the flashback made me think it might be a psychological thriller.
Contemporary.
ReplyDeleteThe laser-beam eyes threw me for a minute, but I'm pretty sure it was a metaphor, not actual laser-beams. Otherwise it seems like the MC is recovering after witnessing a shooting.
Thriller
ReplyDeleteI think the flashback is a bit of foreshadowing, and the MC will be thrown into a connected and even more dangerous situation.
Thriller
ReplyDeleteThis feels like she has a secret, and there's an element of danger to it since she has to use a psychologists mantra to remind her that she's safe. Also, feels like there's a little PTS in here due to something that happened in her past.
What do you call just straight forward fiction??? Commercial or contemporary or realistic? That's what this feels like to me: a girl with some traumatic history meeting a cute boy.
ReplyDeleteYA contemporary?
ReplyDeleteI would have said women's fiction except for the marked category and the fact she's looking at a boy not a man. I didn't get the setting until the very last of the excerpt, as I *first* thought it was a school cafeteria...???
YA Romance
ReplyDeleteThere is a slight inkling I have that this is a YA Fantasy. Like the boy caused her to remember the most painful moment of her life. But not truly sure.
Drama, I was gonna go with romance but then the MC started freakin out from some kind of PTSD.
ReplyDeleteThriller
ReplyDeleteWe're thrust right away (maybe too right away) into a terrifying memory, and a sense that this boy is connected to it; hints that he may or may not be who he seems to be.
My guess is paranormal. The boy with "laser-beam eyes" has a way of pulling her memories to the surface.
ReplyDeleteFantasy
ReplyDeleteI think there is something paranormal going on here
Maybe the widow's peak
Fantasy. I think the boy is some "other" creature, and that's why his eyes send her into a panic.
ReplyDeleteContemporary, elements of paranormal maybe.
ReplyDeleteParanormal because of the laserbeam thing. Makes me think he's got some sort of power which makes MC think or feel things, though it may just be a flashback brought on my a trigger.
DeleteThriller
DeleteFlashback of a violent event
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteContemporary. Think the flashback is PTSD because of the mention of a therapist.
ReplyDeletecontemporary - either romance or mystery.
ReplyDeleteI think it's real-world, the MC is a waitress in a cafe who's experienced a trauma. the boy will have something to do with it, as a help in learning what happened (esp if it's a romance) .
contemporary - either romance or mystery.
ReplyDeleteI think it's real-world, the MC is a waitress in a cafe who's experienced a trauma. the boy will have something to do with it, as a help in learning what happened (esp if it's a romance) .
Contemporary, given the modern-day setting and the PTSD.
ReplyDeleteContemporary, given the modern-day setting and the PTSD.
ReplyDeleteThriller. Gemma has been through something bad, and it looks like she may be trying to escape...she is safe, I am protected....is she? The laser-beamed eyes, sharp-edged smile boy sounds dangerous....
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOoops...sorry, I removed it because it posted twice!
ReplyDeleteOoops...sorry, I removed it because it posted twice!
ReplyDeleteContemporary. Could possibly be a mystery of a thriller as well.
ReplyDeleteContemporary
ReplyDeleteDifficult to tell. trauma + waitress + guy with laser eyes.
Contemporary realism.
ReplyDeletePTSD issue with romantic subplot.
SCIENCE-FICTION.
ReplyDeleteA stranger with laser-beam eyes flashing. Sounds like a robot. A man with a gun growing like appendages in his hands. Yikes. SF.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYA Romance
ReplyDeleteContemporary. This seems like it could be a story ripped from today's headlines.
ReplyDeleteContemporary realism
ReplyDeleteSounds like a recovery novel.
Science Fiction.
ReplyDeleteThe boy with laser-beam eyes flashing (I pictured a cyborg of some type), a person with a gun growing out of his arm (again I pictured a cyborg of some type), and the girl being sucked back into a memory and actually reliving it (pictured some sort of momentary time travel instigated by the boy's flashing eyes).
Not sure
ReplyDeleteIt seems either romance because of the other boy or thriller because of the mention of guns.
YA contemporary
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the MC survived a school shooting with the flashback.
Thriller
ReplyDeleteI was a little confused by "laser-beam eyes flashing" and thought for a minute that we were going with sci-fi, but the rest of the piece (the cafe, the therapist, the apron) seems contemporary. But with the indication that the boy knows her, it feels like there's a mystery element. And she has a therapist, so I can see this being psychological about her PTSD and a confusing reality. I'm guessing a girl who was involved in a school shooting, maybe?
The way he's described- widow's peak, flat nose, laser beam eyes causing her to have a violent flashback and the fact that he's asked about her, I'm guessing Paranormal.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking Paranormal
ReplyDeleteThe violent flashback and the whole "this is not real" made me think that she was walking into something supernatural
My story is an Urban Fantasy.
ReplyDelete(Authoress, is there a prize for having no correct guesses?)
The story takes place at Gemma’s family's Italian deli in present day San Francisco, but with supernatural elements—the boy is an angel and there’s time travel. The laser beam eyes metaphor and the instant flashback were intended to suggest that everything may not be as it seems.
The story is a WIP and it's a bit of a mash up, with elements of thriller, paranormal, and romance, (but not paranormal romance). And yes, Gemma is suffering from PTSD after experiencing a traumatic event.
This was a fun contest. I appreciate all your comments. I loved reading everyone’s interpretations. And I loved S.D. King’s suggestion that the boy at the table looks like Jonathan Rhys.
LOL Maybe there should be. :)
Delete