TITLE: BAD BEAT
GENRE: YA - Contemporary Thriller
Best friends Sonja and Kai have just ditched school and stopped at Sonja’s house so she can get her fake ID before they go play poker at a casino.
“Make sure it isn’t one of the bottles on the top shelf. Kai . . . Kai! I know you can hear me.”
“Sip?”
“Nope. Gotta keep my mind in the game.” The idea of getting wasted before I’ve even played my first hand makes me wrinkle my nose. “Besides, day drinking’s lame. Who wants to sport a hangover by two in the afternoon?”
“See, you’re doing it wrong. The trick to avoiding a hangover is to keep drinking. Daddy always said he wasn’t raising a quitter. If he only knew how well I listened. Maybe he’d have stuck around longer.” Holding up the bottle, Kai swallows with vigor. “Probably should’ve followed his own advice.”
“You know he loves you. It’s not your fault. Sometimes people can’t make it work. Ya know?”
“But, if I’d been more manly . . . Maybe-”
I stop him before he can say another word. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re quarterback of our fucking football team. You’ve known how to change a tire on a car since you were thirteen, and you could probably handyman my entire house if it started falling apart. You’ve got to be one of the manliest boys I know. And if you think for one second the reason your dad left is because you happen to like guys, well . . . I don’t know what to say. Except, you’re wrong.”
“Okay, enough of that. You’ll ruin my mascara.”
“You aren’t wearing any mascara, dummy.”
The dialogue is good. It gives a strong sense of both characters' personalities and their interplay with each other. I do feel like you could use a few more descriptions interspersed amongst the dialogue so we have a better picture of the scene - how they're standing or moving, where they are in relation to each other, and so forth. Good luck!
ReplyDelete"Who wants to sport a hangover by two in the afternoon?”"
ReplyDeleteThat would be a pretty fast hangover. I'd go for who wants to be drunk by two or something similar.
"If he only knew how well I listened. Maybe he’d have stuck around longer.”"
I think you could leave these out. Show a facial expression or voice inflection in the "“Probably should’ve followed his own advice.”" This will make it a lot stronger, I think.
I'd break up the long paragraph. You can add in some kind of action, though it might be tightened also.
Nice closing lines.
I think you did a pretty good job. It's plain who's talking. The dialogue is straightforward with no linguistic gymnastics. I do wonder if a teen boy is going to admit he thinks his father doesn't think he's manly.
This has a lot of energy and humor. I think it would have more impact if several of the lines were less on the nose. e.g., What if Kai and Sonja never actually mention the word "manly"? I think the reader could imply it by the following:
ReplyDelete“But, if I’d been more . . . ”
I stop him before he can say another word. “You’ve got to be kidding. You’re quarterback of our fucking football team. You’ve known how to change a tire on a car since you were thirteen, and you could probably handyman my entire house if it started falling apart. If you think for one second the reason your dad left is because you happen to like guys, well . . . you’re wrong.”
Just a thought. I enjoyed this.