TITLE: SCARS WE BARE
GENRE: YA - Science fiction (light)
Olivia finishes up a phone conversation with her best friend while the boy she just met, Chaz, waits outside her hotel door.
“Be awesome. Kisses.”
“Kisses.” I hung up.
“Was that the bestie?” he asked, still from behind the door. I opened it only enough to see out with one eye.
“Is that okay with you?” I asked.
“What’s her name?”
I started to answer but worried about delving too deep into specifics with him.
“Her name is Tillie.”
“You should have let me speak to her.”
I laughed, and he took advantage of me being off-guard to push the door open a little further. I caught it with my foot. “Excuse me, maybe I’m not decent!”
“Then why, luv, did you answer the door?”
“Because you knocked!” I tried pushing it shut a little further, but he now had his weight on the other side. “Why do you want to speak to my best friend?”
“Get her approval.”
“Approval for what?”
“I don’t know, whatever it is you girls need each other’s approval for.” And then, a little off-handedly, “I’m just glad it wasn’t the boyfriend.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend!” I stepped right into his trap. Right into it.
He smiled at me, moved his foot, and I lost my balance and fell face first into the door, slamming it shut with my weight. “In that case,” he said from the other side, “I would like to invite you and your monkey pajamas to a movie in the living room, please. I’ll bring the popcorn. You bring the quick wit and good looks.”
I really like this. I can get a sense of both of their personalities just from this small section. It was also interesting. A couple of small things that I would change, personally though: Add 'To' before 'Get her approval'. Also, Eliminate the 'Right into it.' We can totally sense what's happening from the dialogue and the following sentence. I think the 2nd sentence is a bit of overkill. But great job!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback cbaz! Adding "To" does sound quite a bit better before "get her approval." This is why having beta readers is so important!
DeleteThe dialogue seems realistic and you showed good action between the dialogue, which moved the MS along at a good pace. I agree with the above commenter's ideas. I wonder if he is curious why the two BFs say, "kisses". In the 7th line put a comma before "but". The 7th line is good foreshadowing.
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DeleteThank you for the comments, Gail! You're the first person to note the "kisses" commentary between my two besties, and I honestly waver from time to time about whether that's too dramatic for them, especially the narrator. Tillie is ridiculous, and I wouldn't put it past her to do the mwuh mwuh kissy noises. I think Olivia plays along just to appease her.
DeleteI also really liked the sense of person we got for both characters from just a little bit of dialogue. My only suggestions would be that the line "I started to answer but worried about delving too deep into specifics with him." Seems odd to me. What politics are we going to delve into by giving the friend's name? And if she's hesitating, then gives a name -- is the name she gives real? Otherwise I thought it was really great.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lindsey, for the feedback! I agree that the line you noted needs to be reworked. I had to actually cut some prose from that paragraph to get it to be 250 or less, and the line in isolation doesn't make as much sense. Poo. Tillie is, ineed, her real name, and hesitating and then immediately telling him is goofy. Needs fixing. Thanks for pointing it out! :)
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