TITLE: The White Glove Society
GENRE: YA Contemporary
When a teenage guitar phenom is ousted from the band she started and forced to attend her conservative South Carolina town’s annual White Glove Society Ball, she challenges the decades-old tradition by doing more than just being presented to society.
There’s nothing more satisfying than fingers flying over cold steel. Heart pounding in rhythm to the beat. Silky sounds feeding the soul. I look over at Zander and try to get him to look at me, but he’s staring down at his own hands drumming out the beat. Odd. He usually watches Grace.
I focus on my own riff and then steal a glance at Grace. She smiles and even winks at me. That’s a first. Her norm is the stink eye when I stand too close to her or steal the applause. It’s looks that make me feel like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. From the first moment Zander urged me to try out for the band, Grace had a beef with me, but now I think I’ve won her over. Tonight everything feels like I’m cocooned in good karma. I even scored a free latte from the barista. I step a little closer to Grace and sing the chorus along with her. I don’t want this song to ever end. This is where I belong. I let my mind wander.
Instead of the twenty or so coffee-loving-media-reading people we’re performing for, I imagine twenty thousand music-loving-media-posting fans. They’re all chanting my name, wanting more. I step closer to the edge of the stage and give the crowd what they want—an added guitar lick in the middle of Grace’s favorite song.
Miss Snark's First Victim
I'm hooked. I like the idea of a rocker girl. I'm predicting that a love triangle between Grace, Zander and the MC is coming. If so maybe not make it so obvious. I would read on.
ReplyDeleteI would take out "I let my mind wander." It sounds like she's not engaged and undercuts everything else you wrote, and is not needed as a segue to the next paragraph.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I'm hooked. I can clearly see that she's about to get booted from the band (although since the text says Zander talked her into auditioning, the logline might need to say "the band she helped found"), and I'm really curious as to what she's going to do at the ball. Come out? Lead a protest march? Set fire to the MC? :)
I like the writing, in that it drops us into a specific moment and makes me feel I am there on stage looking out at the crowd. I think is probably really good, but the subject matter doesn't really interest me, so I would be cautiously hooked, depending where it goes.
ReplyDeleteI like the writing sample. I especially like lines such as "make me feel like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe" or "Tonight everything feels like I’m cocooned in good karma."
ReplyDeleteCould your log line perhaps give more of a hint of what she decides to do? Is it one big thing or a bunch of little things? I like the premise set-up, but I feel a little confused about where it is going.
I would read this, though. Good work so far!