TITLE: Invisible Me
GENRE: YA light SF
When Ana turns invisible and her genius best friend, Isaac, is kidnapped, she has seven days to find him or be invisible forever. They're after her next, wanting to extract the formula from her veins. She must free Isaac and get the antidote without falling into their hands.
Sneakered feet shuffled along the white tile floor as students lobbied for sinks to wash scorched test tubes and dripping pipets. Bunsen burners and beakers clattered to their places on supply shelves. The fluorescent light in the back of the room buzzed like a swarm of mosquitoes, and Isaac, my lab partner and best friend, scribbled conclusions on our lab sheet. His forehead creased with concentration.
That was my first clue something was wrong.
“Isaac? You okay? You look like you actually need to think about that.”
“I screwed up, Ana.”
I snort laughed. “How? Wouldn’t that be like Michelangelo messing up painting his house?”
“Not the lab. My experiments at home.” He lowered his voice. “I’m in trouble.”
I stared at him for a moment. “What do you mean you’re in—”
“Not now.” He slid the completed sheet to me and slung his backpack onto his shoulder. “I’m leaving early. Can you come over after school?”
I nodded, surprised he had to ask.
“I need to get ready. Come as soon as you can, okay?”
“Get ready?”
But the bell rang, and he was out the door before I was off my chair.
Thirteen minutes after school ended I pulled up across the street from Isaac’s house. He’d given me a spare key four years ago when we were freshman so he wouldn’t have to stop working to let me in. As soon as I pushed the door open, he called up from his lab.
“Is that you?"
I love this pitch, and the only suggestion I have for the sample page is the very opening lines. I feel like they sound like a list of things happening, 1, 2, 3 But once I got to "The fluorescent light in the back of the room..." it really started flowing! The suspense of what Isaac did is great.
ReplyDeleteI liked this as well. My only critique is regarding the decision to open at the school when the scene transitions within a page to Issac's house.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like opening at the house would cut down on school descriptions that aren't immediately necessary, allowing you to get right to the suspenseful aspects of the build up to finding out what Issac has screwed up.
I think your pitch is great. The one thing I'd change is I think you should probably say "The kidnappers are" instead of "They're." As it is, the pronoun doesn't have a referent.
ReplyDeleteI also like your opening scene. You might want to move the first clue that something was wrong to the beginning: Something like "My first clue something was wrong was Isaac's forehead creased with concentration." That way you are starting with a question/problem instead of description.
I actually like the fact that it starts at school -I think it does a good job of creating suspense. But I agree with pp that such a short scene feels rushed. I wonder if you could expand it - not by padding it with backstory, but just by writing it as a more detailed scene.