TITLE: Wish I Was Here
GENRE: YA Mystery
By the time I reached Isaac's house, the knot in my stomach would put sailors to shame. Asking me to come over after school, something I did automatically anyway, was my second clue something was wrong. The first was him concentrating during our chem lab. Isaac Mason needing to think about science was like Michelangelo struggling to paint a fence.
I used the key he’d given me two years ago to let myself in.
“Is that you, Ana?”
Who else would it be? “Yes.”
“Did you lock the—?”
“I’m locking it now.”
“Good.”
I headed to the basement. Isaac’s adoptive parents, who wouldn’t be home for an hour, encouraged his experiments, so they let him take over the space. It was filled with bookshelves lined with his numerous creations, many of which I couldn’t identify, but some were robots that could scratch Isaac’s back, open and hand him soda cans, and pick things up off the floor. One of them could probably defuse bombs if Isaac wanted it to.
On top of a cabinet stood the cage for Isaac’s rabbit, Einstein. I was surprised to see it empty, though the pet’s musty odor lingered. A suitcase filled with Isaac’s thick notebooks sat on a wooden table in the middle of the room. His tools, gadgets, gears, and unfamiliar metal parts from clocks, maybe, or engines, or who knows what, were shoved off to the side instead of taking their usual place at center stage.
A T-shirt poked out between a second suitcase’s zippered teeth.
I like how vivid your opening sentence is, especially the unusual analogy! Your first 250 sets up Isaac's character well, but I know next to nothing about the narrator. If she's the one I'm going to be connecting the most with, then I want to get to know her right away. I am intrigued by where the plot is going. You jump right into the action and that's good.
ReplyDeleteFantastic opening line!
ReplyDeleteMaybe change “needing to think about science” to “needing to exert himself in science class.”
I LOVE the dialouge. The lines are short but they convey so much about the characters and their relationship.
I would probably change “clocks, maybe, or engines, or who knows what” to “clocks, or maybe engines.”
Great imagery with the t-shirt in the suitcase’s zippered teeth!
For me, this had a MG feel to it, and it seemed Mason was more an inventor than an experimentor. But maybe he's both.
ReplyDeleteBut it also had a fun feel to it, like it would be a humorous mystery, more than a serious one. I'd give it a few more pages to see where it goes.
I got a Back to the Future vibe here. Narrator visiting the quirky scientist with a pet named Einstein lol. If it's a YA mystery with time travel I'm in.
ReplyDeleteIt seems Isaac, with his robots, his eccentricities, and his talent for science, is a fun character and I’d love to know more about him and his relationship to Ana.
ReplyDeleteI don’t quite understand why Ana has such a knot in her stomach at the beginning. The clues you give don’t seem to justify her anxiety. It would help if we understood why these actions scare her. Maybe instead of relying on so much on Ana’s descriptions in the beginning, you could introduce us to Isaac sooner and let us see his quirkiness for ourselves.
I’ve read “knot in my stomach” hundreds and hundreds of times in manuscripts, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard “would put sailors to shame.” Nice!
ReplyDeleteNo need to say “given me two years ago”—we know where you’re heading, so you can let the reader learn how long they’ve been together a bit later.
I think you might be telling us about Einstein missing from his cage a bit too soon. If it’s so unusual, it seems like she’d immediately ask, Hey where’s Einstein?
I think this is a very strong start!
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