TITLE: The Mechanical Cosmic Seed
GENRE: MG Science Fiction, A fairy tale retelling
Chapter 1-Sabatoge
Jackie suppressed the urge to glance at the clock a second time as she waited for the perfect moment to launch her cunning plan, and not even rolling nausea or the spaceship's bumpy descent would extinguish her drive of going through with it.
To keep her composure, she squeezed her eyes shut and released a slow breath as her brother, being a jerk as always, piloted her beloved Milky Way. Just wait—in a few minutes, his smug smile would be replaced with blood-curdling screams. Best. Sound. Ever.
She tapped her toes along with the blinking of dials desperate for her finesse. Piloting Milky Way came to her like second nature, and yet, without her behind the wheel, all she could do was bide her time and buff the fingerprints from the dash until just the right moment. Malik and Mom didn’t honor the ship like she did. In fact, they treated her like a hunk of metal instead of family. But she didn’t feel this way. Piloting Milky Way gave her life purpose. Her plan would at no time put her baby in danger, but instead, Malik would have to admit that she, Jackie, could be the one and only master of Milky Way.
Her insides fluttered with the longing of regaining control of the ship. She’d give Malik one last chance to give her command the civil way before holy-haywire began.
Great opening! I think you do a great job of creating tension and showing emotion without telling. Using words like "her insides fluttered" is great. I can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming that this is a Jack in the Beanstalk re-telling, and I"m here for it. Jack and the Beanstalk with a female lead in space! I feel like I want to get to Malik's blood-curdling screams a little faster and let's see the plan in action because you can show how the rest of the family treats Milky Way throughout. Or even have Malik do something early on that indicates his disrespect for the ship to give Jackie the impetus to put her plan into action.
ReplyDeleteI love the twist here...female Jackie character and sci fi retelling of a fairy tale. MG readers would like this, too. They study fairy tales, folk tales, mythology in 4th grade...so they would be primed for this plot. I think the first sentence is too long for MG. Would suggest you make two sentences out of it. Also some long sentences in par. two that you might want to revise. I was confused at first about Milky Way...as in The Milky Way galaxy vs the spaceship. Had to reread to straighten that out in my mind. Suggest you revise phrase "her baby in danger"...her craft in danger. In par 2 and 3, have references to she and her, but you have introduced Mom, so you have two female characters. Need to change to proper noun for clarification. Love the phrase "holy-haywire" and "Best. Sound. Ever." Very current with MG language. I think this sounds like a very interesting ms that I would want to keep reading.
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