Drop the Needle -- Critique Guidelines

Last time, I didn't set up submissions as a lottery, and the slots filled up with several hours to go. This time, I decided to create a lottery so that wouldn't happen again--and we only got 7 entries!

I guess you mustn't have many angry characters. ;)

At any rate, this gives us an opportunity to really home in on these seven entries and give them lots of juicy feedback. Please offer your best to help your colleagues become the best writers they can be!

Guidelines for Critique on MSFV:

• Please leave your critique for each entry in the comment box for that entry.
• Please choose a screen name to sign your comments. The screen name DOES NOT have to be your real name; however, it needs to be an identifiable name.  ("Anonymous" is not a name.)
• Critiques should be honest but kind, helpful but sensitive.
• Critiques that attack the writer or are couched in unkind words will be deleted.*
• Cheerleading IS NOT THE SAME as critiquing.  Please don't cheerlead.
• Having said that, it is perfectly acceptable to say positive things about an entry that you feel is strong.  To make these positive comments more helpful, say why it's a strong entry.
• ENTRANTS: As your way of "giving back", please critique a minimum of 3 other entries.

*I can't possibly read every comment.  If you ever see a comment that is truly snarky, please email me.  I count on your help.

Drop the Needle: ANGER #7

TITLE: Truth in the Treetops
GENRE: YA contemporary with paranormal elements

This is on Saturday night, after Gabby doesn't contact CJ for days because she's been told by someone untrustworthy at school that he's using her. 

I pull on the door handle, step back and cross my arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah, Gabby, nice to see you, too.” CJ jams his hands into his jeans’ pockets and lifts his shoulders. “What’s going on? You don’t respond to my texts or calls. You haven’t even attempted to talk to me for the last two days. First, I thought you were sick, but you would’ve at least texted me. At least I would hope so. What gives? Why are you ignoring me all of the sudden? Did I do something I’m not aware of?” His stony gray eyes burn a hole in mine.

I glance past him into the night, avoiding his pointed glare, an ache throbbing in my chest.

CJ takes a step closer and stops. “Can I come in? Please? Maybe you can tell me what’s going on.”

I nod, leading him into the family room and take a seat on the sofa. CJ shrugs off his coat and sits on the chair across from me, resting his elbows on his knees. “Talk to me. What’s up? Is it because of what happened last Saturday at your race? Because I talked to Asha? Gabby, I’m only trying to help, make sure you’re okay. I was so worried about you.” He drops his gaze to the floor. “Especially when you passed out at the finish. I’m sorry if I talked to Asha and your parents about it, but I was worried about you. Scared.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I keep saying that, but it’s the truth.”

Drop the Needle: ANGER #6

TITLE: Never Say Never
GENRE: YA YA Romance

When we got home, Mom was sitting on the living room couch, waiting for us. 

“Never do that to me again,” she said to me, her voice flat.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know if she would give me another reason to scare her that way, to keep me from wanting to come home. I stomped up the stairs and slammed the door.

The yelling started. First Dad, pissed off that Mom had exposed me to this in the first place. Then Mom, complaining about raising me all on her own while he traveled, and that I grew more and more distant and angry. Then Dad, who complained about a whole host of things, differences in parenting, Mom putting pressure on me to be however she wanted me to be. Mom said Dad was too lax with me. Dad said she wasn’t who he married. Mom said she missed when he was fun. Dad laughed bitterly at that.

All the while, I sat on my bed, my arms wrapped around my knees, fervently wishing I could disappear. After a while, the words started to blur together. Dad’s bellow and Mom’s shriek blended together into cacophonous noise. I clapped my hands over my ears.

Anger started in my center and spread like a black hole, a violent force that crushed everything it came into contact with until I was all gone. I twisted with the emotion, screaming into my pillow, kicking my mattress, sick to fucking death of every nasty word spoken in this house, of the feeling that I should have done something to fix them, of how damn little I could actually do about it. The impotence of it dissolved into tears, cutting hot trails down my cheeks.

 

Drop the Needle: ANGER #5

TITLE: THE GROWING SEASON
GENRE: YA Thriller

This scene is just before the MC’s stepfather brings the family home from an outing.  What they don’t know is that he intends to lock them away forever.

###

“Get in,” he says.  “All of you. I’m taking you guys for a treat.”

            And we do get inside the old pickup truck that’s been our transportation forever. The seats are torn in places, the front smells like stale beer.  My mother doesn’t even seem to smell it—it’s not her thing, to register something like that or comment.  Everything with her, eyes, ears, nose, are always focused somewhere else, so she can smell, hear, and see things we can’t.  In her head, locked in the pages of the fantasy novels she keeps stuffed on the shelves in their bedroom.  

            The ice cream shop is on Main.  Cleo and I watch as it gets closer, a small glass-fronted building with a candy-striped awning.  Half a dozen kids are licking cones on the sidewalk outside.  The truck picks up speed, then shoots past them in a spray of gravel that leaves some of them covering their faces or looking, stunned, at the cones they’d dropped on the sidewalk.  We turn and watch, Cleo and I, and Cleo says, “I thought we were going to stop.”

            “Do you deserve ice cream?” He says from the front.  I don’t know how he can hear us, except that he’s death and, presumably, death hears everything.  I don’t know how to answer—did we do anything that would mean punishment, even punishment by omission?  

Drop the Needle: ANGER #4

TITLE: Kingdom of the Keys: The Initiation
GENRE: MG Fantasy

Lead-in: The morning after learning that the book left by his elderly friend is a portal to an invisible realm, twelve-year-old Adam visits his neighbor and confronts him, struggling with underlying feelings of abandonment by a father he's never known.

“You knew but didn’t tell me?” Adam huffed. “How could you do that?”

Mr. King didn’t respond, but the circles under his eyes spoke of his exhaustion and his eyes told of a great sadness. Adam ignored them.

“Why would you leave and not tell me how it works?” He stomped to the kitchen table and fanned the book’s pages. “Must be nice someone cared enough about you to give you a heads-up, so you never wrote in it.”

The accusation shot out like an invisible blow. Mr. King flinched but remained silent.

“Fine! Don’t talk.” Adam slammed the book shut. “Just sit there, drink your coffee, and let your stupid orchids keep you company!” He marched to the door.   

“Adam . . . ” The weak plea traveled across the room. “I did not know how to explain the book to you. It was willed to me when I was just a boy.” 

Adam turned but only enough to see that his neighbor was still speaking to his cup. 

“Would you have believed me had I said something?”

Adam’s jaw clenched. He probably wouldn’t have believed the book was a portal. He would have thought the old man had gone senile. But that didn’t matter. Mr. King had stirred up feelings so painful, it was just easier to be angry.

“I don’t know if I would’ve believed you,” Adam snarled and grabbed the doorknob. “But we’ll never know because you didn’t care enough to stick around and try.”