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New Version
My mom once said that finding your way to Endtown -- officially known as The City at the End of the World, or, as my kid sister likes to call it, “The City of the Eternally Impending Apocalypse" -- is like finding your way to the land of Faerie. Only it has department stores, a farmer's market, and a really great internet connection. And no faeries. At least, not that we've seen so far.
Endtown has other things. "Eldritch abominations," as my sister likes call them, but she's just being over-dramatic as usual. I've never known anyone to go insane from looking at them, and you can see most of them from anywhere in town, towering over the surrounding forest, some almost as enormous as the steep, snow-capped mountains that completely surround
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Old Version
Not everyone can find Endtown. Most people wouldn't want to find Endtown (rightly so) and so they don't. I've heard some of the guys at school speculate that it's one of those in-between places that you won't find on any map because it's like a crack in reality, or a parallel dimension, or that its very existence has something to do with string theory and black holes. Another idea that gets bantered around a lot is that Endtown is just as much a part of the real world as New York, London or Tokyo, only it's just really well hidden. So well hidden that you can't find it on Google Earth. I know. I've tried. My mom once said that finding your way to Endtown was like finding your way to the land of Faerie, only with department stores, a rather pleasant farmer's market, and a
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[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited July 07, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by Krista (edited July 14, 2010).]
I would read on, because of the strong voice, though it's borderline.
Just my opinion; feelf ree to reject it.
I would give this a few more lines because the voice is good, but something would have to happen pretty quickly to keep my interest for the long haul.
It is feasible to have such an intro, but you will need to be more dynamic in order to take the reader with you--it feels as though you got caught in an eddie and just ended up spinning round and round.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited July 10, 2010).]
BTW - "My mom once said that finding..." feels like a better start to me.
I have found that my stories tend to become narratives and that this is kind of annoying to readers. They want to be shown and not told.
NTTT, I like your suggestion. I'm going to give it a try to see if it helps make the opening paragraph salvageable. From some of the comments, however, I may have to start the story in a completely different place.
Thanks again, everyone. You've been most helpful.
The issue is that, as good as the writing is, you are narrating. Now I like it, and trust that eventually you will get to the meat of the story, just most people around here want to know if the character they will be following is male or female. They want to know a name, and they want to know where the character is while they are thinking in this strong voice. They want the start of the story in the first thirteen.
In your mind, as the author, is the character writing this down, or are they telling this story to a friend. Is it a blog entry? I think if you answered that last question in the thirteen, you would get a more positive review.
Though I still like it as is.
~Sheena
Just my opinion. Feel free to reject it.
[This message has been edited by tchernabyelo (edited July 15, 2010).]