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Author Topic: Moon Tide
ForlornShadow
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I actually am a little nervous about doing this since I haven't done it before. Moon Tide is a fantasy story, its really a fantasy story containing werewolves. I've always been fascinated with the legends and things of that nature. I promise that I will try not to make them cheesy and cliche. Anyway the story is about Alyssa, a college student who loves to study and do work. One day she meets a young man named Caleb, who happens to be a werewolf on a mission. He has to find the Marked One to bring back to his family. Alyssa just happens to be what he's looking for. But a competitor arrives looking for her as well. In the end she has a choice, she can choose to marry Caleb's brother and become the clan's new 'Queen' or she could choose to marry Caleb, whom she has come to love dearly. I'm only about ten pages in and I just need feedback if this is a good idea for a story and if it is does the beginning hook the reader.

Tree branches crashed against my face, tearing into the skin there, as I ran by trying to find a good place to hide. What a good place to hide was though was escaping me at the moment. It was all so confusing this whole thing about clans and who was to marry who. I had followed Caleb hoping he would be able to explain my situation a little better but it turned out to be a complete and total disaster. I think I better explain myself first before I move on. This whole thing started on the day when I met him: Caleb that is.
Kristin down the hall was drinking…again. I could tell because she likes to sing karaoke when she’s partying, and when she’s partying she’s usually drinking, and when she’s drinking she usually sings badly. She wasn’t letting me down tonight

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Jess
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that is a cool idea. so the whole purpose of Caleb getting her is for his brother to marry her? That's cool.
For your thirteen lines I'd say the first paragraph isn't necessary. It feels weird for the jump back in time in paragraph two. (at least that's what I assume happens. Let the reader see what will happen later when it happens. Especially in the first page you don't want the reader confused about who or what is going on.
but the second paragraphs opening line is pretty catchy. and the voice really is strong in that second paragraph. I'd say start there, but that's just my opinion.

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gkergh
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Interesting start. I agree with Jess about the two beginnings. Maybe come back to the first part later; it has an interesting cinematic feel to it, but it jumps too quickly to the real beginning.
I have one wording issue in the second sentence. "A place to hide" and "escaping" together seems to confuse the idiomatic use of "escaping me." At first, I read running and hiding and when I got to escaping, I interpreted it literally as trying to get away and had to rethink it a few words later.

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Tryndakai
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100% agree about cutting the first paragraph. Not to be hurtful (I hope), but that first paragraph to me telegraphed exactly what you're trying to avoid--cheesiness and cliche, and very obviously first-draft material. You've got a werewolf story. You've got wild bramble-scratches while fleeing through a forest. And then you've got the "hold on, wait a second, let me tell the story from the beginning . . ." All of which, when done well, can be done very well indeed. But here they're pretty thrown together, and I wasn't terribly enticed.

On the other hand, however; just those two lines of the next paragraph COMPLETELY changed my mind. [Smile] All of a sudden you've got Voice (with a nice touch of snark), you've got a familiar setting that's almost completely fleshed out in my mind with virtually NO description (which is really nice when you can do that, because then the description you *do* add can really *mean* something, and pop), and you've got me giggling a bit. That line alone makes me want to skim further, to see which way you trend--do you mainly write like p1, or p2? Obviously, with a little work, you can make it all sound like p2 . . . which might get you somewhere. [Wink]

As far as the overall pitch--there's not really enough in what you've described to really let me know if yours will be "just another" werewolf romance, or one of the ones I really enjoy. (And I am a "cheesy" paranormal romance fan, so . . . [Smile] ) Obvsiously if you've only just started writing it, it's not fleshed out, so I won't harp on you for that. I'll just suggest that, as you go along, you try to pick out the little things about your story/world that make it stand out from all the ones like it, be it in magic system or character or setting or whatever. And the differences don't have to be huge or even (necessarily) terribly plot-hinging--they just have to be intriguing. [Smile]

Oh, and as far as "is this a good idea, should I continue?"--the only answer I can give on that is that you write what you want to. Write what's interesting to *you,* and what *you* are passionate about. Because then hopefully your readers will sense your interest and be interested, in turn.
(And only after that should you worry much about what other people think, in terms of editing and making it marketable.)

Hope that helps. [Big Grin] And really, don't take my critiques too personally--this is, after all, a very rough first draft, and I'll not claim that my stories sound any better when I'm at page 10. [Wink]

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