Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Angenii

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Posted by giggles (Member # 3279) on :

This is an Urban Fantasy.
Not finished yet, as this is one of my projects for this year. I'm really concentrating on my opening lines. Any help will be appreciated.
************

There she was again—the girl in the white gown. Three times this week she stalked my dreams never saying anything, just looming around in the background, flickering in and out of focus. I wondered when she would have the courage to talk to me.
“Rachel, are you up?”
“Yes, mother.” I shouted back shattering any remnants of silence still lingering from the night before. I rolled to my side, rubbing my temples. Tension between two extremes battled inside my head. Somewhere, a door was about to be opened, evil was rising, and something about this girl was going to be at the heart of it.

**************
Thanks in advance.
Chrissie

Posted by TL 601 (Member # 2730) on :

It feels like the beginning to a very sharp and well-written YA novel. If that's what you're going for, excellent.

I don't think the tone is quite right for a short story -- I don't think it usually works to foreshadow a short story with quite so much self-awareness, if that makes sense. It doesn't seem to fit into the right kind of structure.

I'm *not* actually sure what this is, but I'll tell you right off the bat that if this was the opening of a YA novel, and I was in the right mood, I'd buy the book.

If I came across this somewhere where I was expecting a *serious* story (whatever my preconceived notions of that might be) I probably would not keep reading.

'This is for kids,' I'd say to myself. 'It hits all the wrong notes; Dream? Wakes up? What? No.'

So context is the thing.

It really does seem very well-written to me, though. So it gets a tentative "good work," from me.

If any of that sounds contradictory, it is. But readers have different expectations from different kinds of stories.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I would agree that this is cool, and I'd say Rachel is a teenager.

I just have 2 suggestions:

Until I heard "Rachel," I assumed MC was male. You can fix this ambiguity very easily I think. "She looked like me" or "I wish I could be that ____" or something involving comparison of MC to the girl.

I'm not fond of characters knowing abstractions without having perceived things to make them deduce it. For example, I don't want MC to think there is danger, unless she used some sense to determine this (intuition included). Your MC knows that "a door was about to be opened, evil was rising, and something about this girl was going to be at the heart of it." This reminds me I'm in a book, because real people can't know such complicated things without having a *reason* to know it. It feels like a poorly disguised comment from author to reader about what to expect.

You could have Rachel as puzzled about the dreams as we would be; or you could have a prophecy; or someone in her dreams told her this . . . lots of possibilities.

Posted by pjp (Member # 3211) on :

I thought it was a very good opening. Because I've read, more often than I care to, that opening a story with the MC waking up is a Bad Thing, it distracted me a little. If I'm reading correctly, she's already awake. Perhaps making it a little more clear that she was already awake when her mother calls her would help.

For wbriggs:

quote:
This reminds me I'm in a book, because real people can't know such complicated things without having a *reason* to know it. It feels like a poorly disguised comment from author to reader about what to expect.

I found this comment to be helpful. Something for me to keep in mind. Thanks.

Posted by sholar (Member # 3280) on :

The waking up transition did throw me a bit. The foreshadowing about evil made me assume she has some precog abilities. If I later learn I am wrong or this never comes up again, I might then dislike the begining.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Check your person, do you have a reason for writing this in first person (and don't give me that crap about it being "more personal" or "immediate", because that's simply not true). Recasting in 3PLO will fix most of the problems pointed out so far.

Waking up from a dream is a little more difficult to pull off than simply waking up, and it will set off alarms for most editors. You can do it, but don't rely on it. You need to entrance the reader to sell a dream sequence. Some of the comments indicate that you didn't pull some people into the dream very well (I'm immune to entrancement, so I don't count ).

Posted by giggles (Member # 3279) on :

First person POV is a big debate I am arguing with myself over. A very reputable agent (and I mean that literally) told me that 3rd POV is starting to be considered Old School writing for this new Urban Fantasy genre that is really hot right now. So I am trying it out.

Chrissie

Posted by yanos (Member # 1831) on :

quote:
new urban fantasy genre

Did I miss something here?

Posted by Po (Member # 3336) on :

The one thing that hit me right away-- and this is just a nit-- is the way you phrased just looming around in the background. The word 'around' seems out of place to me, enough that I stopped reading for a moment and reread from the beginning.

Also, the last two lines in paragraph two seem to be written by a different person. If they are needed at this point, perhaps you might try incorporating them into what your MC is feeling?

I am interested in learning about the dream-girl. It would keep me reading.

Posted by giggles (Member # 3279) on :

Yanos -- urban fantasy has been around for a long time. What I refer to as new, is that this style used to be considered all fantasy, limiting the submission market. However, now that publishers (like Harlequin's Luna books, which is mostly comprised of this new style) and agents are now considering this more a main stream read, the opportunity for these kinds of books have doubled. Soon, I think we will see Urban Fantasy having its own section in the book stores rather than being pushed in with the sci-fi and normal fantasy.

Chrissie

Posted by giggles (Member # 3279) on :

Sorry, I forgot to mention this is a YA/mature novel.
I hope I got everyone's suggestion put in.
NEW VERSION:

She was there again last night—the girl in the white gown. Three times this week she stalked my dreams never saying anything, just looming in the background, flickering in and out of focus. I wondered when she would have the courage to talk to me.

“Rachel, are you up?”

“Yes, mother.” I shouted back shattering any remnants of silence still lingering from the night before. I rolled to my side, rubbing my temples. Tension between two extremes battled inside my head. Something was unraveling, and this girl was at the heart of it.
*************
I posted the rest of this chapter on my blog. I would be honored if anyone wanted to give it a quick read over and offer up suggestions on improvement. Always willing to recipicate.

Chrissie
http://gigglewrks.blogspot.com/

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

giggles, posting an entire chapter of your work severely hurts your chances of selling publication rights. Now, this is not a huge problem since you probably will want to go through a complete rewrite before trying to seriously sell this, but it is something that you must keep in mind. Once you've published something, it becomes very difficult to sell it to a publisher.

Posted by Woodie (Member # 3346) on :

I absolutely love your first paragraph. It really grabbed my attention. I did not like the dialogue, however. I don't know any teenager who responds to Mom waking them up by saying 'Yes mother"--but maybe that says something about the character that I don't know yet. I would like to know more about Rachel before Mom interuppts her dream.

Posted by DeepDreamer (Member # 5337) on :

I see first person used more often than not in YA, so that POV fits well here.

From the "Yes, mother" line I get the sense of irritation. I think most teens will get the same thing.

What bothers me is that last line, about something unraveling...how does Rachel know this? Is she psychic? Are these dreams premonitions, or what? It's interesting, I'd read on for sure, but I'd definitely raise an eyebrow upon reading that line for the first time.

And if you must put your stuff up online, put it on a password-protected site and only give the password out to your critiquers through email.

Just my two centavos.

Posted by Homeworld (Member # 3136) on :

I like pretty much everything... except that line about "she stalked my dreams."

How does one stalk a dream?

Haunting one's dreams may be a cliche, but it makes sense. "She stalked me in my dreams" would work for me. I just can't feel good about the idea of stalking dreams.