“Hurry up,” Isobel said as she grabbed Susannah’s hand and pulled her through the iron gate and into the alley. It clanked shut behind them as they ducked behind the stable wall.

The dash across the back garden was only a couple of yards, yet Susannah panted and held the stitch in her aching side.

Isobel laughed, sending her brown curls bouncing around her bonnet framed face. “Happy Birthday, Susannah,” she said as she reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a warm cinnamon roll wrapped in a napkin.

“Thank-you,” Susannah gasped as she tried to catch her breath. Cook had tucked a similar treat and a penny ‘for a bit of birthday luck,’ into her pinafore pocket.

[This message has been edited by mommiller (edited November 17, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by mommiller (edited November 17, 2006).]

A couple of yards is six feet how can you lose your breath in two steps?

But the biggest problem is the question of "So what?" You have not created the hook needed for me to want to read it. Ask yourself: Okay so I wrote this and "So what?" Then rewrite it so we that we care. If you can find a copy of O.S.Card's "The Seventh Son" really has a gripping and invisible hook. You read the first line and end up three pages later!

A good hook does three things: creates curiosity, introduces or alludes to tension, grab's our attention(sets the stage). I have a book on non fiction book tropical diseases that has a great hook and he creates tension and drama in a otherwise very dry and uninteresting subject matter. Hook worms just don't get people interested. Yet his description of hook worms is a well designed scene letting human charcaters and their flaws contribute to the lesson. For example here is the opening lines from a chapter on hookworms: (I am quoing from memory so forgive me if the writing isn't exact)

Okami trembled at the site of hundreds of human beings driven from the slave ships into this alien wilderness. He was just one beast of burden sold to these white men. Cruel manacles bit into his ankles as mocking chains drug him down filth caked gang planks onto a unknown world. Fearsome dogs lunged and barked at the slaves nipping those too slow to scurry from their frothing mouths. Fear bit into him and his bowels turned watery and Okami soiled himself. This was how hookworms first came to Virginia colonies.*

*Paraphrased from the book Tropical Diseases.

If he can do this with a hookworm how much more can you grip us by the throat or heart and pull us into your world!

I think the stich in her side is why she's tired, not because of the length of the run.

But I have to agree about the hook comment by JBSKAGGS ... why should we care about two girls sharing a cinamon roll behind a gate?

I was also a little confused by Cook. Is he 'the cook' or a character named cook. This is a odd way to introduce a third character and a little soon, IMHO.

Thanks for the comments, yep, girls should be curls. Changed it. The other two edits were for missing or wayward punctuation.

This segment should be around 2k, is it interesting enough for you, or anyone else for that matter, to read more?

If you wanted to start there, you could let is in on it with something like

quote:

---

"Hurry up," Isobel said. She clutched the cinammon bun she'd just stolen in one hand and Susannah's hand in the other, and ...

...trying not to giggle, lest the baker woman chasing them overhear.

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