I’m actually not a great lover of contests. Anyone who knows me knows this. I like doing things the old fashioned way. But the exception that I make is when someone doesn’t take unsolicited subs but is judging a contest. Or, perhaps, when someone I was to query isn’t taking on new clients. So I’ve been reading about Natalie Fischer, the new agent at Bradford, here and there around the net and decided, well, I’m just going to query her the old fashioned way. Because that’s how I roll. But then, gasp, I discovered she isn’t taking queries right now. The pain, it hurts. So I guess I’m in for this awesome contest Brenda Drake is holding anyway. Because I really need an agent now that I have some fulls out at super exciting publishers.
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Name: Amber Gilchrist
Title: Some Strange Magic
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Even after he was dead, my father’s obsession with magic colored my life. I had many memories of him, but my strongest were of his sleight of hand and illusions. Even at seventeen, I still had a perfectly clear picture of being four and my father reaching behind my ear for a coin, me laughing in delight.
Good memories didn’t sweeten the bitterness of reality. Dad had sold us out for his addiction and then gotten himself killed. And here we were. Stuck.
The painful thing about reality–there’s no changing it. There’s nothing that crying, begging, praying or wishing will do. You can push against reality forever, like that Sisyphus guy pointlessly pushing the rock uphill only to see it roll back down again, but it’s immovable. It doesn’t care what you think, do, or lose in the process of trying to change it.
This was my new reality.
“This is beautiful.” Mom gestured to the pine and aspen trees outside the car windows. She’d gone into overly excited, super-mom mode ever since her therapy “breakthrough”. She had her happy face on, the one that looked like she’d shoved an upside down hanger into her mouth.
“It’s fabulous.” The hollowness inside sucked any fake enthusiasm I might have mustered out of the statement. She didn’t say anything. She never said anything about my moods. Probably something the grief counselor had told her to do.
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You guys can get more information about the contest from Brenda’s blog linked above. But here’s a little bit of info on how it works. I’m excited to get around and check out other people’s work.
On March 20 and 21, post the first 250 words of your finished manuscript (any genre) on your blog to get critiques from your followers and then hop around to the other participants’ sites and give critiques. Polish those 250 words and email them to me at brenleedrake@gmail.com with CONTEST in the subject line by 12:00AM (EST) on March 22
AMBER
Okay I LOVE this character’s voice. Clearly she’s intelligent (the Sisyphus) reference, and the upside down hanger remark made me laugh out loud. I most definitely want to know more about her and her “new reality” with her mom.
My only suggestion is to give us a bit more info on WHAT her new reality is. The next line about the pine and aspen trees don’t give us much other than location. We know her dad is dead, but are they on the run? Were they forced to move? Are they poor? Humiliated? I think the opening would be even stronger if we had a little more of a teaser on that.
Great job and good luck!
Well I’m glad you decided to enter the contest as otherwise I wouldn’t have known to stop by here! Good luck with your manuscripts and querying, you’ve got some very strong writing. As for this particular entry, the only things that jumped out at me were little ticks like varying your word choice (you start two sentences in the first paragraph with ‘Even…’) and moving up some of the action and dialogue so the backstory is broken up a bit and seeded through the first page instead of coming off as info-dumpy. Entirely subjective on my part though so take it with a grain of salt! I did like this though, and your MC’s slightly bitter nostalgia towards their dad. I’d read on.
Okay, I’m a little bit in love with this entry!
This: “Good memories didn’t sweeten the bitterness of reality. Dad had sold us out for his addiction and then gotten himself killed. And here we were. Stuck.
The painful thing about reality–there’s no changing it. There’s nothing that crying, begging, praying or wishing will do.”
is POWERFUL stuff. Good luck to you, you write beautifully.
thanks, julie and kalen, i will take your comments into consideration. thank you so much steph. you’re lovely to say so. this book doesn’t represent my life in any way but i dug so deep into the pain of losing a parent and how she feels when she realizes she had it all wrong about her father and about his life and death that i cried several times and i’m not a crier. lol. i appreciate that it comes across well.
This is really quite lovely. Love your writing, and the voice here. I do have to agree with Kalen that I think you should break up the back story a little, but otherwise, this is wonderful and I’d read on.
thank you for your comments, lori. lol you should have seen it before. alas, like most fantasy writers, it takes a little while for me to get to the point. this is much shortened. i always have to write my beginnings five or six times as i’m inclined to start in the wrong place.
You’ve got a wonderfully strong voice, here! I do think you might want to move the action up a bit, because it leans towards an info dump, but you’re such a strong writer that it’s no big deal. Just that little extra push to make it really shine!
Hello. Already some good comments I agree with. I’d add the following line was a bit of a mouthful.
‘The hollowness inside sucked any fake enthusiasm I might have mustered out of the statement.’
All in all, a good strong piece that needs a few screws tightened to be perfect. Well done!
I love that first sentence and it was a good lead into a very strong opening. I enjoyed your voice and am already interested in reading more of this story.
Loved the opening line! As a fantasy writer, I can totally relate to the building up of stuff (LOL). I think that you’ve got a strong opening, but would maybe sprinkle a few bits throughout as Kalen said.
But I definitely see something here and I’d want to read on. I’m a huge fantasy/urban fantasy/paranormal fan. So I think this would be right up my alley! Great job…
I thought you did a great job establishing mood, voice, and character–but I too would like to be “placed” in the setting a bit more. Also think you could drop the “but it’s immovable” at the end of the Sisyphus sentence.
But those are both little things, and they wouldn’t have stopped me from continuing to read. Good luck with the contest, and thanks for stopping by my blog!
I agree with the others about the backstory – unless you can figure out a way to give it more punch, I’d move it away from the very beginning of the story, maybe save it for a few paragraphs in. Otherwise, this is a nice set up – good foundation to build a story on!
THe protagonist is engaging and sympathetic-and the backstory is subtly hinted at without being too obvious.
“Even after he was dead, my father’s obsession with magic colored my life. “Dad had sold us out for his addiction and then gotten himself killed.”
You already have are two killer opening lines. Let’s say you begin with both of these lines, it presents a storyworthy problem and hooks the reader into reading more (What was his addiction? What kind of magic? How did he die?)