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We are accepting your entries this week!
Category/genre: Young adult [YA] Fantasy
For full details on how to enter, click here.
First, you must comment on at least two previous First 50 Critique entries. Today's can be one of them.
Second, send us an email formatted as follows:
[Subject:] First 50 Critique – YA/Fantasy
The following 50 words are my own work and I give OA permission to post it on the OA blog for the life of the blog.
I commented on the entries posted on DATE and DATE as [your online ID].
My first 50 words:
[Copy/paste your first 50 words here.]
Entry period opens now and closes at the end of the day on Wednesday December 4, 2019. All entries will receive a confirmation email from us by Friday December 6, 2019 that acknowledges receipt of your entry and, if you've complied with all requirements, lets you know what date it will be included on the blog for critique. If you do NOT receive a confirming email by Saturday December 7, 2019, send us a DM on Twitter and we'll give you alternative instructions for sending us your entry.
[Don't worry all you writers of fiction for adults. Last time we had an adult category we didn't receive any entries, but we'll try again soon.]
Also, if you want to see this feature continued, YOU NEED TO LEAVE A CRITIQUE. We
Now on to this week's entry!
Reminder: Be nice, but be honest. [Comments that are not polite/respectful will be deleted.] What would YOU like to know if this was YOUR first 50 words? Do you think it's a good opening line for the category/genre? Does it have a hook? Does it pull you into the story? Do you want to read more? Why or why not? Be specific, so your critique helps the person who wrote the entry.
First 50 Critique – YA/Fantasy #1
The High Street. I'm sprinting. Freezing drizzle needles my face. Footfalls and jeers behind me - Spatula and her athletics club vultures. Gaining. Already too close.
I won't make it home.
I need to hide.
I tear past betting shops and pawnbrokers, the pound shop. Round the corner. Then see it.
I feel the character's urgency but the sentences are quite choppy. Restructuring them would make it flow better.
ReplyDeleteIt has great potential though, I'm really with the character as he/she tries to escape. I'd like to know why, intriguing ��
I get that the short choppy sentences help to show the fast paced action but I too feel there might be too many. Then your three sentences that all begin with "I" could use some rework so they don't sound the same. Starting sentences with pronouns too much wearies your reader. I think your last sentence needs an "I." "Then I see it." But review what others think.
ReplyDeleteI love where this is headed and you made me be vested in your MC as I care about her and want her to find that hiding spot away from Spatula (great name) and her vultures and great voice. Good luck!
I can feel the adrenaline. I don't know why, but something about this feels very British to me. The setting, maybe?
ReplyDeleteI thought that too and I'm British. The pound shop would be a dollar store equivalent.
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