[NEARLY FULLY OPEN] for FrennzyChaos
*Be sure to check out the relevant chapters from the critique book, namely 🚪 FIRST IMPRESSIONS and 🚪 FIRST FIFTY PAGES to know the guidelines I'm critiquing by!
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FIRST SENTENCE
Let's see if you've hooked your readers by giving them a first sentence that intrigues, one that accomplishes any of the following:
• states something odd or out of place
• implies something bad is going to happen
• getting your readers to ask a question (why, how, is that true?)
• simply writing something beautiful
So here's what you have:
"Vale bolted through the door of her cookie-cutter house as soon as her mother, Kriss turned her back."
Doesn't quite tick off any of the bullet points, though there is movement built into the sentence, which is lovely! I suppose the sentence could get readers to ask why Vale is bolting through the door, but it's not quite odd or eye-catching enough, at least for me.
Challenge yourself to write up some first sentences, one (or several!) for each bullet point, and see where that might take you!
FIRST PARAGRAPHS
The first paragraphs should, for the most part, expand upon the first sentence, which in this case is why Vale is bolting out the door. You do mention that it's because 'history is being made just a few blocks away,' but right after that, we tangent into Vale's appearance, and then robots, and then several paragraphs of how technology has changed the world.
It's wonderful world-building, but these first few paragraphs may not be the best place for them. Imagine how much tighter of a read it could be -- and how much more invested we as readers would be -- if you took us directly into the intrigue of this 'history being made' instead of padding the intro with information that's not immediately relevant or necessary for us to know.
So again, challenge yourself to possibly rearranging the beginning here, all for the sake of upping retainment of interest and engagement.
FIRST CHAPTER
Let's see if your first chapter manages to answer The Three W's:
• The setting, or where everything is taking place.
• Who the key players are, namely the protagonist.
• What is wrong with the setting, the situation, or the MC; or simply, the opposition.
While the tags and the cover conveys a steampunk setting, the descriptions found in the intro paragraphs don't quite support it: there's mentions of hovercars and neon signs and virtual worlds, which by themselves don't bring to mind steampunk. The appearance of the hover sphere also reads as distinctly futuristic, but quite un-steampunk-y, if that's even a word.
So think about grounding your readers' visual understandings with more pointed descriptions. What do these hovercars look like? Brassy and with lots of pipes and dials? What do the cookie-cutter houses look like? Red brick and elegant gates? Faux chimneys? What do the robots look like? Heck, what are people wearing?
The clearer and crisper you pen your world, the clearer and crisper will our care for it be.
The who's are also rather nebulous. The first would be Vale's mother.
Kriss is mentioned in the first paragraph, which would make most readers assume that she would be rather important (or at least come into play somehow), only for her to become utterly irrelevant to the rest of the chapter. Poor mom!
Now, it's perfectly fine for a character like a parent to appear only briefly, but not when they're mentioned in the very first sentence and then dwelt upon in first paragraph.
The second nebulous character would be Vale herself. We know what she looks like. We know what she wants, for the most part. Yet she still feels rather two-dimensional to me. Why is that?
Show versus tell.
Vale is tired of living a life with no meaning? How do we know? Do we see her having a fight with her mom? Do we see her purposefully flunking school? Or getting into trouble with her friends, vandalizing or stealing just to feel a thrill?
She's always feeling lonely and disconnected and unhappy? How do we know? Do we see her scrolling through her steampunk phone and dwelling on how happy others look? Do we see her run from an interaction with another human only to regret it after? Do we see her simply sitting somewhere, in a corner, all by herself, even though the space is bustling and full of people?
Because we don't get to experience anything with Vale, Vale doesn't feel real.
Finally, the wrong. Nothing is really wrong. Sure, Vale feels a bunch of things, but feeling these things doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong, because 'wrong' in this context means 'stakes.' What are our stakes? Every story, no matter the medium, has stakes. Game of Thrones: when you play the game of thrones, you either win, or you die. Hunger Games: you either kill, or be killed. Harry Potter: there's an evil and immensely powerful wizard who's out to get the world and Harry himself.
So what are the stakes of this world? What's Vale in danger of losing by joining the ship? Could she lose her life? Will her mother disown her? Perhaps Mortem actually has a very tainted reputation and, by joining up with him, she's effectively committing social suicide?
Brew on this. The higher the stakes, the more interesting and investing of a read it will ultimately be for your readers.
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You're overflowing with fantastical ideas. Catching lightning, for example? Super cool! The soil of this story is fertile. All you need now is to till it into order, to engage much more show instead of tell.
Give us a stake to grip onto from the get-go, and we'll be more than willing and excited to journey through this imaginative world with you.
My door is always open,
GRENDEL
[FULLY OPEN DOOR] for LynaForge
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EMOTIONAL PROGRESSION
Near the beginning of their initial interaction, our MC admits that, 'Despite her mess of hair and old dress, I was in love,' but then her thought process seemingly jumps backwards directly afterwards with, "Everything in me screamed to jump up and flee the scene," and "Leave, I said to myself. Leave and let someone else care for her."
Consider a crescendo approach here, where our MC struggles with her emotions at first, fighting to distance herself, but then ultimately fails in the end as she holds the girl tightly.
I don't know if realistic would be the right word to use here, but at the very least, the flow would be more organic and more investing than the order that is presented right now.
RECOLLECTIVE CHAPTER
While I ultimately believe our MC's recollections of her childhood and of her sister could work, and work quite powerfully, the way it's presented in this chapter could be better woven, better 'hidden.'
Chapter 1 has quite the finish: marry your past lover and reclaim the young girl. Readers are then clicking or scrolling over to the next chapter on the high of that premise, only to be met with a long-past memory, instead. And it's one that continues for quite some time.
It puts a stopper on the rhythm and flow of the read.
Consider this:
The chapter opens with her arriving at the house. The butler, who she grew up around, greets her and shows her to the guest room. With this, our MC can recall how the butler always took Bella's side, perhaps. Or how he was always easier on Bella and looked the other way. As they pass by the tea room, she remembers her childhood, and the time Bella had spilled tea on her dress, the dress our MC let her borrow. Or she sees the fireplace where they were given the dolls by their grandmother. In the guest room, she sees a row of dolls on a shelf, and remembers what had happened to the one she gave Bella.
Thread action and more physical presence to her recollections. In this way, not only will her memories be obviously relevant to the readers (therefore making us that much more interested in learning about them), but the pacing also won't feel like it's stalled, because we're still physically moving forward in the world.
As a bonus, we'd also get to see so much more of her setting! Seeing the setting as readers is half of what makes us feel engaged, or like we're really there.
LACK OF STAKES/TENSION
The MC lies to the young girl due to the sudden guilt she feels for Bella.
And it is quite sudden, especially considering the MC's internal monologue and external exchanges in the ending of the first chapter. The reasonings for her guilt, though understandable and beautifully written, felt contrived -- again, because up until this point, our MC had felt only bitterness and justifiable anger toward her sister.
So consider what you could do here. I believe a relatively easy fix could be done in the ending of the first chapter:
Perhaps seeing Bella in her shriveled state tugs at our MC's pity and rekindles her childhood love for her. Perhaps Bella has a dying wish, and it's that the young girl sees her as a good mother, that the truth is never revealed to her.
Regardless of whether or not the MC agrees to this request, the idea of it would be presented to the readers. And if you pen it so that it weighs on the MC's mind, then it could make her lie read as far less forced.
Setting the reasoning aside however, is also the matter of stakes and tension.
While the first chapter, I believe, is strong enough to sustain readers without any clear stakes, by this second chapter, the stakes need to be made clear.
We have the wrong. Now, what could our MC lose?
She's got money; she's secure. She's got two daughters that she loves, and now the door is wide open for her to reclaim what she lost long ago. Nothing stands in her way (except for her sudden guilt).
Build roadblocks for her. Set up obstacles.
Perhaps the husband refuses to hand the girl over. And if this is indeed something that happens in later chapters, I would suggest that you move it up to this chapter.
Perhaps all throughout the young girl's childhood, she's been fed stories about the evil and scary MC, so now the child is fearful and aloof and full of prejudice. Maybe she's actually hateful and vindictive now, because they told her that the MC is the reason why her mother passed.
Turn up the difficulty level for our MC. As it is right now, although she's been wronged, that's all in the past now. And now, her life is easy, smooth sailing. Nothing truly stands in her way.
And if nothing stands in her way, her story won't make for an interesting one.
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A delight to read your story once more. Your writing craft, as I've said before, is confident and skillful. Our MC's recollections of her time with her sister -- the dress, the doll, the bonnet -- were written with such love. My heart went out to both their interactions, and to the MC's struggles.
Thank you for entrusting your story to me. Write on.
My door is always open,
GRENDEL