First off, I have to thank Matt MacNish for promoting this feature and single-handedly filling up October with submissions. You should thank him too, because until those submissions came in, there wasn't going to be a prize this month (and it's a good prize; keep reading).
Second, the winner of September's prize -- $10 for Amazon/B&N or a 20-page crit from me -- is
PATCHI! Please
contact me and let me know which prize you want.
And thank all of you for your thoughts. keep them coming. The authors always tell me how much they appreciate it.
Lastly,
I have a special prize for October: a 15-page critique from the amazing and talented Jodi Meadows! To win, leave a critique on any First Impact post this month. Purchasing a copy of
Jodi's fantastic INCARNATE won't improve your chances, but it will keep you good company and cure acne (maybe). Plus! Dragons!
Somebody stop me. We have a critique to do.
Disclaimer: This is all just my opinion. Feel free to ignore it. Overall comments at the end.
First Page
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I like this opening. But unless kids do get locked away in this story, I'd snip that bit. Get to the point. |
Not all attics are full of shadows, spider webs, and ugly hatboxes dotted with evidence of unwelcome creatures
; those are the kind of attics where children get locked away. Some attics smell like lavender soap, are strewn with treasures, and if the right child should come in at the right moment, are full of possibility.
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I was initially confused, as "diaries" are different from ships' logs.
Love the voice at the end. |
The treasures in Aunt Tibby’s attic were mostly old diaries. Crooked, nearly toppling stacks of antique journals and ships’ logs covered the wooden floorboards and wide shelves, because the museum had run out of room and Aunt Tibby wasn’t about to
throw them away. Heavens no.
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This snipped bit slows things down, I think. And it's info you can give later. |
Somewhere, in one of the piles of antique leather and cloth-covered books was a particular diary that Eve
, Aunt Tibby’s grand-niece, couldn’t wait to find. It was the key to her questions, because now that she was eleven she had lots of questions, about her Mama.
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Good description (all of this is, btw), but now that we have a goal (Mama), I immediately want to know more. I think some of this could be snipped to get us there faster. |
So for months, every time she visited her great aunt on Martha’s Vineyard, Eve put on her favorite old jeans and sweatshirt—clothes that she would never be allowed to wear at home in New York City—and she scoured. She searched. She investigated, explored, and rummaged around in the attic. She flipped through yellowed books, she tossed aside threadbare scarves and feathered hats so she could get at more old books. One time, to reach a pile of diaries that was off in a corner, she was even forced to pick up, with two reluctant fingers, a ratty, blonde wig and fling it aside.
Adam's Thoughts
I don't have a lot to say except to elaborate on my comments there. The voice, and especially the descriptions, are really good. I get the feeling I'm about to step into a mystery or possibly an adventure.
My only real complaint is at the end, and honestly that could be just because it's cut off as a first page. If the very next line was like, "Her mama had died when she was little . . . " or else, "Then one day she found it," I probably wouldn't have a problem with the length of that last paragraph at all.
So I'm just being nitpicky, really, because I don't know how much longer I have to wait to get to the meat. This first page is enticing (that's why I want the meat!), and though I do see occasional tangents that slow things down, they're not so bad that I wouldn't keep going.
What do the rest of you think?