For my regular readers, these are some special posts this week as part of a pitch contest I'm providing feedback for. My normal musings will return next week.
For participants, welcome to my blog! I'm happy to host you and excited to see what kinds of stories you've written. Please remember that only the author of this piece and the participating judges are supposed to comment. All other comments will be deleted.
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You can check out other teams on the other hosting blogs: Rena Rocford (Rainbow Dash), Kathleen Ann Palm (Rarity), Elizabeth Roderick (Discord), Katie Hamstead Teller (Princess Luna)
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Title: Long Lost Treasure: A Promise KeptCategory and Genre: Adult Romance
Word Count: 26,000
Query:
Beth, a military widow, left her life behind ten years ago to start over. Now due to an unexpected situation, Beth is forced to return home, but without fail finds herself caught in middle of making decisions she’s not ready to make, torn between her present state of happiness and the life she left behind so long ago, and becomes quickly overwhelmed by all her past rushing towards her with so many unanswered questions. DB, Beth’s former brother-in-law and has been a best friend to Beth all her life, but now needs more than anything wants to know and most importantly understand why she left so abruptly ten years ago without even a good-bye.
Beth, a military widow, left her life behind ten years ago to start over. Now due to an unexpected situation, Beth is forced to return home, but without fail finds herself caught in middle of making decisions she’s not ready to make, torn between her present state of happiness and the life she left behind so long ago, and becomes quickly overwhelmed by all her past rushing towards her with so many unanswered questions. DB, Beth’s former brother-in-law and has been a best friend to Beth all her life, but now needs more than anything wants to know and most importantly understand why she left so abruptly ten years ago without even a good-bye.
So, will Beth’s visit force her to face her past and reveal more than one secret that could change her future forever? Or will DB force her to leave again and never look back?
First 250 Words:
Under a hot summer sun, sitting quietly with tears streaming down my face, listening to the 21-gun salute ringing out in the distance, and clinging to a folded American Flag, all I could think was that this was all just a dream.
Military wives always dread two things, moving and ‘the phone call’. It was earlyThursday morning, as I was getting ready to head out for my morning jog, when something told me not to leave just yet. Ten minutes later the phone rang and it was my brother-in-law, Dallas ‘DB’ Bryant. The moment I heard his voice I knew something was wrong and my life would forever be changed.
First 250 Words:
Under a hot summer sun, sitting quietly with tears streaming down my face, listening to the 21-gun salute ringing out in the distance, and clinging to a folded American Flag, all I could think was that this was all just a dream.
Military wives always dread two things, moving and ‘the phone call’. It was earlyThursday morning, as I was getting ready to head out for my morning jog, when something told me not to leave just yet. Ten minutes later the phone rang and it was my brother-in-law, Dallas ‘DB’ Bryant. The moment I heard his voice I knew something was wrong and my life would forever be changed.
“Beth…” there was a long moment of silence, “…do you remember the promise I made?” he struggled to say.
Here’s the thing about promises, they are meant to be broken, but this one was made to ensure it would never be broken. Jackson ‘Gage’ Bryant, was my best friend and high school sweetheart, we were married two weeks after graduation in a small intimate ceremony and then six weeks later he and DB were off to boot camp. They were inseparable. DB was almost two years older than Gage, but the military was a passion they shared, other than sports and women. Against their family’s wishes because of the war in the Middle East, not to mention there was a strong family tradition of military men in the Bryant Family, they enlisted together. They insisted it was something they had to do for not only their country to preserve the freedom they cherished, but for generations of Bryants to come.
We had been married a year when their unit was scheduled to deploy to Iraq for eighteen months, with possible five-day weekend home passes every four to six months. I made them promise that if anything was to happen, for one of them to call me or their family before the military officials did.
“Beth, are you there?” a shaky voice questioned.
“Yeah,” I choked as the tears began to fall down my face knowing this was the call I didn’t want.
“Gage…” he started, “…Gage is gone Beth” he continued with another moment of silence before explaining what happened. He and three other members of his unit went out on patrol early this morning when an Improvised Explosive Device or IED, otherwise known as a roadside bomb, detonated near their Humvee. There weren’t any survivors.
Hello! Kathy from #TeamRarity here! My comments are my opinions only. Please take what helps you make your words better and forget the rest!
ReplyDeleteFirst...26K words seems short. More novella than novel?
Beth, a military widow, left her life behind ten years ago to start over. Now due to an unexpected situation (Too vague. What? WHAT HAPPENS?), Beth is forced to return home, but without fail finds herself caught in middle of making decisions she’s not ready to make (Like what? What is she fighting? What is she afraid of?) , torn between her present state of happiness and the life she left behind so long ago (this confuses me...her present state of happiness was interrupted when she had to go home, right?), and becomes quickly overwhelmed by all her past rushing towards her with so many unanswered questions (Ah, yes. Facing the past. WHAT IS SHE SCARED OF?). DB, Beth’s former brother-in-law and has been a best friend to Beth all her life (a best friend for most of her life? She hasn't seen him for a while...and as you say next, she left without saying good-bye and that hurt him.), but now needs more than anything wants to know and most importantly understand why she left so abruptly ten years ago without even a good-bye. (Is this a dual POV ms? This is DB POV to me.)
So, will Beth’s visit force her to face her past and reveal more than one secret that could change her future forever (too vague...what is she fighting against?)? Or will DB force her to leave again and never look back? (What will he do? The trend is to not end queries with questions. Give us the big decision she faces and what she risks losing if she chooses one over the other. What does she want? What drives her? She's forced to go home, A place she doesn't want to be, but WHY? What happened? Why is she running? I want to know her motivation, who she is and what she wants, then what her big moment is, the time she faces her fear and decides to not be afraid.)
First 250 Words:
ReplyDeleteUnder a hot summer sun, sitting quietly with tears streaming down my face, listening to the 21-gun salute ringing out in the distance, and clinging to a folded American Flag, all I could think was that this was all just a dream. (This sentence is pretty long, I'd break it up. Too many words ending in -ing. I have that problem too. And a funeral...a military funeral...OH NO. I hope it is a dream too!)
Military wives always dread two things, moving and ‘the phone call’. (Nice!) It was earlyThursday morning, as I was getting ready to head out for my morning jog, when something told me not to leave just yet. Ten minutes later the phone rang and it was my brother-in-law, Dallas ‘DB’ Bryant. The moment I heard his voice I knew something was wrong and my life would forever be changed.
“Beth…” there was a long moment of silence, “…do you remember the promise I made?” he struggled to say.
Here’s the thing about promises, they are meant to be broken, but this one was made to ensure it would never be broken. Jackson ‘Gage’ Bryant, was my best friend and high school sweetheart, we were married two weeks after graduation in a small intimate ceremony and then six weeks later he and DB were off to boot camp. They were inseparable. DB was almost two years older than Gage, but the military was a passion they shared, other than sports and women. Against their family’s wishes because of the war in the Middle East, not to mention there was a strong family tradition of military men in the Bryant Family, they enlisted together. They insisted it was something they had to do for not only their country to preserve the freedom they cherished, but for generations of Bryants to come.
We had been married a year when their unit was scheduled to deploy to Iraq for eighteen months, with possible five-day weekend home passes every four to six months. I made them promise that if anything was to happen, for one of them to call me or their family before the military officials did.
“Beth, are you there?” a shaky voice questioned.
“Yeah,” I choked as the tears began to fall down my face. (*knowing<Delete) This was the call I didn’t want. (Make this its own sentence to give it more power.)
“Gage…” he started, “…Gage is gone Beth” he continued with another moment of silence before explaining what happened. He and three other members of his unit went out on patrol early this morning when an Improvised Explosive Device or IED, otherwise known as a roadside bomb, detonated near their Humvee. There weren’t any survivors.
What a sad story beginning! However, it is a lot of backstory, a lot of information told, when you could weave it into the story. If you want us to be with her when she gets the call, then write the scene as the present, not a flashback. Let us feel her stomach drop and heart break. If you want to give us the funeral scene, then keep us there, letting the information, the backstory reveal itself slowly. You tell us about DB and Gage's relationship, about Beth's and Gage's relationship, when we can learn that later, we don't need to know it all now, if we need to know it at all. Focus on the mc, on her loss, on what she's going to do now...how her life has been altered. How what she wants out of life is changing. Let us get to know her in the first page, so we can connect with her, so we want to follow her on the journey ahead.
I hope that helps. Thank you for sharing your words!
Long Lost Treasure: Query: See if you can find a more engaging place to start. The opening sentence lacks punch, and in such a short piece, that matters. The goal, after all, is to make a publisher curious, make them want to read more. The second sentence became a little long and convoluted, while remaining too vague at the same time. I’d try to condense and eliminate filler phrases like “due to an unexpected situation” or break it into two or three smaller sentences. Is there a reason not to say what the situation is?
ReplyDeleteHow about something like this for a beginning?: When Beth buried her husband and left her life behind her ten years ago, she never intended to look back. But back is exactly where she’s ended up, caught between her secret past and her present happiness. Her once brother-in-law’s questions . . .
250 Words: You go straight to the feels with that opening image. I’d stay with it a little longer, keep us in the moment and reveal a little more of the character before moving to the general situation and clarifying that she’s a military widow. Let us get a sense of who she is as a person and what some of her details are (age, race, location, etc.).
I’m concerned about the structure you’ve set for yourself here. We have a here-and-now moment at the funeral, then we flashback to getting the call which includes another trip back in time to fill in the backstory of the marriage and the brothers and the deployment. That’s a lot of funneling back through time in just the first 250 words. I think you’re going to need to slow down the story telling a little. Give yourself time to be in the moment and reveal the information from the past a little at a time, as it pertains to what’s happening now. Otherwise, it feels like being caught in an information deluge.
The biggest problem here is the word count. Unless that's a typo, this isn't a novel, it's a novella. The only place you can query it is publishers who take novellas. The agents won't want something this short.
ReplyDeleteThe standard romance blurb/query is 3 paragraphs: Person A's dreams/problems. Person B's dreams/problems. Where they collide.
The thing with romance is that we know they're going to get Happily Ever After, it's a requirement for Romance as a genre (verse a romantic story line in another genre). So you need to really set up the struggle, not the stakes. I know they get together because it's Romance, show me what they have to overcome to get there.