| I was the very picture of wolfiness. My mass stayed the same. Only werewolves' mass could increase when morphed into a wolf. Also, vampires kept their natural hair color, so I was a raven-furred wolf. With sapphire blue eyes. "Picture yourself as human again." What? Human? That was easy enough done. "Excellent! Lord, girl, you are good at this," he said. "You're a natural born vampire if I ever saw one. It took me an hour to do my first transformation." "Really? Seems easy." With that, I changed into a wolf again. Back to human, and back to wolf. Then I turned into a human, grinned roguishly at him, and transformed into a bat. Wow, what a rush. Suddenly, I could fly! Ok, I couldn't fly very well. I bounced off the wall three times in the first ten seconds, hit his coffin once and then the ceiling. I transformed into a woman right after bouncing off Boney's chest. And promptly fell on my butt before him. "We'll work on the flying part outside, tomorrow night," he said, laughing. "Why? I thought it went well," I said, grinning. "Yeah. We'll work on it," he said. Stacia says: Well this is fun! I haven't seen a shape-shifting vamp in some time, and I like the spunky heroine. This is YA, right? Okay, this is a personal pet peeve of mine, sorry. She's a raven-haired wolf with sapphire blue eyes? I have blue eyes, I never think of them as being any color but blue. I just think it comes off as a little much--but of course, if part of the heroine's character is that she thinks of things that way, it works. And we have my old nemesis, the dialogue tag, here again, in the last three lines. "He said, laughing"; "I said, grinning", "he said." How about if he laughs, then says his line. Then she says hers, and he says his. or he says his, then she grins and says hers, and he says his. You don't need tags for all of those lines; honestly you don't need them for any of those lines (although it's effective for the first one in the set), since it's clear from the words themselves who's speaking (very nicely done, btw. They both have pretty distinct voices, which is excellent.) Jaye says: Stacia covered the dialog tag issues I had, so I'll cover some other issues. I think you're flirting with info dump in the first paragraph The first line is fine, but after that it's confusing and you're losing the fun voice of the first line. "Only werewolves' mass could increase when morphed into a wolf" confused me. I had to read it a couple times to get what you were saying. See if you can rework that section so its clearer and less like a dry explanation of the world building. "I bounced off the wall three times in the first ten seconds, hit his coffin once and then the ceiling. I transformed into a woman right after bouncing off Boney's chest. And promptly fell on my butt before him." The problem with writing in first person is it's super easy to use telling too much. This section above could be fleshed out a bit. First is much richer when you can give us the character's visceral reaction to what's happening. She's flying for the first time--is it scary or cool? She's bumping into stuff--does it hurt? The last part of that section could be reworked, as well. "I slammed into Boney's chest. The shock of the impact forced me to lose focus and switch back to woman form. I landed on my butt at his feet. Talk about embarrassing." Again, that's how I'd do it. I bet you could do it even better. |
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The first sentences threw me a bit. Perhaps it's a context issue, but I was at a loss to sort out what was going on.
Otherwise (how was the play, mrs. lincoln?), I liked the set up.
This is exciting. I'll be saving all the comments, BTW. So rip away! I mean, praise away!
First, not YA. I see vampires as too violent and lusty to be YA. But that's me.
Dialogue tags! After sending this in, and seeing the previous entries I knew I'd get called on the carpet on that. But this exercise Stacia and Jaye are doing for us is teaching me a lot, and I'll be going through my manuscript. Again.
I didn't seen the info dump issue before...hmmm, I see what you mean. I guess I have a problem with little short dumps scattered throughout the book.
So many insightful observations. Very helpful, and without all that red ink.
I appreciate this, and any comments to come.
Tom, when you're dealing with world building, sometimes you just can't get around explaining things. BUT you should try to do it in a non-intrusive way. And sometimes when you think you need more explanation you actually need less. It's hard to tell when you're so close to it.
Tom: vampires + ya = okay. Exhibit A: Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. A lot of YA is dark right now.
Well, I have rewritten the scene. Problem is, now it is longer. LOL
My novel is WAY over the 100k I've been told editors want. (like 185k in fact) So I'm hoping going through the manuscript now, getting rid of dialogue tags and info dumps will bring it down to within sight of 100k. But, I'll have to cut a lot more. But I have no intention of cutting Sable's chocolate consumption. Some things are just sacred.
185K? Wow! that's going to be a huge read.
On the 1st-person telling, I wanted to add I know how hard it is to get into that. I've dreaded writing in the 1st, which I know sounds stupid, but I get trapped into wanting to drop back into a 3rd person description blurt. BTW - your piece sounded rather fun.
This is the first time I ever wrote 1st person POV, and probably will be the last. I've been writing 3rd a long time, and I like using multiple viewpoints. Also, I increased my difficulty level by writing 1st Person FEMALE. Not my brightest idea. LOL But it was a challenge I gave myself and I'm glad I did it.
Oh, goodness! I'm sorry, Tom, for thinking this was YA. It was the heroine just learning to use her powers that did it; I hope I didn't offend you!
No offense taken. With just a snippet, there is no way to tell one way or another. I'm just happy to have some feedback. That's always helpful.