Brenda Drake . . . under the influence of coffee: September 2012

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Brenda's critique winners from The Teenaged Nitpick Event

The winners by Random.org for the five 500 word critiques from me from the Teenaged Nitpick critique event are:

Eric Steinburg
Meagan
Adrianne Russell
Beck Nicholas
Crystal Collier

Congratulations! Please send any 500 word excerpt from your manuscript or query for critique to brendadrakecontests@gmail.com.

Coming up on the blog...

Win a copy of TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes coming from Month9Books this October. Go here for details.

Pitch your novella to Month9Books October 1. For details, go here.

A super secret pitch contest October 15-19. Details here.

Details here.

2 comments

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Announcing...Trick or Treat with Agents Contest

I'm thrilled to announce a very exciting and delicious contest that I was invited to co-host with the extremely talented Kimberly Chase and Deanna Romito.

Submissions will open October 24th at 11 AM EDT with the first 150 entries making it in (all rules must be followed correctly to advance). Each host will then choose 12 entries that best fit the interests of the participating agents. The finalists will be posted on our blogs from October 29-31. Costumed agents will stop by during those dates to hand out treats, or rather manuscript requests.

Look for a blog post introducing our costumed agents and what they are looking for right now sometime next week.

Contest is open to MG,YA, and Adult. (Please check agent interests to see if your genre is a good fit.)

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and our blogs for updates. @kpchase817 @brendadrake @writeforapples and #AgentTreat.

19 comments

Friday, September 28, 2012

The Teenaged Nitpick Critique: 9

Title: THE SHADOW KINGS

Genre: YA fantasy

The bayou stinks of blood tonight [something about blood “stinking” sounds odd to me. I’m not sure why, but it sticks out.], ~~as if all the fish were dead~~. Blech. I plug my nose as tight as I can. If I had my way, I'd be back in the hammock on my cabin porch, eating buttered shrimp and lula beans with Grandma Apera. [I really want you to add a snarky or complaining line right here, to bring out the voice even more.] Instead, I'm sitting in a canoe with two armed gyos, and my sandals are getting wet.

The ~~sticky~~ night air clings to my skin, ~~making~~ me and I itch all over. I slip my fingers under my headscarf to pull strands of black hair off my neck. “How much farther to the palace?”

“Not far,” a gyo [What’s a “gyo”?] grunts. Gnats buzz around his tawny curls. His arms flex with every heave of the oar, and the hilt of his dagger presses into his side.

“You're sure you don't know what Lord Nevu wants with me?”

“I don't.”

I frown at him and the other gyo, whose nose is crooked, trying to tell if they really don't know or if they're lying. Crooked Nose's [I know you’re going for voice here, but I don’t think “Crooked Nose” is very voice-y.] cheeks flush [Somehow, this is hard for me to believe. They’re portrayed as really placid, so why would their cheeks flush?] like he swallowed too many chika peppers, and he fumbles to keep a firm grip on his oar. I bet he's afraid I'll turn him into a squia bug [I’m a little confused on the world-building here. You’re introducing too much too fast.] or something. He's silly [“silly” hurts the voice for me. It sounds too young.] for believing the stories.

I fiddle with my hands in my lap. Maybe the bayou lord wants my dreams, but I offered them before, and he laughed. He snorted so loud wine dribbled from his mouth and nose, and he had to call for another gourd.

So, I think this is really good. I’d read on. My only issue is I feel like you’re throwing all this world-building at us right away; a little is good because it gets to your hook, but you I’d take out the “squia bug” part, for instance, since that confuses me more than it intrigues me. However, the last paragraph does a good job of hooking me with world-building. Don’t over-sell right away. Good luck!

* Comments are welcomed. Each critique comment you make on the entries' posts, is an entry into the drawing to win one of five 500 word critiques from me (Brenda). It can be ANY 250 words -- your query, the first page, or a page any where in the manuscript that you want a second pair of eyes on.

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The Teenaged Nitpick Critique: 10

Title: GUARDIAN
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Jesse is hunted. [Killer first line! Pun intended.]

~~After spring break,~~ ~~eyes lingered on him and~~ left dead boys wherever we went [I’d switch this sentence around so it says “Wherever he went, dead boys were left” or something else not so passive]. The murders are messages that if I fail to watch Jesse, he and his Corr [what’s a “Corr”?] will be devoured. An addicted daphir [I also don’t know what this is. Too many unfamiliar words right away don’t help. Maybe say something more vague, like: “He’s being stalked. He’s my best and only friend, and I’m his Guardian.”] is stalking my best and only friend, but he’s survived freshman year because I’m his Guardian.

I stare at the dead boy outside of Madison Square Garden, his chest seared [“chest seared”? Huh?] and blood trickling down his chin from the pressure of having his Corr extracted. So few of us rob Corr, the life force in everything, from humans ~~and~~, killing them. It’s monsters like ~~them~~ the daphirs that led to the establishment of Guardians ~~that protect especially alluring humans~~. [We figured this out already, so it sounds kind of redundant.]

They don’t even need to drink human Corr. To ~~tap the potential of our bodies’ several century life span~~ live centuries we have to drink Corr before twenty, but it can’t ~~be bottled from animals or plants. Not~~ be humans. Thousands of years ago it was acceptable to develop a murderous human Corr addiction and consequent bipolar personality, but nowadays we value our sanity. Or most do, at least. [I don’t think this is the right place for the info-dump. Maybe move it to after the last paragraph?]

I switch to Guardian mode, wrapping a finger through the belt loop of Jesse’s skinny jeans, but he doesn’t notice. I’m trained to ~~inconspicuously~~ guard his ~~vibrant~~ Corr from addicts, but my heart still thunders in the back of my throat.

The wind blows the reek of death in my face and the scent of a daphir. He’s in my peripheral vision, hanging back, and we lock eyes for the first time in months.

Solid opening. You get to your hook fast, the writing is easy to get into, and it overall works well. My only problem is that a few sentences are a little over-wordy and I’d like to see more voice, if possible. Good luck!

* Comments are welcomed. Each critique comment you make on the entries' posts, is an entry into the drawing to win one of five 500 word critiques from me (Brenda). It can be ANY 250 words -- your query, the first page, or a page any where in the manuscript that you want a second pair of eyes on.

1 comments

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Teenaged Nitpick Critique: 8

Title: RIP HER TO SHREDS

Genre: YA contemporary

In the green room, she’d be herself again. [Nice first line!]

Away from the cymbals clanging in her ears and the bass throbbing in her belly [“throbbing in her belly” is a weird phrasing to me… Maybe just say “the pulse of the bass”?], she’d be Charlie the dork. ~~Charlie the siren,~~ That girl who shimmied and gyrated and crooned like she knew how to string sentences together, would be dead, because the real Charlotte [stick with “Charlie.” It’s a little odd to use variations of the names when we’re still trying to get acquainted with the MC.] usually fumbled through basic conversations. She was the one who wanted to lose. She was the one who wanted it all to be over. [She wanted to lose? She wanted it to be over? I don’t know what you mean by that. No one wants to lose. If you’re trying to say she’s introverted, we get that sense from the “conversations” line.]

Charlie clamped the mic back onto the stand, turned her back on the applause and hurried off the stage and through a badly lit corridor. Hands trembling [why are her hands trembling?], she staggered into the green room and sunk onto the couch, careful to avoid the scrubbed-out stain that was once dirt or vomit or something more sinister. Safety. Finally.

Then she forced herself to smile, ready to lie to her best friend, who was heading inside with her guitar slung over her shoulder.

Roxanne claimed the cushion next to Charlie and hugged her blue Ibanez to her lap. “Well. We were fucking awful,” she said, dragging her lucky pick along the E string she’d re-fitted earlier that day. ~~“Weren’t we?” she asked.~~ [Don’t need this.]

“Hey—um—don’t say the f-word, okay?” [No one would say this, or at least not this awkwardly. I’d just say, “Layla’s listening, remember?” to get the same point across, but in a more believable way.] Charlie said. Her hands shook and she gulped the cool air like she’d never breathed before in her life. [Why is she so freaked out? I still don’t understand. Is it post-performance stress?] “Layla’s listening.”

“‘Fuck’ and I are well-acquainted,” [Don’t ever get rid of this line. It totally won me over. ;-)] Layla said, as she entered the room, towing [I’d stick with “pulling” instead of “towing,” personally.] her amp across the ~~weirdly damp~~ carpet. ~~“TV. Movies. The door of the second stall of the girls’ bathroom in the BHS gym.”~~ [This sentence after ruins that perfect line of dialogue you have.]

Overall, I really like this, especially that last line of dialogue. You’ve set up an interesting situation here, the writing is easy to get into, and you have me wanting more. My one critique is to make clearer why Charlie seems so nervous. Good luck!

* Comments are welcomed. Each critique comment you make on the entries' posts, is an entry into the drawing to win one of five 500 word critiques from me (Brenda). It can be ANY 250 words -- your query, the first page, or a page any where in the manuscript that you want a second pair of eyes on.

1 comments

The Teenaged Nitpick Critique: 7

Title: BETTER LIVES

Genre: YA sci fi

When Gil and Lew came to my dorm room with the idea of stealing the physics final, I normally wouldn’t have considered such a dumbass move. [I’m still trying to decide how I feel about this. On one hand, I like the voice, but for some reason, this line reads like the opening of a query to me. Maybe it’s the “when” that’s throwing me off?] It wasn’t that I’d had any moral objections to cheating or stealing. An “A” in a one class, even ~~Jeffrey~~ Mr. [You’re better off saying “Mr.”; I thought you were talking about another student at first.] Taylor’s, just wasn’t worth the risk of being kicked out of prep school.

But these were special circumstances. I had opportunity, thanks to Gil and Lew. I had motive, thanks ~~for~~ to the shitty semester, with Mr. Taylor. And I had an ace-in-the-hole, thanks to hooking up with ~~pretty, but already annoying, fifteen-year-old~~ totally hot sophomore Courtney [insert last name here] under Mr. Taylor’s desk. [I’m not entirely sure how that last part is relevant, but it does sound like a teen boy.]

By the time I ~~arrived in front of~~ reached our teacher’s small Cape Cod [Did you mean to add something else here?], the snow, no longer falling, had gone from good cover to major annoyance. [This is awkwardly-phrased. Maybe just say: “By the time I reached our teacher’s small Cape Cod house, the snow had become a serious problem.”] Not only was I leaving footprints in the fresh powder, but ~~the white, clinging~~ the snow clung to the tree branches as well, sweetening the already cloying charm of Maple Street’s tidy cottages and made me want to puke.

Stealing the broom from the porch next door [This line is a jump from the previous paragraph. Maybe transition it a little better.], I slipped to the back of the house. Gil was waiting for me.

“Door’s locked.” His breath was visible in the cold.

“Then I’ll open it,” ~~I said.~~

Gil gave me a classic Gilbert and Lewis dull look. [But I don’t know what “classic Gilbert and Lewis dull look” means, because I’ve only just met them—“classic” is a jump. Just say “dull look” for now and transition into the next line, in my opinion.] The two of them might as well have been brothers, both with Nordic good looks, several inches over six feet…and both not too bright.

“I’ll open it,” I repeated. Handing him the broom, I took out my tension wrench and wide-tipped pick.

~~Gil’s jaw went slack, mouth hanging open slightly before he closed it.~~ “I’ve seen this shit on TV, Marc,” Gill said with a smile. “You’re going to pick it?”

I like it! You have great voice, you capture the teen boy POV very well, and you get straight to the hook. I’d read on. My only issues are minor (and noted above). Good luck with this!

* Comments are welcomed. Each critique comment you make on the entries' posts, is an entry into the drawing to win one of five 500 word critiques from me (Brenda). It can be ANY 250 words -- your query, the first page, or a page any where in the manuscript that you want a second pair of eyes on.

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