Young Writers Society

4/10. It doesn't really make me ask questions -- why do I care about when the narrator was seventeen, and why do I care about the piece of paper? What does the piece of paper change in the narrator's life? What are the stakes, and why should I care?

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Nex's gloves fit like a second skin.

6-7/10, I think. I feel this is a paragraph opening vs a sentence opening, but we have a character and we have an idea that they wear gloves a lot, and obviously value said gloves for them to be introduced first.

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You don't remember when your fangs came in.

8/10 -- I am a SUCKER (pun intended) for second person writing, especially good second person writing, and this sounds pretty epic just from the start. It's a little passive for me (leading into the text via a memory/lack thereof and thus backstory instead of action) but overall, it would keep me reading to probably the next page at least.

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Nefer-djet had always been the most entertained watching her father close a deal.

6/10.

In some ways, I like it because its like, what type of deal is her father making? Is it illegal? Why is it entertaining? On the other hand, I'm just confused at your decision to call her Nefer-djet.


Elaia had never liked the feeling of a knife against her ankle.

4/10. Who would like the feeling of a knife against their ankle? It feels oddly specific, and in none of the ways where it actually introduces us to the character or the world we're looking at. I don't know where Elaia is coming from in life, what conflict she's actually facing, or what's going on in the least.

(Also, Nefer-djet is named after one of the two major goddesses of her religion -- the fantasy world I'm working with is a sort of cultural blend with a more modern Ancient Egypt, so linguistically that's where I'm coming from. Other character names include Iten-hai, Khetum, and Hadjout.)

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The crows are watching you again.

7/10 (meh, not a fan of rating) CREEPY. I like creepy. Would this be from... I forget the title- but the SB one? The only thing I'm not so fond of is the second person narration. It's kind of interesting, but I guess I'm programmed to think second person equals shorter works- so to me it feels like this isn't the beginning of a story, but rather, it's a stand-alone line... like possibly a story prompt or maybe even the END of a story (the "again" implies that). But I still like it a lot. It definitely makes me want to figure out WHY the crows are watching the "you" in this.

***

(All my stories start dreadfully- I'll just make something up)

On Tuesday, June thought to herself- she thought: today's a good day to bring a baby into the world.

6/10 - interesting! Trust me, very interesting. What's detracting from it majorly for me isn't the phrasing itself but the punctuation and how the sentence is constructed. It feels really clunky and awkward, and the stammering of "thought to herself- she thought" doesn't fit well, in my opinion, with the voice of the piece. It's redundant besides ("thought to herself" largely is -- who else is she thinking to? Is there a possibility she could be thinking to someone else? If there is, that would be mega cool, too) and doesn't add to the sentence, but detracts from it.

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We painted our faces with blood to avoid suspicion.

9/10 - It definitely made me want to read more! In what society could painting your face with blood make you look normal? However, I really hate thinking about blood...

--

Okay.
He breathes in. Breathes out. Tunes his heartbeat with the music.

(I know this is more than one sentence, but just the first doesn't make any sense. The rest of the paragraphs sort of echo the 'okay' motif as the MC tries to calm himself down)

I can't really rate this one numerically, but I can tell you a little story.

I used to write openings like this. All the time. Short, snappy, "catchy" sentences that were unerringly modern and attempted to be poetic within the characters' viewpoint. I can hardly remember all of them now -- I stopped writing them about 6 years ago. One of them started with a pencil sharpener. One of them started with younger siblings. One of them started with a Stereotypical Fantasy Celebration. All of them started with short, snappy sentences that I thought were unique and would catch my readers' eye.

You have a character reason for this. I know you do; you mentioned it yourself. But the problem isn't the character reason -- the problem is that the character reason doesn't become obvious until the fourth sentence. While that may be the equivalent to the end of the first sentence, because they're so short, that's still a lot for the reader to get through when their first introduction to the story is literally "okay".

The issue for me, the big one? This might throw me into the character, but it doesn't show me why he's thinking/acting like this. It doesn't give me a name or something to focus on. It doesn't give me background on what's happening or why it's happening. If he's stressed out because of a fight or because of something else, then show what's stressing him out before you show him calming down. Start with stress, not release.

Also, as a musician, "tunes his heartbeat with the music" sounds so weird. "Times his heartbeat" might work, "syncs" might work, but "tunes"? Your heartbeat can't become different levels of pitch. I recognize it's purposefully poetic, but it just doesn't work for me.

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The city was a slaughterhouse.

7/10: I enjoy the word choice used. Slaughterhouse is a striking and cruel word to use, and provokes the question "What is going on in this city?" I would definitely continue on with this first sentence, it has a driving subject.

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A shrill scream pierced the once quiet and still air of the sleeping family's home.

Eh. 6/10? More or less. First off, "shrill" is a useless descriptor -- 99% of screams are either shrill or throaty, so let's assume one or the other and not mention it. If it's neither of those, describe it. Second, it's useless melodrama, and if it doesn't lead into someone being dead, it's going to test the reader's patience. If it does lead into someone being dead, it's going to test the reader's willingness to put up with cliches. If it's a false start, I'd probably stop reading immediately. It all depends on the follow-up.

Right now, there are too many adjectives for my taste. "Shrill", "quiet", "still", "sleeping" -- obviously not everyone's sleeping if someone is screaming. I'd rather we start with the screaming character than with a description of the scream, or with the main character being awoken by the scream, so we get some idea of how we're really starting.

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The gates to the underworld were awfully crowded.

8/10, I think? It works well as a hook, and sets up a really interesting image. The word 'awfully' stands out a little for me - not in an inherently bad way, but more that it sets the tone for the character's voice and hopefully it stays consistent? If that makes sense. It's a slightly old-fashioned (?) sounding word, so I'd be expecting the character to express themself in a way that's perhaps a little formal, rather than really casual and using a lot of slang. But as a whole, I'm a big fan of this semtemce.

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Sophie Carter had been named for a dead princess.

7/10 or so. It's rather strong, gives an idea of Sophie's family/the people who named her and their priorities, and it gives a bit of an idea of where Sophie's character will go -- making the reader ask if she's like or unlike this dead princess. My biggest gripe is with the past perfect instead of regular old past tense.

Compare with "Sophie Carter was named for a dead princess."

I get it, because it's past tense to start with and she was named even farther in the past than the story starts, but "had been" is just so much stylistically clunkier than "was". And technically, neither is incorrect -- just because she's a teenager or something now does not negate the fact that she is named for a dead princess.

Just me spitballing.

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When I was little, there were five words I would wait all day to hear: "We're going on an adventure."

7/10. It's kind of an interesting opening and I can sniff an adventure coming up. The MC is quite adventurous and spunky, and I like spunky characters. I'd probably read on, but there's not that kind of snap! that makes me remember the first sentence.

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Diana could never tell a lie, but somehow she could recite the legends of long ago.

6.5/10 This is an interesting sentence (which may be the most unhelpful sentence I have ever uttered). I like the 'legends' bit, I'm always a fan of a good legend, but the first section "Diana could never tell a lie" seems kind of irrelevant to the rest of the sentence. Also, "somehow" is not a word you want to use. Ever.




Where does a hero's journey end?