Hi hi! Finally here as requested, so let's get started!
My first thought is: iiiiinteresting...
Second person really works for me. I love the mystery of who "you" is and what "you" did. Read Stolen by Lucy Christopher. It's my favorite second person book I've read. It's about a girl that was kidnapped and it's written as a letter to her captor. (But it's not scary, I promise).
Technically this is a prologue, yes? Prologues, as I'm sure you know, are really hit or miss and are often not necessary. It's too soon for me to tell whether or not I'll think this prologue is necessary or not, but right now I'm leaning towards it is. The event itself isn't all that out there or different from other YA stories - a party, someone is drunk. But, you've put a little twist on it and made it a lot more interesting because it's a moment she wants to forget and take back and I want to know why. In my eyes, nothing particularly horrible happens in this moment, so now I want to read on and find out what happened.
I'm digging the voice already too. Voice is such a hard thing to get right and it can be a really hard thing to teach because it's not really a mechanical thing you either do right or wrong. I think you're capturing this MC really well so far and I already feel intrigued and pulled into the story which is exactly what I want in an opening.
I can't quite answer any of your questions yet, but I'll get there If I were to guess right now where the plot is headed, I'm guessing "you" is a boy and this boy is going to wrong her in some way. I'm guessing he's going to break her heart in some fashion and it may or may not be related to his alcohol use (or is it abuse ???). OR it's going to be a cute love story about how she fell in love with him and she doesn't want to remember him in this light because it's not how he really is. Am I close? (you don't actually have to tell me, I'll find out soon enough anyway).
A few small things:
This is like my deleted scene, because although nothing outrageous happened, I like to forget about it. To leave it out. There are times when it’s relieving to forget about things that make you question your perceptions. I’m told I shouldn’t make a habit out of things like this, but it certainly makes decisions less difficult. You probably don’t remember it in the first place, for reasons that are obvious. So I guess I’ll refresh both of our memories.
I think this gets a little wordy and a little repetitive. I often do the same thing when I'm starting a novel. I start with a voicey opening paragraph to narrate and set the scene in a sort of undertone, subtext sort of way to create some mystery and then move into what's actually happening I think a bit of this is good, but you don't want too much. I think you could achieve the same effect here taking out the part I put in bold, while making it a bit more concise.
Since you’re obsessed with playbooks, I’ll try to tell it to you like you would see it. I’ve drawn it in my Physics notebook. There’s an arrow pointing to the word “gray”, because you speak in colors when you’re drunk. Everything is gray, or purple, or orange, or even chartreuse. Your whole spiel is circled in bright red and labeled with an ‘O’, for Open Access, since that’s how you’re going to get out of David’s interrogation. Even when you’re drunk, you are notorious for your excuses.
I'm lost with the sports analogy. (I know next to nothing about sports). So the MC (Val I'm guessing) is sitting at this party watching "you" do what "you" is doing and making little notes in her notebook, but I don't really get what she's doing. Why is she making little notes? What do the arrows and the Os and the Xs mean exactly?
You can’t stop running your hand through your hair. Dark crew cut, fingers a little crooked from getting jammed in baseball.
It’s what you do when you lie.
This is a curious little thing. Since this is the first time meeting "you", she wouldn't know that this is his lying tell but obviously something has happened since this initial meeting that made her learn this is the case. I'm also a sucker for these little human details that make characters feel more real.
You mentioned several names and characters in this opening and I don't really remember any of their names because they all flew by rather quickly and I was primarily focused on "you". So I hope they are developed more and you remind us who is who in the coming chapter
Overall, I thought this was an intriguing opening and I'm very curious to see how this is going to be developed and to learn more about your characters! Let me know if you have any questions or if you want any feedback about something I didn't already mention, and I'll see you very soon!
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