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Okay! Here we go.
Title: SPINSTER BRIDE
Genre/Category: YA Fantasy
First 250:
"I break the red seal engraved with a tree stump crest, unfold the stiff white paper, and squint at the contoured penmanship. The letter I received last week from the de Paula Barony communicated the death of my aunt’s husband and her impending arrival. I don’t hold much hope this message will relay better tidings.
Dear Baron de Souza,
It is with great pleasure that I invite you and your family to celebrate the wedding of my granddaughter Sophia de Paula to Lord Gavin Gwynn. The reception will be held at the riverside fortress of the de Paula Barony on the sixth day of the coming week.
Accommodations can be made for your party at the premises, and please forward my invitations to your baronets.
I hope this letter finds you in good health.
Looking forward to seeing you next week,
Baroness de Paula
I glance at the stack of letters on the large wooden desk then at the messenger who delivered them. His unruffled peasant garb is wrinkled from his day on the saddle.
'The others are for Father’s baronets?' I bite my tongue. My baronets.
He nods. 'Do I take back a reply?'
'Let Baroness de Paula know I’ll be attending with a small escort.' The other invitations I hand to Father’s Master of the Fields who is standing by my chair. I feel like I’m playing in Father’s dressing room, waiting for him to catch me in clothes too big for me. 'I’ll make sure these are delivered.'"
Okay, so, initial thoughts. I pretty immediately noticed two major things: first, the I double-checked the category because the voice does not sound YA to me (it sounds much more like adult), and second, I suspect this opening is starting too early.
On the first point, even for YA Fantasy which sometimes has slightly elevated language, the writing sounded too formal to me for YA (see phrases like "contoured penmanship," "communicated," "impending arrival," "I don't hold much hope" and "relay better tidings"). On their own, phrases like that could hypothetically work in YA without sounding too old, but all together in the first three sentences gives the impression written for an older audience, IMO.
On the second point, this, to me, just isn't an arresting enough opening. We don't know enough about the protagonist to really care what the letter says, and we don't know enough about what's going on to understand the significance of some likes like "My baronets." Furthermore, there isn't really any hint of conflict here—the protagonist is invited to a wedding and she agrees to go.
I'm wondering if it would be better to open when she arrives at the wedding (or just before/when conflict begins to happen at the wedding, which I presume is where the conflict begins). Either way, I think the solution here is to open closer to the inciting incident, whatever that may be, though of course I'm just guessing here based off the first 250. But on its own, this does not feel like a strong enough opening to me.
Now the in-line notes.
"I break the red seal engraved with a tree stump crest, unfold the stiff white paper, and squint at the contoured penmanship. The letter I received last week from the de Paula Barony communicated the death of my aunt’s husband and her impending arrival. I don’t hold much hope this message will relay better tidings. I already mentioned my thoughts about this first paragraph. As a whole, the writing is just fine and I like the details, but the language is a little wordy and in my opinion feels too formal for YA, even YA Fantasy.
Dear Baron de Souza,
It is with great pleasure that I invite you and your family to celebrate the wedding of my granddaughter Sophia de Paula to Lord Gavin Gwynn. The reception will be held at the riverside fortress of the de Paula Barony on the sixth day of the coming week.
Accommodations can be made for your party at the premises, and please forward my invitations to your baronets.
I hope this letter finds you in good health.
Looking forward to seeing you next week,
Baroness de Paula
Do we need to know every word of the letter? It seems to me like a pretty standard invitation and I find that it's slowing down the pacing in the opening. If you choose not to cut this scene entirely, you may want to consider cutting the letter and just making it clear that it's an invitation to a wedding. (An example where telling might actually work better than showing.)
I glance at the stack of letters on the large wooden desk then at the messenger who delivered them. His unruffled peasant garb is wrinkled from his day on the saddle. I have two problems with "peasant garb." First, it's not very descriptive and I'm not entirely sure what it means. What is "peasant garb" to the protagonist? Second, it makes the protagonist sound super snooty. I understand that she's from a high status family, but calling someone's clothes "peasant garb" makes me not like her very much.
'The others are for Father’s baronets?' I bite my tongue. My baronets. As stated above, I don't understand the significance of this line. Why does she bite her tongue? Why does this bother her?
He nods. 'Do I take back a reply?'
'Let Baroness de Paula know I’ll be attending with a small escort.' The other invitations I hand to Father’s Master of the Fields who is standing by my chair. I feel like I’m playing in Father’s dressing room, waiting for him to catch me in clothes too big for me. This is nice. I like that we see some of her insecurity here. It makes me a little more sympathetic toward her. 'I’ll make sure these are delivered.'"
On a writing level, I think this is actually written well (which is why I don't have many notes on the writing itself), just...not necessarily for YA as I mentioned above. I think in order for this to really read like YA we need to streamline some sentences and remove some of the more formal (and wordy) phrases. The idea is to write the way today's audience might imagine a teen would speak whenever this takes place—if she doesn't sound like a teen to the reader (not necessarily the way a teen would actually speak then), no amount of authenticity is going to matter.
Some good examples of YA Fantasy voices that do this include the TV show Reign (which say what you like about its lack of historical accuracy, does a good job capturing a YA (TV) voice in a historical setting) and the Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore.
With a re-worked opening closer to the inciting incident and with a hint of conflict, I think this could be really interesting. But unfortunately as is, if I saw it in the slush, I would probably pass.
I hope this helps! Thanks for sharing your first 250, Patchi!
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.@Ava_Jae talks starting in the right place & historical YA voices in the 11th Fixing the 1st Page critique. (Click to tweet)
Thanks, Ava! I was thinking this was sounding more NA than YA, which might better match the story. Do you have some NA fantasy recommendations?
ReplyDeleteThe letter refers to the characters in the first book in the series (this is a sequel but with different main characters), but I can see I need to ground the reader in the MC before I make the connection with the previous book if I want them to solidly stand alone. Maybe I've started the scene too late.
Lots to think about. Thanks again!
You're welcome, Patchi! Personally, I don't think the letter is necessary—I think it could easily be summarized in a sentence. Whatever your inciting incident is, I'd recommend starting closer to there.
ReplyDeleteAs for NA...it's kind of hard to say. NA voices are relatively similar to YA, just a little older and slightly more mature. This, to me, sounded more like straight adult. It's also hard to compare to though, because 99% of NA right now features protagonists in/near college.
Thanks for sharing your first 250!