Saturday, October 12, 2013

Prep Work Round 3 #11

TITLE: The Tree of Us
GENRE: YA Coming of Age

LOGLINE: Connected through the South American orphanage where they first meet, three 13 year-old girls form a bond through a shared journal that travels across the Americas and brings the girls closer to each other and to the truth about the circumstances of each of their births.

FIRST 250:

July 1979
Bogotá, Colombia


     The dawn light shone fiercely on the sidewalks still wet from the previous night’s rain. A lone elderly woman wearing a black knit shawl covering her head scurried down the road holding a wooden fruit crate at her hip. Weaving through the streets of Bogotá's outskirts she had one thing on her mind. Deliver this safely.

     The woman moved from paved roads to cobblestones to dirt. She heard the sounds of roosters, smelled rice and beans cooking over open flames, and saw the workers watering the flower farms dotting the landscape. She didn't stop to eat, she didn't stop to say hello, she didn't think about how much her bare feet ached. She kept her legs moving and pressed on.

     The woman was unsure if she had arrived. She saw a gate and in the distance a two-story house and beyond that a cluster of modest brick buildings. Sitting atop a grassy hill and surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, these were the only structures she could see for at least a kilometer in any direction. She approached the gate slowly and then she noticed it.

     There was a bronze plaque to the right of the front latch. She couldn't understand the words but underneath the writing she saw a symbol that represented what she was meant to deliver. She gently placed the crate on the ground, bent down to arrange its contents, and then with the same urgency as before she turned and retraced her steps.

6 comments:

  1. The logline worked for me. I liked the premise quite a bit. The opening reads like a prologue, but maybe that is what you are going for. Even though there is action, it is filtered by words like heard, saw smelled. I think it would be more engaging if you can rewrite that paragraph without the filters.

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  2. Lovely! My biggest critique is how passive this passage seems. It's not at all bad, but the passiveness of it doesn't draw me in. Although, it does set up a good tone for the book (which, based on the logline, fits). I'm just going to mark in parentheses the parts that don't stand out as strongly as the rest.

    The dawn light shone fiercely (I think fiercely subtracts from the overall description) on the sidewalks still wet from the previous night’s rain. A lone elderly woman wearing a black knit shawl covering her head scurried down the road holding a wooden fruit crate at her hip. Weaving through the streets of Bogotá's outskirts (needs a comma or rearranging) she had one thing on her mind. Deliver this safely (I think I know where this is going based on the logline, but would she really be thinking 'this'? It's a bit vague and odd).

    The woman moved from paved roads to cobblestones to dirt. She heard the sounds of roosters, smelled rice and beans cooking over open flames, and saw the workers watering the flower farms dotting the landscape. She didn't stop to eat, she didn't stop to say hello, she didn't think about how much her bare feet ached. She kept her legs moving and pressed on (It might bump up your word count, but I think describing her aching feet and the smell as opposed to saying she didn't stop might serve this better. You can pull 'she' out of the sentences and describe delicious smells and people she knows. The ground can be rocky and painful. However, I do like the last sentence).

    The woman was unsure if she had arrived show us how unsure she is with hesitation or something of the like). She saw a gate and in the distance a two-story house and beyond that a cluster of modest brick buildings (Could you split these ideas up? She saw a gate and two-story house in the distance. A cluster of modest brick buildings...Just vary the sentence length. You've got several sentences of similar syllable lengths.). Sitting atop a grassy hill and surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, these were the only structures she could see for at least a kilometer in any direction. She approached the gate slowly and (make this a new sentence--She approached the gate slowly. Then, she noticed it.) then she noticed it.

    There was a bronze plaque to the right of the front latch. She couldn't understand the words but underneath the writing she saw a symbol that represented what she was meant to deliver (could you make this more active? less vague? I think you're going for keeping it hush-hush, but it's stopping the flow more than anything. You've set up that she's delivering something secret/interesting already. You could just say 'what she was carrying' or something). She gently placed the crate on the ground, bent down to arrange its contents, and then with the same urgency as before she turned and retraced her steps. (Personally, I'd prefer this in a shorter sentence just to get the urgency of it. The length of this closing sentence drags it out).

    Again, I like your logline--it does it's job. I just wish it were two sentences (personal reasons more than function). Good luck!

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  3. I like this. The story sounds intriguing. My only concern is that the logline and first 250 don't identify a main character. The logline reads more like a hook to me and I wonder if it would help to write it from the MC's perspective. What are her goals/stakes?

    As Patchi indicated, the first 250 reads like a prologue. I believe you're trying to set up how each child ended up where they were raised, but I feel as if I'm waiting for the true story to begin; the story about the MC.

    Ways to avoid filtering may be rewording sentences like this: "She heard the sounds of roosters, smelled rice and beans cooking over open flames, and saw the workers watering the flower farms dotting the landscape." to (roughly): Shrill rooster cries echoed from a barnyard and the smell of rice and beans cooked over open flames scented the air. Workers looked up from where they watered flowers in fields dotting the landscape as she hurried past. Etc.


    Best of luck!

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  4. OK. Well, you got me. I was quite intrigued by the longline. And maybe some underlying '13" significance. The first page has me curious to what this woman is carrying a heavy fruit crate, where she's gone, and who she is!. I'm very interested to keep reading. -hope to one day. -'cause now I gotta know. Your details painted an eerie scene. (phone typing. Sorry for typos) really like this.

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  5. I like the logline. It has a 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' kind of feel to me, which I loved.

    My main critique with the first page is the passive voice. There are a lot of 'she saw, she heard, she looked.' I see some of the previous comments address this, and I would second it. Really take us into the scene and let us see it through this nameless woman's eyes. Would she just smell rice and beans? Or would it make her mouth water, or turn her stomach? What does she think of the workers in the fields? What kind of flowers are they growing? Show us what makes 1979 Bogota unique. That's your hook. I have heard agents are looking for multicultural YA and MG, so I think you've got great potential with this. Good luck!

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  6. I like the logline. I agree with Shannon- "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" sorta feel. The opening is Omniscient POV and not deep POV. There's more show than tell and therefore I didn't connect as well as I could have. I like Martha's suggestions above, that would really put the reader into the scene instead of observing it from far away. However, I really like this and I would read more.
    Good Luck.

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