Saturday, October 12, 2013

Prep Work Round 3 #5


Title: MISSING CERULEAN BLUE
Genre: MG Fantasy Adventure

LOGLINE: When thirteen-year-old Calli’s father disappears, she follows his trail into an enchanted land at war with an evil changeling where he’s been injured and needs a magical healing nectar to survive. Before they’ll help her save him, she must help two elves and beautiful faerie cross a river full of sirens, and infiltrate the hobgoblin caves to rescue their kidnapped faerie prince.

FIRST 250: 

It’s not like I made a habit of listening to other people’s phone conversations, but there was nothing normal about my dad talking on the phone. Not anymore. The sound of his voice made me freeze on the stairs. It was still as heavy and dark as a thundercloud, but there was something different about it.
 
“Thanks for calling me back. No, I’m sure that won’t be necessary. No, she’s not a problem. Well, no, I haven’t…I know it’s been four months, June.”
 
My Aunt June. The woman thought I was a freak and never failed to make me feel like one. She believed my mom—her own sister—had ruined me with her “strange, artistic ways” and “stubborn insistence” on home-schooling.
 
“Well, I hadn’t thought of that,” my dad said.
 
I sat on the next to last step and tried to figure out why he wanted to talk to her when he’d been ignoring calls from everyone else. But there was no good reason that I could think of. And all of the bad reasons were making me feel a little sick.
 
“Let me talk it over with Calli and I’ll get back to you.”
 
When he came through the kitchen doorway and saw me sitting there, he didn’t look mad that I’d been listening. More like, relieved.
 
“You shaved!” The words just burst out of me. Then I noticed he wasn’t wearing his pitiful, brown bathrobe either. It had probably walked away on its own.

5 comments:

  1. Hi! I'm going to comment in parentheses next to what I'm referring to.

    When thirteen-year-old Calli’s father disappears, she follows his trail into an enchanted land at war with an evil changeling where he’s been injured and needs a magical healing nectar to survive (This sentence is too long. The 'where...survive' part reads as though it's referring to the evil changeling. Do we need to know he needs a magical nectar? Or could you just say something along the lines of Her father's injured and needs magical healing?) . Before they’ll help her save him, she must help two elves and beautiful faerie cross a river full of sirens, and infiltrate the hobgoblin caves to rescue their kidnapped faerie prince. (On a personal note, I think I'd prefer this sentence in reverse--Calli must help the elves rescue their prince from a hobgoblin cave protected by sirens before the elves will help her save her father. I don't know. I just think putting what she has to do followed by the ultimatum/stakes sounds better with your first sentence. It keeps it from being too heavy on the 'modifier, object verb' structure.)



    I don't have many comments on the 250 words. It's full of voice. The pacing and structure works because it's so consistent. My only possible comments are picky little personal preferences. Good luck!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions! I know the logline stinks. There are so many elements to the story that I'm having trouble narrowing it down. The reason I spelled out that she follows him into the enchanted land is that the first four chapters are set in our world and I didn't want the discrepancy between an ALL fantasy logline and a NO fantasy first page. What is your opinion on that?
      Here's a more condensed all fantasy logline:
      In order to save her father’s life, thirteen-year-old Calli must help two elves and a beautiful faerie rescue a kidnapped prince from an evil changeling before the flowers for the healing nectar are no longer in bloom.

      If you don't have time to comment again, I understand. Thanks either way!

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    2. No problem. I have the same problem. Personally, I don't think the first page needs to spell everything up. It's the scene that begins the story and action, but it doesn't need to be all up in your face with it's plot. But I'm not an agent or editor, so take that with a grain of salt.
      I really like the condensed version. It's concise and gets all of the stakes out of the way. If you want to stress that Calli's not from there, you might be able to work in 'human' or 'outsider'.

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  2. I think your 250 are good. Got nothing to complain about there:)

    Your logline feels like it needs the stakes underlined.That line 'before they'll help her save him' is almost lost by everything else happening around it.

    Basically she needs a lot of help in this crazy new world to save her Dad and the only ones willing have stipulated that she risk her life with sirens etc to do it.That needs to be brought out loud and clear.

    Also it looks like we have two separate stories - seems like the most important thing should be saving her Dad but we've got a Faerie prince hogging the show..is there a tie-in? I hope there is.

    PS I agree with LM that you definitely don't need the healing nectar, it just makes the sentence run on too long. Good luck.

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  3. Sorry to be so short here, but I agree with the others. Your logline needs work, but the first page is good. After reading your logline, I braced myself for the worst, but I was happily surprised. Well done.

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