Hello, Yesmrbill!

Thank you for requesting a review from "Only Chapter One " 

Before I start, do not forget,
writing's an art, so do not fret
if you should find that I am blind
to your fine flair, and be aware
this opinion — it is but one.

When approaching your opening chapter, I'm searching for specific elements that separate the chaff from the wheat, and each will be addressed under a different header.

Today I'm reading:

SANGREVILLE  (13+) New Girl in "Vampire Town" High, tries to fit in with her living and undead classmates. #2133121 by Yesmrbill

Hook — does your opening have something that stops this reader putting down your book?


Okay, let's start with the basics here. Your opening three or four paragraphs do need to establish the viewpoint character and setting, which yours do. However, the most important thing in an opening is to establish a strong hook that encourages your reader to continue reading on until the end of the first chapter. As it is, your first few paragraphs contain Your only conflict in the first four paragraphs is between character and setting in that she's uncomfortable because it's too hot, though she doesn't really come across as all that bothered about it, to be honest. There's none of the sweat and damp armpits and worry about her body odor that's usually associated with broken air conditioning and makes the reader feel like they are there in the scene. You do, however, get in a tiny hook in the fifth paragraph with the name Demon's Gateway, though it wouldn't really be considered a great hook by most people since there are lots of places in the world that actually do have a name like that, so any reader might casually assume it's like one of those.

Now, it's going to make me sound like I've only ever read five books in my life when I bring this up, but your opening paragraph is actually really, really similar to Twilight. I mean, you've got a girl who is sixteen being transplanted from a high school she knows and is comfortable with to a strange place she's not so familiar with that has a distinctly different climate. You've also got the single parent in a car driving her to her new home. And, of course, you've got a town full of vampires.

Two things that strike me about the Twilight similarity issue are:

1) Meyer had a rationale for why the vampires preferred to live in a town with a specific climate. In the opening book, she has her vampires live in a place with an unusually high rainfall so that there's less bright sunlight, and then when Ed goes off somewhere, it's to Alaska where they have fewer people, more animals, and almost no daylight in winter. They also choose a location adjacent to a huge national park where there are lots and lots of wild animals they can eat plus they can hunt in secret. In The Southern Vampire Mysteries, Sookie is in Louisiana, so the climate is more similar to what you have, but in that series, the vampires live everywhere around the world, not one specific location, and their rationale is that they are returning to the place where they lived when they were human. In Vampire Diaries, the vampires are drawn there by some dark magical force, which is also the rationale in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the vampires are all drawn to the Hell Mouth.

What is your rationale for these vampires living in an especially sunny place with little animal life? Maybe this deep valley is especially shadowed by high cliffs to each side, like the bottom of the Grand Canyon? Maybe your vampires can go out in sunlight? Maybe they're drawn to this Demon's Gateway like the Hell Mouth in Buffy. I just hope that you've got a good reason up your sleeve.

2) Meyer must have received some advice before she published Twilight because each book in the series begins with a very, very brief preface that foreshadows a climactic moment toward the end of the novel where the heroine's life is in danger. It's like how Game of Thrones begins with a prologue that shows one of the white walkers so that the reader doesn't have to sit through the introduction of the entire Stark family, followed by the introduction of the Lannisters, without first coming to understand that the whole book is going to be about horrible monsters and the supernatural.

If you're going to start your book without an exciting hook then you might like to consider a preface like Twilight has or a prologue like Game of Thrones.

Your introduction of your character's name is a tad limp. I mean, just stating that she's "I, 16 year old Elaine Harris" isn't a great way of showing who she is. She's sitting next to her mom, so a simple conversation between them could supply all this information by showing it, eg.

By 2:30 PM on Saturday afternoon, the cross-country bus from Los Angeles to my personal Hell on Earth had been on the road for two and a half hours. That's when Mom turned to me.

"Elaine, did you remember to ask your biology teacher at Atlantic High to inform your new school administrator you were registered on the AP programme?"

I glared back at her mom. "If you hadn't forced me to change schools halfway through a school year, I wouldn't have needed to."

And, I thought to myself, I would still be back in Long Island with my boyfriend Larry instead of headed somewhere where every second person I meet might be some evil Satan worshipper.


Can you see how this simple start gets an initial hook into your opening line with a reference to "Hell on Earth"? Also, you have clear conflict shown between Mom and daughter from the first few paragraphs, and her name and age are given without being told. The last sentence isn't spoken aloud because it's internal dialogue that establishes very early on two points: 1) Elaine is short of a boyfriend now, and 2) she resents this fact, ie. it ups the conflict considerably within the first four paragraphs. I'm not saying that this is what you should write, I'm just saying that you need to write something that brings in both a hook and the conflicts earlier.

Characters — are they well rounded?


I actually liked Elaine quite a lot. I feel that she has a lot of potential as a character. Her age, Christian faith, and general attitudes are clear and easy to understand. Her situation makes her a sympathetic character.

However, on the negative side, I have absolutely no idea if Elaine is white or black, fat or thin, short or tall, red-head or Mohican. I cannot picture either her or any of the other characters at all.

Also, she has no obvious life beyond the plot. I don't know if she's a skater girl, a gamer, a goth (though presumably not from the clothes, though it would be ironic I suppose), a sports fan or a choirgirl. Give us some hints, something to work with. Like, does she carry her bags and her VIOLIN CASE to her room, or her bags and her BASEBALL BAT? Small setting things, like "Is it okay for me to hang my Black Sabbath poster in my room?" would say a lot about her as a person. In Twilight (God, I hope I don't mention that bloody book another time!) Meyer does a great job of introducing Bella's relationship with her father by having her walk into her childhood bedroom and compare the THEN to the NOW, such as, "Where will I put my copy of Jane Austen's greatest hits?" and "I'm not into frilly pink drapes these days."

Plot — does your first chapter introduce or hint at the main conflict?


I think that it's pretty clear what your story is about, and you have lots of great conflicts once the reader gets past the first few paragraphs. Since, in my opinion, plot is the most important part of a story, you're doing well here.

There's a rather large plot issue, though, in my opinion. You state: "People in the Town Government are trying to work out an agreement, between the live people and the vampires, which they hope will assure that everyone there, both the living and undead, will be reasonably safe." Now, I'm not American so I'm not too familiar with the Constitution, but I suspect that if an agreement hasn't already been ironed out at this stage then the US military and government would not allow US citizens to enter this town. Although laws are individual to each state, some laws are Federally enforced. Murder is a crime everywhere in the US, and vampires who had not signed up to some kind of agreement before this event would be murderers.

However, in the True Blood vampire TV series (but not in the Southern Mystery books it's based on) they do feature the passing of a Vampire bill. However, the issue isn't the interaction of vampires and humans but instead the issue of equality of human and vampire rights. Later, they do vampire marriage. Basically, they follow the civil rights movement from equal rights to all people to gay marriage, in effect. You can have important legal issues, but it's maybe better to have them later in the story when the setting is better established and also to focus on beginning your story with plausible issues. The issue you've raised isn't, to be honest, plausible. Why would people live alongside vampires if there was no agreement in place and they might kill each other at any time?

Pace — does your story feel like it's going somewhere?


Overall, your pace is great. In my opinion, however, you have two issues in this chapter.

1) Nothing really happens in the first five paragraphs in terms of conflict or an opening hook, so you'll likely lose the reader at that point.

2) I'm not keen on the time-hopping in the opening chapter. I'm sure that you could present this information chronologically and it would work better. I get that you want to begin with the "action" of her arriving in Vampire Town, but the actual conflict isn't the act of her traveling there - it's in her personal wish not to go there. If you begin the story from Elaine doing her "Sexbook" post and have Mom burst in on her, immediately having conflict because Elaine won't want her mom to see what she's up to, I presume, if she's a normal teen. Then Mom could drop the "we're going to move to Vampire Town" on her there and then, within the first few paragraphs of the story, and Elaine have a very negative reaction. You see, you'd actually have a lot more up-front conflict that way around than you get from a sixteen-year-old girl on a coach traveling through the desert.

Language and voice — does this reader 'feel' the story?


To me, and forgive me if you think I'm wrong, Elaine doesn't come across as a teenage girl. Perhaps it's the first person narrative. If this were third person, you could allow yourself a little more leeway. If you're going to use first person, your prose has to really sound like a teenager wrote it. I have one son who's twenty-one and two teenage sons, and I've employed teenage girls who were open about their sexual experiences with all their colleagues and me, and none have really sounded like Elaine. If you're going to push the Born Again Christian viewpoint, I feel you need to work on her guilt - her inner struggle over whether pre-marital sex is okay or not. At the moment she expresses zero guilt, which seems strange for a sixteen-year-old girl. The very best sixteen-year-old girl prose I can recommend for you right now is Hazel's first person narrative in The Fault in our Stars by John Green. Hazel IS a "normal" fifteen-year-old girl who in the story has sex with her seventeen-year-old boyfriend. She's not a Christian, but her feelings over whether she should have a relationship with a boy or not (within the context of the story) are extremely well expressed. Also, note that Green very cleverly gets over the legal issues that you're pushing here by setting the actual sex scene in Amsterdam so that the sex isn't statutory rape of a minor.

Notes

We passengers had spent the last 30 minutes riding past patches of wild cactus, -> though it's not a serious issue, small numbers should really be written out rather than presented as numerals. And again, sixteen no 16 in the second paragraph. However, time, like you use in the opening sentence, is fine represented like that.

That is this town's claim to fame. -> one of the issues of narration is viewpoint tense. This can be particularly tricky when narrating in first person. You've begun this story in regular past tense, with the protagonist herself telling the reader what happened in the past. However, you do hit a problem with narration when a fact occurs that is true now, at the point in time when the story is recited, as well as true during the time of the unfolding events in the story. Do we narrate these facts in the past or the present tense? The general, and easiest, rule to follow is to describe all things in the past tense so that there's no confusion in the reader's mind as they plow through your text. If you don't do this now, and then something occurs later that isn't true now, then you will give it away when you relate it in past tense. For example, saying "My brother is a lawyer" might be fine. But, if in your story your sister is also a lawyer but then becomes a bank robber, you won't get away with then writing "my sister was a lawyer" straight after saying "my brother is a lawyer" because the reader might notice the difference and your plot twist will be spoiled. Do you catch my drift?

As we loaded our bags into their car's trunk, I noticed that my Cousin Diana, who was my age, had a pair of anti-biotic bandages on her neck. -> this is great SHOWING of Diana's feelings about vampires. However, one of the big advantages novels have over movies is how they allow the reader to get inside the viewpoint protagonist's head - to see what they're thinking. This is a point where - if you want to make Elaine feel like a real person - we'd expect her to have some thoughts. She's clearly negative on the whole vampire issue, but she's also intelligent enough to narrate this story, so she's going to have opinions - which may turn out to be wrong - about where Cousin Diana got those wounds from. Let the reader inside Elaine's head. Show us what she thinks about this rather concerning development that's occurred as soon as she's stepped off the bus.

we took our bags up to the rooms where we'd be staying as guests, until we found a place of our own to live. -> sometimes you can write a perfect sentence, grammatically speaking, which makes perfect sense to any reader, but which would be better if it were less perfect. What I'm talking about is narrative style. You want your prose to be as succinct (or tight, as writers often say) as possible. The tighter your prose, the more active it will subconsciously feel to your reader. Sometimes there are bits in a sentence that you can remove without actually changing the meaning of the sentence to an intelligent reader, although technically that sentence isn't as clear as before. A lawyer when writing a contract must use prose that is as precise as possible, but how interesting are contracts to read? An author must write sentences that pass on multiple implied meanings and stimulate the reader's emotions. It won't make a huge difference to this sentence, but consider: we dragged our bags up to the guest rooms where we'd be staying until we found a place of our own. Note how "dragged" implies more than "took". Even "carried" would be a better verb, but "dragged" shows the reader that the bags are heavy, ie. you've brought the kitchen sink. Note the rearrangement of words to make the sentence tighter. Note the removal of "to live" because it's obvious to the intelligent reader. Use as few words as possible and, as King says, make each one carry its weight in your prose.

we went back downstairs and sat outside on the porch swing with my Cousin Diana and Aunt Josephine. As we were talking and pleasantly reminiscing, my mother spoke to my cousin. -> once Diana is established as the cousin, there's no need to keep saying Cousin Diana because she's the same age as the narrator, relatively speaking, and it's a tad formal and verbose. However, Aunt Josephine needs to keep her full name, for now, since she's a senior person to the narrator. So, consider: we went back downstairs and sat outside on the porch swing with my Aunt Josephine and Diana. As we were talking and pleasantly reminiscing, my mother spoke to my cousin.

Dialogue — are your characters' voices distinct, and do they add to character building?


Like the first person narrative, the dialogue didn't quite sound genuine teenage girl to me. Try reading a few more books written by women where the first person narrator or viewpoint character is a teenage girl.

Notes

"Tell me Diana. What happened to your neck?" -> when addressing somebody in speech, offset their name with a comma, ie. "Tell me, Diana."

"It's just a hickey. I got it from a boy I was making out with last night." -> to make dialogue sound more like natural speech, use short sentences, slang, and use grammar and vocabulary appropriate to the character, eg. It's just a hickey I got from some dude I made out with. Try not to have Diana volunteer too much information, like "last night". Teenages, when speaking to adults - especially parents, frequently say as little as they can get away with. When speaking to their peers, they can be much more verbose.

for the past few months." She chuckled, "And she actually expects people to believe that she's still a virgin." -> She chuckled. isn't spoken, so a period after "chuckled".

"No I don't Mom! I am a normal, healthy 16-year-old girl who fks; like most 16 year old girls who aren't losers! And I'd rather be known as a skanky slut, than as a loser. I'm sure Cousin Elaine here was fking with boys regularly back on Long Island. You were, weren't you Elaine?" -> when people are addressed, don't forget to offset their names with commas. Here: "No, I don't, Mom." and "You were, weren't you, Elaine?" Also, earlier in the story you had (delete) when naughty words were used. Here you have fking and fks as well as skanky slut. Now, I'm not sure about what words are considered vulgar in your part of the world, but I'd say skanky slut was on a par with fking. Try to be consistant. If you're using (deleted) somewhere, use it everywhere. If you're using fking there, use that technique everywhere. Oh, and sixteen-year-old girls.

She nodded, "That's how I got this hicky -> dialoge tags can be divided into those that include a verb describing the type of speech used and those describing an action that accompanies the speech. For example, I whispered, said, shouted, mumbled, screeched, bellowed etc describe the type of speech, BUT I laughed, I scratched my butt, I raised an eyebrow, I raised a finger, are an action that accompanies the speech. When it's a type of speech tag, use a comma to separate the tag from the speech. When it's an action tag, use a period. In this example: She nodded. "That's how…"

Settings — is this reader grounded in 'real' scenes?


The settings were adequate in that the reader always knows where they are and what's around them. However, you should engage more sensory information and make better use of the setting details to further the characterization of both Elaine and her cousin.

At the dining room table, my mother and I sat down to a dinner of macaroni with meatballs, sausages and tomato sauce, along with onions and garlic. -> it's great that you include these details. However, it's better if you make them more sensory in nature. I mean, get in some smells and a little taste. Using all five senses better engages your readers. don't just say they're meatballs, say "the delicious aroma of home-cooked meatballs made my mouth water, and the savory beef and onion taste didn't disappoint.

Themes — is this reader blown away by mind-blowing philosophy or originality?


I love stories where people who hate some other kind of person are forced to reconsider their viewpoint and change/or not.

Conclusion — a summary of how this reader personally felt about your opening.


To be honest, I liked this opening chapter and story a lot more than your people eating one that I read before. Elaine is a really great character, you have a strong plotline, and it's a generally interesting story. If you can sort out the timeline a bit better in this chapter and more subtly and in more detail SHOW the reader what Elaine looks like, it'll be a great opening chapter.

Thank you for sharing your opening chapter. Good luck with your writing.

Best wishes,

Bob



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .