Thank you to all the brave souls who entered this month’s 8 on Eight contest! Sharing your writing takes courage, and we appreciate your enthusiasm for our contest.
If your name wasn’t drawn from the Triwizard cup this time around, keep an eye out for when our next contest window opens at 8 PM on November 30th. Below, we’ve posted the first 8 lines from this month’s winner, along with feedback from at least eight of our members. We also encourage our readers to share their (constructive) suggestions and encouragement in the comments section below.
INDIGO WAVES by Jill Andrews
Genre: Young Adult (Contemporary Sci-fi)
Freedom, I decided, tastes like salt water. Using a plastic beach shovel for a paddle, I stroked away from my island prison, toward the Gulf Coast in my tiny boat, although calling my contraption a boat may have been a stretch. Twelve detergent bottles, acquired from the school laundry department, were strung together to form a loose circle. A large rainslicker, attached to the ropes with bungees, offered a kind of floating nest in the center.
I paddled until my arms shook and my muscles burned from the effort. The gentle swells that had lapped against the beach were just high enough to make seeing me from the shore difficult. As I paddled further away from the island and the storm clouds moved in, the swells intensified to a relentless four-to-six-foot ascent, followed each time by a stomach churning plunge.
Gripping the plastic shovel against my chest with one hand, I clung to the flimsy rope with the other.
Julie Artz: I love that first line! You’ve provided some great details about the MC’s home-made escape boat, which draws the reader right in to this adventure story. That said, I want a little bit more in this opening about the stakes–what is MC fleeing, and what will happen if s/he is caught by the people she’s trying to escape? That sense of fear/danger will up the tension in the opening and, when combined with the great details you already have, will make this story shine.
Michelle Leonard: Fantastic opening that pulls me in immediately. You’ve included many lovely details, but I’d like just another word or two here and there so I can understand how worried I should be for the MC and how bad the MC’s experience has been in the prison (no long backstory, just a few well-placed adjectives). A few more questions that came up as I read: Is the rainslicker truly a nest or a shade? Is this most likely going to be a short journey. Again, a few simple words will make this all clear and help us understand the stakes. Nice work! I’m very intrigued. Best of luck and stay in touch with us to let us know how it goes.
Gita: Your opening really drew me in—I would certainly keep reading to find out what’s happening and why! I second (third?) what Julie and Michelle said: I’d love some emotional underpinning for the main character here. It doesn’t need to be wordy, but it needs to be there. Also, I’m wondering if could make some of your words count even more. For example, the third sentence is a passive construction. By choosing that construction you miss opportunities to reveal some backstory and show us something about the main character. Who tied the detergent bottles together? Was it the MC? If so, “I’d tied the detergent bottles together” shows us more than “were tied.” Likewise, “acquired” doesn’t tell us much. Were the bottles “stolen,” “snitched,” “scavenged,” “pawned,” “liberated” or something else entirely?
A minor formatting suggestion: your first line is so terrific I’d think about setting it off apart from the rest of the paragraph. Good luck with your writing!
Jessica: This is a very intriguing opening! By way of feedback, I’ll say that I was slightly confused in the opening paragraph. When I read that the MC was paddling away from an island prison, I took this quite literally. But then when I read about the school laundry department, I wasn’t sure if the MC was really in some type of prison or perhaps at some type of remote boarding school that made the MC feel imprisoned (I’m inclined to think the latter since I’m not sure if there would be a school in a prison, but I’m not certain). Good luck with this story!
Richelle: Great opening line! I was immediately intrigued. I’m with Jessica in being a bit confused about whether the prison was literal or metaphorical, and details like the plastic beach shovel and the mention of the school made me lean to the metaphorical. I also agree that some notion of the stakes would be helpful — even when the storm rolled in, I didn’t get a sense of urgency. It seemed more like an inconvenience than a life-or-death adversary. Had your MC been tracking the storm before he/she left? What about pursuers? Are there any? Are there sharks or other threats from the water? Has she left anything or anyone behind that colors her journey with regret? Or is she just anxious to get away? That first line is so evocative of what she’s feeling, but the rest of the opening takes us out of her state of mind and into her physical state. I wonder if you could pin the description of the raft and the journey more closely to her emotional journey, if that might make everything else pop as much as the first line does?
Halli: I agree with everyone about your first line. It is definitely one of my favorites! Your writing is very nice, it flows well, and your descriptions are well done. I could see enhancing it with word choices, as I think Gita mentioned. I am on the same page with everyone above when they say that they are missing who your character is. Just a few words or sentences about who he/she is fleeing, a brief hint as to why, and then the emotions that go along with those revelations. Should we be afraid for the character? Cheer he/she on? And as the journey goes on, is there terror/anxiety about the approaching storm and swells? Your opening is intriguing! Good luck with this.
Rebecca: This sounds like the start to an intriguing story. I love the first line. It grounds us in your character’s motivation. I can also see from the way you’ve described the raft that she’s no limp protagonist, ready to take on the sea and a storm for what she wants, freedom.
I might like more emotion in the beginning. How does she feel about being aboard the makeshift raft? I get that she’s tired, but wouldn’t she be nervous if not outright frightened to be on the sea with this dodgy raft? I also feel like a tighter focus on her perspective would make the situation even more tense. You mention the view of her from shore. But what about her view? She’s not on shore so I’m not sure I buy that they can’t see her. I’d buy something along the lines of, “I couldn’t see the shoreline over the swells. Hopefully that meant they couldn’t see me.” Also, as the waves start reaching four feet…that’s really big in the type of raft she’s in. Can you “zoom in?” I like the “stomach churning plunge” and I’d like even more. What’s the situation of the raft – e.g. is it holding together or looking like the next wave might pull it apart? And how does she feel going up the swell, then crashing back down. It’s such a great visual, I’d really like to see it. It would naturally lead into more thoughts from her on why freedom is so important to her that it’s worth this risk. Of course all that would take you more than 8 lines. *face palm* But would hook the reader even more, I think.
Thinking bigger picture, I wonder if this is the right place to start. From reading this bit, I’d love to see our protagonist sneaking around to steal the Clorox bottles or other supplies. Or getting a glimpse of how she’s treated in her island prison–what it is that makes her desperate to escape. It might show us even more of your character’s strength and determination, and we’d be more invested in her success by the time she was facing those 4 foot waves at sea.
Note: I didn’t read the prior comments to make my read “distinct.” Hope I didn’t just contradict everyone. Best of luck with your story!
Laurel: That’s an exciting opening to a story! Talk about setting your main character loose at sea in an unseaworthy craft! So, is the first line hinting at disaster? Drinking saltwater is a good way to go into convulsions, so I wasn’t sure if the narrator doesn’t know (yet) that drinking saltwater would be a bad idea. (If I’ve gone off on an unintended tangent, maybe it would better to have freedom’s scent like saltwater?) The boat is brilliant and vivid in my mind. The contrast of nest and the wobbly-ness of the whole construction makes me properly nervous. I’m trying to reconcile the school laundry with prison and getting a bit puzzled. Is prison metaphorical for school or is there a school in the prison? I’m wondering about the level of danger for the narrator. Also the swells “were just high enough to make seeing me from the shore difficult.” lowers the tension. Why not keep the tension up and make the narrator worry about that too? 🙂 Nice strong verbs and spare language. The tone is almost clinically detached in this opening. If it’s concealing a deeper emotional turmoil, maybe that could be hinted at a bit more. If the MC reminds him/herself that this isn’t the time to think about X,Y, and Z concerns, that would work too. Now I wonder what’s going to happen next. . .a sure sign that your first eight lines are doing their work.
Thanks for sharing your story with The Winged Pen!
Thank you all so much for the wonderful suggestions…I’ll be making edits shortly. Question about a few comments..my MC was told she was going to a school and ends up at that island facility. They tell her she is sick and ‘quarantine’ her. She figures out that the noise of the other kids that she hears everyday is a prerecorded soundtrack. She realizes she isn’t a student, but a government facility. So it’s actually a prison, masquerading as a school.
I could change school laundry to facility laundry, but I kind of liked the confusion between a school and a prison at the beginning. I was hoping to add to the intrigue, lol.
What do you think?
Oh–love the idea to change anything I can to action, way too many passive words, as many of you pointed out.
Also, I’m going to rethink where I can add to that sense of urgency, as suggested. By the end of page 2 we find her under a dock at a yacht club hiding from armed men. I try to keep the pressure on her all the way through the first chapter.
You all gave incredible ideas, can’t wait to rework my baby. My goal is to have it close to complete by the end of November. So, I cheated and got a head start to NANOWRIMO, (about 20 pgs in before the 1st) But, it gives me a goal. And your feed back gives me encouragement.
Thank you Winged Pen and 8 on 8!
Jill
I’m glad you found the comments helpful — thanks so much for entering!
As for your question, I think your best bet is to zero in on your character instead of trying to think about what you as an author are trying to convey. Would she still call it a “school laundry” even now that she (presumably) knows it’s not a school? What do her thoughts look like in this moment of heightened tension? Is she focusing on the details of the raft because she’s proud of her ingenuity? Or because she can’t bear to think about what she has just escaped? If you use her as your guide, you’ll naturally give readers the information they need without taking them out of the story.
Happy to answer more questions if you have them!
Hi, Jill,
Glad you found the comments useful! I like Richelle’s suggestion to let your character be your guide. On the Creative Penn podcast, Lisa Cron talks about her new book STORY GENIUS and suggests that readers are gripped by stories when the main character is working out a problem, in real time, based on personal experience and values. Her theory is that there’s an evolutionary advantage in watching someone else figure out how to survive so we’re naturally drawn in. If she’s right, confusion about prison versus school probably doesn’t add to the tension. I suspect you’ll know when the story’s finished whether it’s important to get both school and prison in the opening. Happy writing!