Thank you to all the brave souls who entered this month’s Four on 400 contest!
Sharing your writing takes courage, and we appreciate your enthusiasm for our contest. Below, we’ve posted the first 400 words from this month’s winner, along with feedback from at least four of our members. We also encourage our readers to share their (constructive) and encouragement in the comments section below.
MG Steampunk Fantasy, OF GHOSTS AND GEARS
The dead boy would not stop talking.
“Honestly, Finley! I’m working.”
The ghost gleamed pale and silvery, even in the middle of the sunny afternoon. His blue-white face crumpled in a pout. “I’m just trying to help.”
Cassandra wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her leather work glove, no doubt leaving a delightful smear of oil and grease. She made a mental note to clean up before her demonstration. Her parents would have a fit. “Then help. What piece should go here? This gear isn’t working.”
Cassandra’s machine stood in the middle of the dirt floor of her workshop—a run-down shed she’d spruced up by patching the holes with stray boards scavenged from the scrapyard in the Factory District. It had taken her two hours to drag them home. Etherlamps glowed amber atop a spindly table in the corner while another table groaned beneath the weight of her many sketches, schematics and notebooks.
The bot took up nearly all the available space. Its mess of tubes and pistons and gears looked like a cross between a metal man and a cat, with four sturdy rods for legs, ending in wheels, and oddly pointed sensors perched on its head like ears. What it lacked in beauty, it would make up in function. Now she had to get it to work.
“You should use that,” Finley said, pointing at a thick spring coiled like a snake. The part poked out from between a jar of bolts and the bristle brush Cassandra used to scrub the grease off mechanical parts she fished from the dumpsters in the Machinist District.
“Not bad,” she said, flipping the coil in her hand, testing the weight of it. “Nice find. Thank you.”
She kissed the air above his cool cheek and laughed when Finley used his tattered ghost-sleeve to scrub it off.
“Relax,” she laughed, “it’s not as if you can feel it.”
“I know,” he grinned. “I just don’t want your germs.”
She swatted at him, though of course her hand went right through his nearly transparent shoulder. Finley never failed to find this the height of amusement.
She opened the rear hatch and used her striker to light the fire in the portable burner she had rigged up inside the bot’s belly. Finley’s ghost body cooled the air above her shoulder as they waited for the steam reservoir to heat up.
Gita: This is a fantastic opening! I love the lively descriptions of the workshop, the charming relationship between Cassandra and the ghost, Finley, as well as the machine Cassandra is bringing to life. You’ve deftly brought in plenty of tension, too, in the form of Cassandra’s ambition, the hard work she’s put into building the machine, the eventual pay off, and the parents who don’t entirely approve of the mess she makes. I have only two tiny observations: when the word “bot” appears, I wasn’t sure at first if it was the same object referred to as the “machine” in the previous paragraph. And when we’re told that Finley finds Cassandra’s swatting at him very funny, I hoped for a physical description too, to help us see how Finley reacted to this (instead of being told). I absolutely loved this and can’t wait to see what happens next—if the rest of your manuscript is as strong as this, you have a winner!
Jessica: I agree with everything Gita said––this opening is wonderful! You hooked me with the first line and the great voice. You also did a great job giving us just enough detail to anchor us in the scene without slowing it down with unnecessary backstory, which is not an easy feat. By way of constructive feedback, I would only point out that you may want to switch “tubes and pistons and gears ” to “tubes, pistons, and gears.” In addition, the phrase “the height of amusement” jumped out at me as being more adult than some of Cassandra’s other dialogue. Overall, this is a strong introduction that makes me wish I could keep reading––nice work!
Julie: I love the steampunk elements of this story, as well as the friendship between Finley and Cassandra. I only have a couple of tiny comments, because overall this is REALLY working (man, I wish I could read more!). First, make sure you read City of Ghosts not only because it would be a likely comp to this, but because there are some similarities in names and setup that would be worth knowing. The second is to avoid using words like “grinned” and “laughed” as dialogue tags. An alternative would be something like: Cass laughed. “Relax, it’s not as if you could feel it.” or “I know,” he said, grinning. Best of luck with this!
Karin: This pulls me right in—well done! I also only have a few small suggestions. I love the first line, but you might want to clarify with the second line that it’s Cassandra talking; so saying something instead like: “Honestly, Finley. Can’t you see I’m working?” This would anchor us firmly in Cassandra’s pov. I also wondered about Finley’s talking too much because he doesn’t seem overly chatty in the other instances here. And I don’t get a sense of how Finley talks too much? Is he telling her what to do, or talking about something else? Finally, when you say that Finley gleamed silvery “in the middle of the sunny afternoon,” I thought they were outside, but then we find out they are in the workshop, so that was a little confusing. Thanks for sharing and good luck!