It's the Catch Me If You Can Blogfest, hosted by Kristina over at KayKay's Corner.
The idea of this fest is to post the first 500 or so words of your WIP in hopes of answering the question: does my WIP catch people's attention right away?So my submission is the first 498 words of my paranormal romance, Faerie Fate. As it turns out, chapter one is super short...it's sort of a prologue disguised as a first chapter. So this submission is that entire first chapter, plus a little bit of chapter 2. Hope you likey!
**********************
****CH 1
Holly Reed slept curled in a tiny bundle, wrapped in her mother’s protective embrace, unaware of the two women who stood over her, watching.
“Do you think she has any idea how important she is?” Aine, Queen of all Fae, asked her own mother.
Gaea regarded her daughter, the queen, with a tender gaze. “Not if we do what we came to do, Aine.”
Moonlight fell through a gap in the curtains onto Holly’s little face, illuminating her pink cheeks. Aine stepped closer to the bed, brushed her fingers over the baby’s soft skin and sighed. “There’s so much to protect her from.”
“Indeed there is,” Gaea agreed. “Not the least of which is her own relatives.”
“Such a beautiful girl. Will she ever be happy?”
“Perhaps,” Gaea said, moving close behind Aine and placing a hand on her shoulder. “I may be the Mother Goddess, Darling, but there are powers beyond even my control.”
A furrow creased Aine’s brow, “Fate,” she said, disgust in her voice.
“He is a force unto himself, and one that, unfortunately, I can’t interfere with. All I can do is protect and do my best to prevent. The rest is up to him. And that brings us back to this little angel.”
“If she is the Redeemer it’s crucial we do everything we can to ensure she remains hidden.”
“The peace foretold in the prophecy has nearly reached its end,” Gaea said, smoothing Holly’s ebony hair. She shifted the edge of the old crazy quilt to expose the baby’s little shoulder, revealing a birthmark resembling a pair of overlapping rings. “This child is, indeed, the Redeemer. Fate has already marked her for that burden. She holds the fortune of two worlds in her little hands.” Gaea shook her head and sighed. “We can shield her now, but she can’t remain hidden forever.”
“Then let’s protect her as best we can so when the time comes she can fulfill her destiny,” Aine said, a chant beginning low in her throat as a glow danced over her skin.
“Let’s just hope it’s enough,” Gaea said, joining her voice to her daughter’s as they worked their protective magic on the unsuspecting pair.
**** CH 2
Holly Reed paced the hospital corridor outside room 532, uncertain if she wanted to enter and accept the consequences. On the other side of the door lay the grandmother she’d never met, apparently in the last losing days of her battle with lung cancer.
An orderly rushed by pushing an empty wheelchair, giving her a quizzical look. Across the hall at the nurse’s station, their eyes followed her back and forth.
“Can I help you with something?” one of the nurses asked, her voice suspicious.
“No,” Holly said, “I’m fine,” She’d have to decide now. Either leave and spend the rest of her life wondering, or go in and find out why her grandmother had waited until she was on her deathbed to make her only granddaughter’s acquaintance.
*****************
So there you have it. You're dying to know what happens next, right? Because you were sucked right into the story. Okay, so I hope you were anyway. Now, if you can tear yourself away, go check out the rest of the entries!
14 comments:
Think this is interesting. Chapter 2 sort of confuses me how it starts. I think because you start off Holly as a baby and then chapter two she's how old? She's obviously old enough to be waling around in a hospital. But very interesting and yes I would read more.
I like this. Fate, destiny, birthmarks. Sounds good to me.
HMG
I really enjoyed reading this, there is something magical about it. And of course, great name for the Redeemer ;)
Great opening. I'm with Roza.I think chapter 1 should be a prologue. It might help readers to understand better.
I like the first chapter, which establishes things very well, but it does feel like you're having a double bite at a prologue, rather than settling into the main piece.
Thanks, you guys. I suspected chapter one should be a prologue, but since prologues are the kiss of death I wanted to avoid it. However, if it works better that way, then I'll just have to bite the bullet and call it a prologue!
There's a lot of information in that first chapter, and no really obvious POV character through whose eyes we're seeing things. It's intriguing, but do we really need it? I thought the opening of chapter 2 was actually more engaging.
If there's any way you can weave the info from chapter one in elsewhere in the book, I'd lose that first section and start where the story starts, in chapter 2.
It's very quick with a lot of words that mean something specific in your story (Redeemer, fairies, Fate), so I'm a bit lost from the get-go. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it opens up space for story. It also feels familiar. Isn't there a fairy tale that opens similarly? Maybe they're angels giving gifts in that one. Not sure.
Okay. Enough rambling. Too many names/characters in the first chapter muddy up the story. Maybe use 'three sisters' instead of naming each one.
Hope this helps. Keep writing!
Marie, http://marierearden.blogspot.com
I really liked the first chapter, but when combined with chapter two, it read more like a prologue in disguise.
I like fae stories and I would keep reading.
Thanks for posting, Natasha Hanova
I'm hooked.
BTW, I have an award for you over at my blog. http://caenus.blogspot.com/2011/03/woo-hoo-two-awards.html Scroll down to the strawberries. ;-)
~Cheers
Very interesting. I struggled a little in chapter 1 with who is who and all the terms. I understand that you want to set up Holly's importance--but I think you should consider losing the prologue. I would be much more eager to read if the ms just started with Chapter 2 and the information in Chapter 1 was revealed more slowly to build tension around who Holly is.
Excellent start. I would certainly keep reading.
I really enjoyed this - totally hooked :)
Lady A
You know I love this! If you want to avoid the word Prologue how about adding "xy years later" under the Chapter 2 heading?
I'm torn with this one. I love the first chapter, but I also agree with what Heidi said.
It would be interesting to see how you could weave that information in somewhere else, so the reader can find out about it over the course of the story, instead of all at once right at the beginning.
But, like I said--I'm very torn here. I loved that chapter. It sets a good mood and is very well written.
Great work so far! Thanks for sharing :)
Post a Comment