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If I were an agent, I'd stop reading...... now.

StaceyM

first registered 29.06.10

last online 8 hours ago

@Stopper
The Perilous Adventures of an Unfulfilled Full Stop
Literary Fiction
Short Pitch:A highly original satirical take on the modern world using the way language works to showcase the patent absurdity of the free marketeers
Link:http://www.authonomy.com/books/35659/the-perilous-adventures-of-an-unfulfilled-full-stop/

Thanks for your submission, but this faux agent would pass. The opening paragraph starts off well, but there are a few too many "and then", "and then"s for me. Then, when it jumped to the audience applauding, that threw me. And, reading over it, you say that Zero and Stopper were sitting at a table with other characters, but the other characters never talk or interact - they've been forgotten. The idea is good, but I just couldn't get into the tale with this start.

Pleae bear in mind that this is just my personal opinion and you should feel free to completely ignore it.
Best wishes, Stacey 30s/F/UK


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:05:57

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Eric Laing

retired user

Title: Scissors & Tweed
Genre: YA
Short Pitch: Seventeen year old “Tweed” is the ultimate slacker. Summer’s begun and he’s got no plans…but even no plans can go wrong….
Link: Scissors & Tweed
Thread Page #: 2

Chapter One

There’s this girl I’ve never really met that I know everything in the world about. Well, most everything. Not the big stuff, I guess. Like what she prayed about when she would cry at her bedside or whether she really believed those prayers might get answered. And I never knew all of the reasons for the crazy things she did. But hey, who really does? I did know other stuff though. The real freaky-deaky shit. Like how she would crack open her father’s disposable razors with a pair of pliers she kept stashed behind her dresser and go to town on herself. Sometimes I think she left her window blinds open that way just so somebody, anybody, me--a guy she’d never really met--would know. Not that she was some kind of attention whore. Just about everybody is some kind of attention whore. Not Scissors, though. And I could testify in court to that since I’m some kind of authority on the girl.

Yeah, I’m pretty much the only person who even knew for the longest time, so I’m pretty certain it wasn’t for attention. And Scissors wasn’t her real name. I didn’t even know her real name for the longest. That doesn’t matter though. Like somebody once said, what’s in a name? Okay, it was Shakespeare. So we all did tenth grade. Big whoop. But he made a good point that time. I mean, ninety-nine point nine of all the people in the world go by whatever name they were given when they were born. And ninety-nine point nine of them had that name picked out while their mother was still smuggling a watermelon. So how’s that work? What’s the chance that anybody’s given name has any hope of really pegging them? Who they really are. None, I’d say. No, the spot-on names, the best names, the names that get it right and truly say something about a person, those are the names that come to them over time, from experience, for a reason.

So I called her Scissors. I could have gone with Razor I guess, but that didn’t really fit. She was too pretty to be a Razor. Sounded too harsh. And besides, I already knew this dumbass who wanted everybody to call him Razor. Except, he spelled it wrong, with an E. So it was Razer. Told you he was a dumbass.

So I knew this girl. Probably--no, not probably…definitely--better than even her own family. And so what if a lot of it was because I watched her through her window? I’m no perv. At least, no more than the next guy. My name’s Tweed. You’ve seen it around, no doubt.


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:10:04

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StaceyM

first registered 29.06.10

last online 8 hours ago

@Eric
Title: Seep
Genre: Horror
Short Pitch: Inexplicable psychosis consumes a town of isolationists, carving out a body-littered, blood-splattered journey into madness. Seep, a gruesome reminder of the fatal nature of life.
Link: Seep
Thread Page #: 2

Thanks for your submission. This faux agent is interested in the story. I'm a little dissatisfied with the ending of the third paragraph, but I can't for the life of me work out why. I'll think it over once I've had more than 2 hours sleep.

Pleae bear in mind that this is just my personal opinion and you should feel free to completely ignore it.
Best wishes, Stacey 30s/F/UK





Posted: 20/08/2011 16:13:48

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StaceyM

first registered 29.06.10

last online 8 hours ago

@Eric
Title: Scissors & Tweed
Genre: YA
Short Pitch: Seventeen year old “Tweed” is the ultimate slacker. Summer’s begun and he’s got no plans…but even no plans can go wrong….
Link: Scissors & Tweed
Thread Page #: 2

Thanks for your submission. This faux agent really likes this opener, introducing the topic of self-harm very neatly. I like the voice of your MC: instantly recognisable as a "yoof" with too much time on his hands. My only sticking point - you use "the longest time" and "the longest" in the first 3 sentences of your second paragraph and I stumbled over the repetition.

Pleae bear in mind that this is just my personal opinion and you should feel free to completely ignore it.
Best wishes, Stacey 30s/F/UK


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:18:02

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Eric Laing

retired user

@ Emma

Title: Unforgivable
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Short Pitch: WIP
Link: None
Thread Page #: 1

Nice opening. A clear voice with an intrguing bit of mystery...who is this gal really, and why's she on the lam as it would seem?

Requesting more.


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:18:17

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Eric Laing

retired user

@ Jack

Title: The Nymph's Heart
Genre: Paranormal-fantasy
Short Pitch: The Fountain of Youth is buried beneath downtown Miami. A team of archaeologists are about to find out why.
Link: http://www.authonomy.com/books/34153/the-nymph-s-heart/
Thread page: #1

Very good. And I am very glad to see you went back to the original line reagarding the step down into the dig to land back in 1926. Excellent!

More, if you please.


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:21:59

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StaceyM

first registered 29.06.10

last online 8 hours ago

@RAS
Genre Adventure/Thriller

Short Pitch - If something is hidden these men will find it. More importantly they'll bring it back.
Link - Not yet posted but will be soon.
Tower 34

Thanks for you submission but this faux agent passes. firstly, you didn't tell us the title of your book! Secondly, there was far to much banal description for me e.g. "Chen Wu fastened his waterproof jacket, removed two containers and a canvas bag from the boot. Carrying their load, both men made their way across a ploughed field to a wooden landing stage that jutted into the river Thames. "

The description does nothing for me - it makes the story plod along, rather than gripping me. Throughout, you use nautical terms like aft, stern, hull etc...but it's almost as if they're over-used? Does that make sense? Would someone really think "I'll drill this hole aft and then I'll move to the stern and then drill through the fibre-glass hull two inches further aft and attach rope strops"?

SO, I'm afraid it's a pass from me.
Pleae bear in mind that this is just my personal opinion and you should feel free to completely ignore it.
Best wishes, Stacey 30s/F/UK


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:24:57

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Rebecca Tester

first registered 18.07.11

last online 1 hour ago

@Eric

How the hell are you so awesome?

Seep is great. Captures the mood fabulously. Sounds like another evil-child-kills-everyone-story but you write it so purdy that I'd keep reading. Full MS on that puppy. Human death in horror trumps "blackness closed over his eyes" and "Entrails! Get your Entrails right here! Two fer the price a one!". Your old men are beautiful.

Tweed is authentic as adolescent male. Kudos on that. My only problem is that I'm terribly into adolescent males. I do, however, have experience both with characters named Tweed and with being an adolescent female who cut herself if you need research material and have any questions. Lemme know. That said, reads pretty but not my bag baby. Send it to Sheila.


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:25:09

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Emma Parker

retired user

@ Eric

Title: Seep
Genre: Horror
Short Pitch: Inexplicable psychosis consumes a town of isolationists, carving out a body-littered, blood-splattered journey into madness. Seep, a gruesome reminder of the fatal nature of life.
Link: Seep
Thread Page #: 2

Yes, please.


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:27:18

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Emma Parker

retired user

@ Jack

Title: The Nymph's Heart
Genre: Paranormal-fantasy
Short Pitch: The Fountain of Youth is buried beneath downtown Miami. A team of archaeologists are about to find out why.
Link: http://www.authonomy.com/books/34153/the-nymph-s-heart/
Thread page: #1

What Eric said.
Smile


Posted: 20/08/2011 16:30:40

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