Optimize Your Opener

Okay, I'm tired of seeing long-time published authors do everything in the book that debut authors would never get away with.

Currently reading Carla Neggars' book "Cold River" for research. The opening is nearly all backstory. In 8 pages I put the book down 6 times. Irritated is an understatement.

So, authors, get your manuscripts out. I'm feeling generous. You deserve to be helped and get published!

Post your FIRST 2 PARAGRAPHS of your FIRST CHAPTER here, and I'll give you my undeniably devilish feedback.

Please, no prologues. First chapters only. I'll review as many folks as I can. Your participation in comments is welcomed, too. Game on!

15 comments:

  1. Cool idea, thanks!

    HOUND IN BLOOD AND BLACK
    genre: dystopian fiction


    Last tank of gas, Kumari thought as the engine spit out a black cloud before picking up speed. It meant one thing: last chance to make a catch. Last chance to eat, drink. Last chance to stay alive.

    “Harder!” Kumari screamed over the howl of the battered engine. Bastion punched the gas pedal, dust and pebbles spraying the old army Jeep in a peppered graffiti. Bits of dirt clawed her cheeks and scratched the surface of her shades. She adjusted the bandana across the lower half of her face. The air was murky, but she saw her prey’s outline through the haze.

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  2. “Power isn’t getting the President to return your phone calls.” The old man croaked. “Power is telling your secretary to get a number and you’ll call back later-if it’s convenient.” He stopped long enough to choke up a foul-looking slime. The nurse sitting at his bedside, wiped his mouth and chin carefully. “Power is knowing you can do that because he needs you more than you need him.”
    I regarded the old man at length. Wizened and beset with ailments, he was a study in modern life—extending medicine. Fluids from plastic sacks inverted on chrome plated stands, and gases from heavy green oxygen tanks stationed nearby, dispensed sustenance to the decaying body via a tangle of tubes. Tubes also drained bilious fluids into other bio-hazard receptacles. A tangle of wires stretched from a bank of gizmos to key points on his body. Each had a computer screen with multiple tiles reporting a different vital sign. Collectively, they mindlessly monitored their patient for any hint that something might be awry. Medicaments were machine-pumped automatically, and with great precision, through flaccid skin marked with great purple splotches: Dark, ugly bruises that would not heal; would not have time to heal.

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  3. The Summoner of Seven Falls
    genre: YA Paranormal

    No one in the lecture hall noticed the crack near the bottom of the glass tube containing the virus culture. The middle-aged and slightly gray bespeckled professor stood behind the podium giving the day’s lecture in a loud and animated voice of a scholar excited about his field of study. Occasionally Professor Stone would step away from the podium during his lecture to stand behind the table upon which the rack of culture tubes sat. As if divining magic through the air, the professor would gesticulate wildly above the tubes while describing the concept of cytopathic effect through which viruses eventually destroy tissue. In this case, the tissue was primary monkey kidney, and the destroyer a Coxsackie virus.

    In an attempt to emphasize an important point, Professor Stone banged his fist down upon the table. The impact caused the tubes to leap slightly, and the cracked tube faltered under the stress of the downward landing. Instantly, fluid welled up against the inside of the crack. A second pound on the table then forced the fluid across the crack’s opening, and a drop of culture media began to pool on the outside of the crack. Finally, as the Great Orator’s voice died down he began walking back to reclaim his spot at the podium. However, along the way his foot caught on a leg of the table and he tripped, slightly jerking the table a few inches and all that sat on top. Now propelled by a sudden new force, the drop succumbed to gravity and began to fall down the tube onto the table. At that point, the drop’s final journey sealed the fate of everyone in the room.

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  4. The shriek that exploded from the little girl’s lungs was one most parents would describe as ‘loud enough to wake the dead’. It didn’t work this time. The screeching jolted her mother out of a seat on the park bench nearby. Bundled up against the cold in clunky winter boots and a bulky down coat, she whirled around like a Michelin Man ballerina, her eyes searching the park for her daughter.

    “Ashley?” The woman’s head snapped toward the river, unsure where the sound had come from. No answer, just more screaming from that direction. Adrenaline surged through her body as she sprinted for the riverbank as fast as her cumbersome clothing would allow. “Please God, don’t let my baby drown,” she prayed in a frantic whisper.
    ####

    Thanks for the opportunity.

    ChiTrader

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  5. This is a kind offer. Thank you, Ms. Fairchild!
    Dorathea Maynard


    MAKANI'S SERENITY
    genre: YA Sci-Fi Coming-of-Age

    The price was too high. Makani didn’t have enough money to get everything Grant had asked for, but they needed the supplies. Which left her with only one choice.

    She darted between the aisles of the large, brightly lit department store, arms almost full, trying to keep her black shoes from squeaking and still get the things on her list quickly. The sun would be on its way down before long, and that meant trouble.

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  6. The shriek that exploded from the little girl’s lungs was one often classified by parents as ‘loud enough to wake the dead’. It didn’t work this time. The screeching jolted her mother out of her seat on the park bench nearby. She whirled around like a Michelin Man ballerina, eyes searching the park for her daughter.

    “Ashley!” The woman’s head snapped toward the river, unsure where the sound had come from. No answer, just more screaming from that direction. Adrenaline flushed through her as she sprinted for the riverbank as fast as winter boots and a bulky down jacket would allow. “Please God, don’t let my baby drown,” she prayed in a frantic whisper.
    ####

    Thanks for allowing us to post and get some feedback.

    ChiTrader

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  7. Trade Deficit, Annette Drake
    (2 paragraphs and a sentence, hope that's OK)

    My sister was a girl in pigtails when she first killed a man.

    When father left us, he took what pride mama had with him. She took in dirty laundry, but it was never enough. Then there was the money Mr. Meany gave us, but that didn’t last. I was the man of the house, so I tried to get paying work, but I was too young. Mama would fret about “how to feed her brood.” One day, we moved in with a Mr. Thomas Cook. He lived in a dirty hovel one hour north by buggy, in the Melbourne Woods. His house had dirt for floors, but mama would sweep them with vigor twice a day, at least in the beginning she did. He was a trapper—beaver pelts—and they would pile up in the cabin, leaving a musty smell. We would wrap them around ourselves during the night, until we all smelled like them—dirt encased between our toes, and dank sweat under our shirts. We stopped bathing. Mama was going to teach us our letters, but that didn’t happen either.

    When Mama’s younger sister came to town—“Just visiting” she said, she brought my cousin Ned with her. Ned was older than I, but quiet and timid. We would spend our days in the forest, skipping stones and whittling pine into figurines. He promised to teach me chess, and he scraped letters into the dirt: C A T. Do you see? He would say, in his soft voice. My Aunt never left, instead she moved into the back bedroom with Mr. Cook, and Mama moved out. She slept in the kitchen on a too-small cot with Annabelle.

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  8. Thanks, Christine. I am struggling with revision, and would appreciate your feedback. So much to learn!

    The Labyrinth

    Maggie Duncan searched through her mind for survival skills. She gripped the sink’s edge and leaned into the counter of her country kitchen. Sunbeams through the window landed on the stacked soiled dishes. Unwashed laundry overflowed the wicker hamper in the open laundry area. She stared, unfocused, through tears at the soft hills and fruit trees of the acreage. Maggie let go of the counter and paced, arms wrapped around her abdomen. The first time she failed to comfort her squalling newborn son, the words “bad mother” tumbled from the rooftops of her mind. Stomach burning self-accusations——no patience, anger, self-pity——repeated, like stuck recordings.

    She rose out of the rocking chair and wandered, still clutching her middle, through the connecting rooms of the old-fashioned farmhouse. She imagined the muscled arms of her husband wrapped around her, stroking and kneading her back as he whispered, ‘Maggie, my wonderful Maggie...’ before skimming his lips down her neck to capture her mouth. She shook off the dream. When she tried to tell him how she felt, he glanced at her for about as long as a TV commercial, before backing away and continuing the priorities on his agenda, the newspaper, TV, yard work.

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  9. Thanks for any help!

    Chapter 1

    My thighs were two pillars of trembling ice. I smelled rain coming. The padding of my footsteps echoed into the black. I was thankful for my hood's ring of fur caressing my face, glad the wind would not touch my already painful ears. Quickening my pace, I glanced backwards. I felt someone there. The asphalt glistened under the street lamps. My nose began to tingle. I tried to avoid the mud and the puddles lining the side of the road. The soft drip of rain began, splattering in the small dirty pools. I almost slipped on gravel that covered the edges of the blacktop.

    Ahead of me, the lights disappeared. A steep slope loomed. The unknown waited, taunting me. My padding footsteps stopped. I shook my head. The combination of starvation and adrenaline made me crazy. Gloves were a luxury I neglected to indulge in my haste. My left hand found a coat pocket. It felt the metal of a necklace, then it found a pocketknife. I pressed my thumb into its blade.

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  10. "A Troll Wife's Tale"
    genre: Urban Fantasy

    I took stock of my injuries. I hadn't even been on the job a month and I had 14 bruises, a concussion, multiple cuts and abrasions, a broken bone, and now, a gunshot wound. Being a Tooth Fairy shouldn't be this hard.

    It wasn't like I always wanted to be a Tooth Fairy. In fact, if I hadn't seen that poster, I probably would have lived my entire life without that thought ever crossing my mind. But sometimes Fate is like that. You're walking down the street in the early evening and you see something that changes your life.

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  11. Hi, Christine. Would love your feedback. Here are the first 2 paragraphs from 3 Damn Days, a suspense with romantic elements. I've been editing like mad to remove back story and get the story rolling sooner.

    3 Damn Days
    The afternoon traffic echoed down from the viaduct overhead on the busy Seattle waterfront. The cool breeze off Elliott Bay smelled of creosote from the piers and rain drying on the sidewalk. Emma shielded her eyes from the bright gray overcast and tried not to look at the homeless man sitting on the corner in a wet sleeping bag. The timing could not have been better. Her savings was scarily low and the want ads had become her only reading material. But this morning, her luck had changed. Her specialty courier business had its first client. She wouldn’t have to lay claim to a street corner this month.

    Before her stood a mustard-colored bar with no windows, just as her caller had described. Her mother’s warning rang in her head: “Don’t get mixed up with bad people asking you to deliver their drugs, or, good God, someone’s ear!” Emma stuffed the address into her trench coat pocket and tightened the belt. She was curious to meet her client who’d said little on the phone other than to state that it was a person rather than a package that needed delivering, her father, an elderly man who needed a professional and competent driver to get him to his new address. After clarifying that her client's father would not require a straight jacket, Emma had agreed and happily so. The woman had offered to pay three times Emma’s rate.

    Thanks!

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  12. Oops, sorry to have posted twice. Had trouble with the posting process here. Not familiar with how this website works.

    ChiTrader

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  13. Thank you, so much! This is very helpful!

    Petals
    YA Romance Novel

    Chapter 1
    Beauty

    She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies and all that’s best of dark
    and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes. -Lord Byron



    “Okay, we’re almost there,” Dad said pulling the headphones off my head. For a moment I heard a
    strange mixture of my audio book and Bach’s Cello Suite Number One, that Dad was listening to on the classical station. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, realizing by the crick in my neck that I had been asleep for awhile.
    “Almost where?” I raised an eyebrow, remembering how excited Dad had been the last time we
    crossed a state border. I wasn’t going to give into another false alarm.
    “Almost to the Davenport’s house.”
    “Really?” I sat up even straighter and looked out the windows. Houses and cars whizzed by us on
    both sides. Had all our miles and miles of travel almost come to an end? I felt a burst of eagerness fill my
    stomach up completely, making me a little car sick.

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  14. Thanks for the fantastic offer!

    Between by Cyndi Tefft (romance fantasy)

    Ravi’s lips were soft and familiar against mine, but my mind was elsewhere, obsessing about my upcoming finals. “Lindsey, you are so beautiful,” he said, pressing me tighter against the seat of the car. His mouth trailed over my jaw to my neck, his breath warm in my ear.

    “I love you”, he whispered.

    That snapped me back to reality.

    Damn. I liked Ravi, I really did, but not as much as he liked me. The kissing was nice, but I just didn’t feel IT, the connection, the zing. The L word? Damn, damn, damn! I had to say something but I didn’t want to lose him as a friend. Truthfully, he was my best friend. He’d helped me study for my French exam, even though he couldn’t speak a word of the language. When I’d told him about my parents’ divorce, he’d held me while I cried. He made up silly songs on the piano just to make me laugh. I did love him, in a way. Just not that way.

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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