Monday, April 18, 2011

Submission Jordan

Name: Jordan Elizabeth Mierek

Email: SignedJori@gmail.com

Title and genre: TABITHA'S DEATH -- YA Dark Fantasy

Pitch: Tabitha slits her wrists to leave her painful life. Instead, she is sucked into a world where she must obey the Gray Man in order to die.

1st 250 words: Somewhere in the hallway, that stupid clock ticked away, counting down the minutes to my death. Tick-tock, tick-tock, you’re gonna die. I clenched my jaw, staring at my palm where I wanted to see a razorblade to end it all. Do it.

No, I didn’t have a razorblade. I could neither cut nor die.

Worthless.

I headed to Scott’s house to ask how he does it.

I was glad it was the weekend, when his parents go out to barbecues with ritzy friends, a mess of designer clothes. After Dad left, I’d begged Mom to move, yet she insisted on staying in the “good” neighborhood where it was safe, regardless of what the neighbors thought of us “trailer trash.”
I knocked about a hundred times on Scott’s back door before he finally answered with a joint in one hand and a can of beer in the other. Hardcore rock music blared from the depths of his house.

“Hey,” he said in that nasally voice that grates on my nerves. I tried to concentrate only on Scott. It was the last time I was going to see him, so it had to count.

“What’s up, Tab?”

I could’ve answered with many different responses. I could’ve said I was fine or the sky was up. I could’ve said I’d been better, the understatement of the century. Maybe he wanted to hear about what happened last night, and then he would have said it was typical boy behavior.

3 comments:

  1. Hi. I definitely get the sense of her readiness to die in these opening words, and that her decision is made. I would like to get a sense of setting at first (in the hallway at school? home? her job?) and a tiny description of her so I can picture this person in pain. I know that only so much can be packed into the first page and assume this follows. Good start!

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  2. I agree with the previous comment. The other hard thing that I want to see in the pitch is WHY she wants to die. And that should probably come right away, too, unless it's a big reveal later on. It just helps give it more creditability, because I want to see her reasons. And things she mentions right now, I'm just like: that's not really enough. I want to see more pain.

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