Monday, April 18, 2011

Submission Lori

Name: Lori M. Lee
Email: leemai82 at gmail dot com
Title and genre: SOUL WITHOUT A BOY - YA urban fantasy

Pitch: In a world where souls can be used as weapons, a 17-year-old boy accidentally creates a girl and learns that standing out can be deadly.

1st 250 words:

On his thirteenth lap around the block, London Howell ripped off the advertisement stapled to his neighbor's fence. There were only so many times he could read about City of London tourism before he got irrationally annoyed.

Dad used to say that naming him after the city they lived in had been a spur of the moment thing. To London, that meant Dad had looked around the hospital room, spotted a similar sign and thought, Sure, why not? He tried not to criticize. It could have been worse. He could be named Liverpool.

Anyway, he would have taken a dozen dumb jokes about the Tower of London over sprinting through his neighborhood at midnight.

He stopped to catch his breath beneath a lamppost, his hand braced against the cool iron. Groaning, he stretched out the cramp in his side. His mobile vibrated in his back pocket and, with a glance at the screen, he picked up.

"You sound like a goat on the rack," Amun said in greeting.

"How," London asked between breaths, "do you know what a tortured goat sounds like?" He shook out his legs, but it didn't help. Even running for two miles hadn't burned off the excess energy. Great. He considered just rolling into a ditch and staying there.

"Animal Sacrifices Hour. Wednesday nights at eight. Bring your own blood bucket."

"Brilliant mental image. Thanks."

"Did running work?"

"No." He didn't know what else to do. Insomnia alone he could probably endure.

6 comments:

  1. Cough cough You're so awesome, Amun's a rockstar, I have nothing more to add cough cough.

    Totally doesn't count as one of my Official Comments, just needed to be said.

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  2. Loving your opening page. It's got voice and it delves into character backstory without sounding like an info dump. I'm already getting to know London and Amun and that makes me what to find out more about them.

    On your pitch, the thing that threw me off was that the three thoughts didn't seem to be connected. I understand what each of them means, and they're all intriguing concepts (souls used as a weapon, creating a girl - epic stuff), but strung together in a single sentence, they don't feel associated to me.

    Great job ^_^

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  3. I think the "Animal Sacrifices Hour" line is my favorite line out of all the entries.

    And your opening definitely makes me want to read more because:
    1) I like the voice.
    2) I want to know why he's running around at midnight.
    3) I want to go anywhere Amun goes.

    Good luck!

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  4. I like the voice of your MC but for your opening I wish you had stayed more with your character and what was going on with him running rather than go into back story about his name...which could come later if necessary. I think your pitch sounds very intriguing.

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  5. I like your voice and I want to keep reading.

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  6. Intriguing! I want to read on. The short pitch is really great. :)

    Nice work.

    ReplyDelete