Only Chapter One

Thank you for your submission and the shiny gps.

Review of "Up North - chapter one"

Hope you find this review useful.


Hello, J. Lynn Lindsay!

Thank you for requesting a review from "Only Chapter One " 

Before I start, do not forget,
writing's an art, so do not fret
if you should find that I am blind
to your fine flair, and be aware
this opinion — it is but one.

When approaching your opening chapter, I'm searching for specific elements that separate the chaff from the wheat, and each will be addressed under a different header.


Hook — does your opening have something that stops this reader putting down your book?


Your opening paragraphs need to rapidly introduce the protagonist and hint at some conflict or problem to overcome. Unfortunately, your opening paragraphs provide a potted history lesson. While this brief history lesson might educate kids, if you're aiming at children then beginning with an historical analysis will NOT hook them at all.

Your story begins when Bruce is introduced. I get that you want the reader to understand this is set in the sixties, but this can be achieved much more succinctly and without a huge info dump of history. For example:

Bruce was nine-years-old in a day when grown-ups still thought it was important for kids to be sheltered from such things as the recent assassination of the President and the ongoing war in Vietnam. -> this provides all the historical information necessary for the young reader to know what time this story is set. More interesting information can be provided by describing the objects around Bruce as the story develops, especially items that are unusual or unseen today, like any fashion details about his mom's hair and dress or the dolls his sister's play with etc. Maybe mention some TV show they all like that sounds super old now etc.

Characters — are they well rounded?


I like Bruce's interaction with all the sisters. Poor Bruce. I can understand his suffering. You do a good job of bringing in his age and interests. That's all great. Maybe a little something about his physical appearance and, maybe most important, something distinctive about his appearance that will help readers to visualize him. You know, his Harry Potter scar or Katniss' braids.

Plot — is it driving the story?


It's good that you get in the information about his trip to the lakeside house and how excited he is about it. However, it would be better if there were some conflict about his journey.

Think about this. When a journey to a new place begins a children's story, there's usually some conflict. Harry Potter wants to go to magic school, but his parents won't let him go. Lucy has found the entrance to Narnia, but her siblings don't believe her and Edmond lies. Katniss doesn't want to go to the Capital to die, but if she doesn't then her sister will go. If he didn't want to go, and has to be bribed by being allowed to take along his dad's special knife, then this would be more interesting.

The ending of your chapter is rather anticlimactic in the sense that Bruce has fallen asleep. When you end the chapter with the protagonist falling asleep, you're subconsciously communicating that what comes next isn't interesting…you can sleep through it. Some kind of cliffhanger, such as uncertainty over whether he will be allowed to go to his grandparent's place, or maybe one of his sisters decides she wants to come along too, and he's left worried that he'll have to put up with his sister all the way to his grandparents' house. Think about what kinds of conflict you can bring to your story and how they could be arranged so that they made the chapter ending a cliffhanger with a serious problem to be resolved, like looking for the Golden Ticket in a Willy Wonka chocolate bar, and leaving the reader on the edge of the seat at the end of the chapter wondering if there's gonna be a ticket inside the chocolate bar when Charlie takes off the wrapper.

Pace — does your story feel like it's going somewhere?


The pace is good.

Language and voice — does this reader 'feel' the story? Are your characters' voices distinct?


Your narrative is easy to understand and provides everything necessary to follow the story. It would benefit from being a little more active in tone.

Notes

News from Viet Nam was growing more alarming each day, and this “Cold War” thing with Russia, atomic bombs, and missiles in Cuba were frightening! -> where possible, try to make your narrative more active in tone. That means avoiding weak verbs like 'was/were' where possible and maybe using stronger verbs in their place. Use standard versions of names, such as Vietnam, unless your variant conveys additional information, such as using 'Peking' rather than 'Beijing' if you wish to imply the story was set at a time when most Americans said Peking. Taking your sentence: News from Vietnam grew more alarming by the day, and the Cold War with Russia, atomic bombs, and missiles in Cuba, terrified people.

Bruce was nine years old in a day when grown-ups still thought it was important for kids to be sheltered from such things. -> nine-years-old

“The car ride up north sure will be peaceful,” mom said as she ruffled -> capitalize Mom here because you're using it as a proper noun. If you use it as a common noun, such as 'his mom said' then it would not be capitalized.

There would be no whining and complaining to mom that, -> capitalize Mom

The bus will be better. -> did you mean: The bus would be better. ?

which struck him funny because that was exactly why he loved to play it with them. -> Missing 'as'? 'struck him as funny'

along with every other nine-year old boy: nobody -> nine-year-old boy

He is guaranteed to lose every time. -> pick a tense and stick with it. Yes, I understand that you're stating a 'fact' or 'rule' that applies now as well as in the time this story is set, so grammatically this is correct, but in order to keep a narrative smooth for the reader, it's usually better to maintain past tense throughout (or present tense if that's your bag) unless you're flashing back to a prior event within your story's timeline, where a different tense would clarify this.

Then each one received an allotted 10 minutes “talking turn” alone with mom -> when writing prose, most of the time it's better to write out numbers rather than using numerals. It's a style choice, so there are exceptions. For example, in her YA dystopian thriller Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi's protagonist was obsessed with counting the number of things, so she almost always used numerals in the narrative even for small numbers. Other exceptions are in names, telephone numbers, and serial numbers, eg. C3P0. So, his Umco 103 fishing tackle box is fine as it is written with numerals. Mom, again, should be capitalized.

A few moments later mom peeked into his room, finding him sound asleep, she tucked in his blankets, kissed him on the cheek and whispered. -> comma, not period, at the end after whispered, and attach it directly to the dialogue it relates to. -> after the intro, the whole chapter is told from Bruce's viewpoint. However, in these final sentences, you suddenly change the viewpoint to Mom's… a) when you change viewpoint, you should really, really begin a new paragraph, especially when that sentence introduces something the new character said in dialogue, and b) it's not really a great idea from a stylistic view to change viewpoint for just a few sentences at the end of a chapter.

Settings — is this reader grounded in 'real' scenes?


You give us a lot of historical setting and also lots of setting relating to where Bruce is headed. However, you give us very little to visualize where he is now. Do they live in a city? In an apartment? Or are they in a farmhouse like the Waltons? This is historical, so show your modern reader what things SMELL and TASTE like in the past. Maybe have Mom make something for them to eat that was common in the sixties but kids never get these days. For me, that might be bread and dripping (common in my childhood, not seen often today), but you need something distinctive to wherever this story begins. Show your modern reader how this tastes and smells to provide them with contrast to their own experiences.

Conclusion — a summary of how this reader personally felt about your chapter.


If you lose the first two paragraphs and add a little more nostalgia to the core, this will be a strong opening. However, it would be really strong if there was some kind of conflict attached to the journey rather than everything being roses about the journey ahead.

Thank you for sharing your chapter. Good luck with your writing.

Best wishes,

Bob


This was a review from "Cross Timbers Novel Workshop On Hiatis"