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Blogs by Sunny Serafino
Sunny Says 9/6/2008 2:09:33 PM
I am a big advocate of writers entering contests. Last year while I was writing my latest novel(Second Chances) I submitted the first chapter for a First Chapter contest. While I didn't win I did get some really good feedback from the judges. Here is one of the opinions. POINT SYSTEM:
5 = Excellent
4 = Very Good
3 = Promising
2 = So-So
1 = Start Over
SYNOPSIS: (5) You tell just enough of the story to whet our appetite; yet you manage not to give the whole thing away.
TITLE: (5) The title, while not tremendously exciting, fits the story well. Patty, her father, and Kate will all have second chances if all goes well.
OPENING: (5) This is a great opening. It makes us wonder about Patty, her daughter and her mother, and we want to know more. I cannot help but think though that this opening is more of a prologue to take us into the first chapter. If so, the opening after the break is also excellent.
VOICE: (4) The voice is conversational and easy to read. The first person viewpoint works well in this story. You use Patty’s thoughts to tell the story and still manage to put in enough dialogue and action to make the story interesting and exciting in a quiet way.
PROSE: (3) There are too many dots and dashes. However, your sentence structure, minus the ones that have dashes, is good. Grammar and punctuation are good.
CHARACTERIZATION: (4) I like the way you introduce Patty in the prologue, however I would like to know some of her physical attributes. You could make comparisons between her and her mother, or her father, or even Lili-Kay. As the story stands now, we do not know what anyone looks like, though we do know what they think and how they act.
DIALOGUE: (4) The dialogue is good. You capture the speech of a child well, and the conversations between Patty and her father are very real.
SETTING: (5) Setting descriptions are excellent. I especially like your descriptions of the graveside, the inside of the old family home and her mother’s chair. You manage to describe without narrating excessively, mostly from Patty’s viewpoint.
CONFLICT: (4) The conflicts are just starting to show up at the end of the chapter. From the synopsis, I can see that Patty will have to solve many problems.
PACE: (4) The story moves well. It is interesting to read.
ENDING: (5) I like the ending. It poses questions that will lead to the conflicts in the following chapters.
This book sounds like it will fit into the romance genre very nicely.
Audrey Danielson
