First Page: m/m paranormal
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Morning of the Wedding, Midsummer’s Day
“Emma, this is not the time for hide and seek. Get your freaky butt out here now.”
I wince at the sharpness of my voice as it echoes off the greased stained hallway. The bridal party in the room down the hall pause for five horrifying seconds before the noisy commotion kicks up again.
The conservatively dressed man standing guard at the doorway shifts his expensive-clad feet and glares at me before muttering something unintelligible into his fancy-looking headset.
I wheeze in a breath but cough it right back out as cheap, musty incense tickles the back of my throat. Dammit to perfume hell and back again. I walk over to the cabinet and grab the offending incense stick.
I know he’s watching every single step I make. Probably counting my breaths too.
Lucky for me I stopped giving a fuck twenty-four hours ago after I received the phone call.
I snap the stick in half before stashing it down a wilting, potted fern plant.
“Sorry, fern.” I mutter, stuffing my hands inside my freshly pressed trouser pockets.
I stare at the dying plant, painfully aware of every harried breath I take. You’re walking the bride down the aisle in two hours. Get your shit together, Dylan. Now.
I crack my knuckles before patting my anxiety tablets at the back of my trouser pocket. Just one more day and I’ll be back home to the land of the ordinary and Catsby.
I straighten the lapels of my cheap tuxedo jacket before striding down the narrow hall, nodding and smiling as more of the bride’s party arrive. Once the party disappears from view, I wilt and slam my head back repeatedly against the wall. Marty will roast me alive and have me for kebabs for the wedding buffet because I, Dylan Williams, lost the only thing that mattered to my best friend in the entire world.
“Hey Dylan, is everything okay?”
I snap upright as Marty’s sleek, blonde head pops out from behind the B&B bedroom door. Her hair is pinned in some fancy knot that took like three fucking hours to do this morning. She’s beaming with excitement, her heart-shaped face all dewy and glowy. She’s the perfect picture of a bride-to-be. I ignore the slight wobble in her legs as she walks towards me, courtesy of the bottle of gin she was smacking down since 10:00am this morning.
My shoulders tense but I smile breezily at my best friend who in one hour is entering into a marriage that has nothing to do with love and everything to do with escaping bad memories. “Everything is peachy,” I say. “Emma is just a little excited. She’s in the loo.”
I am going to hell. And I’ll take the bottle of gin and my bird-killing cat with me.
Marty strolls up to me, looking like a fairy princess in her white, sparkly dress that seems to sparkle an awful lot for a wedding dress.
I cluck under my tongue as she takes off my crooked bow-tie. “You sure you want my ugly mug walking you down the aisle?”
“Shut it,” she says, clipping the bow-tie back on. “You’re prettier than me and we both know it. I can’t think of anyone better than to walk me down the aisle to a new, happier life. Very, very happy. Lots of happiness. Got me?”
I raise my eyebrows at her scowl. New? Maybe. Happier? Hah. “I suppose you’ve forgotten you have a brother who should be walking you down the aisle?”
The less said about the father, the better. I pause. Maybe the brother too.
You have some interesting ideas on this page, lots is going on and that’s good, however, a lot of it isn’t adding up for me.
Take your setting; there a grease-stained hallway, which is usually a sign of a grungy factory, not a bridal venue. B&B’s tend to have rugs. There’s incense in a cabinet in the hallway. Who puts incense in a cabinet in a B&B hallway? My bet is it’s an illegal fire hazard. There’s a guy in a suit with a headset (sounds like security to me) which is very unlikely in a run-down B&B. In short, I can’t picture your scene.
Emma is ran away, presumably, she’s a kid and a flower girl and the wedding is about to start, but neither Dylan nor Marty seems to care what’s up with Emma, negating the opening and your statement that Dylan has lost what Marty cares about the most, and will be roasted as a kebab. So, I’m not making a lot of sense of the content of this scene, either.
I hate present tense, it’s not natural.
A little more focus and this will be a great opening. If you aren’t great at describing stuff, just stick to run-down B&B, don’t stick in too many details.
I have no problem with present tense (and have no idea what’s ‘natural’ about any forms of written narrative).
Other than that, though, I agree with SAO’s post. There’s too much stuffed into this section, and all the extra is obscuring what’s essential.
Unlike SAO, I assumed Emma was an adult (I was thinking of ‘freaky’ in the sexual way, otherwise I wasn’t sure why the rest of the bridal party would be alarmed by the words), but on re-read, I think it’s clear that we’re both just trying to fill in SOMETHING to make the scene make sense. I temporarily thought maybe Emma was a bird, killed by the MC’s cat, but… no, that doesn’t fit. The reality is, you haven’t given us enough to know what’s going on, but HAVE given us a lot of other stuff that gets in the way.
In terms of the extra stuff – there’s some definite redundancy in your description (as well as the incongruity SAO mentioned). Like, “noisy commotion” could just be “noise” or “commotion”. The next paragraph is awkward with repetitive structures: “conservatively dressed” “expensiveLY-clad”, “fancy looking” all in one sentence? It was too much for me. And later, you seem to double-up on the “sparkly” description of the wedding dress.
A few other nitpicks – you’ve got some typos/weirdnesses to catch – I assume you meant “grease stained” (although I have no idea why the hallway would greasy), not “greased stained”. And is the wedding in one hour or two?
This could be a fun, breezy m/m romp, but right now it’s too muddled for me to really enjoy the situation. As a general rule, the more complicated the scene is, the more simple the writing should be. And this scene seems pretty complicated? So I’d suggest you simplify and clarify the writing.
I agree with most of what SAO said, and will add that a) I also hate present tense and would never buy/loan this as long as it is that tense and b) the too funny/sarky inner voice of the narrator already gets on my nerves within this one page. I doubt I’d want more of that even if it wasn’t in present tense.
However, the set-up sounds interesting. As a short or short novella, using past tense and given a slight toning down of the narrator I’d bite.
Thanks for sharing your first pages. I agree with most of what’s been said above. I’m also having a hard time picturing the scene. I suggest also looking at the start of most of the paragraphs: “I (verb)….”
I used to dislike present tense too, but I have read some books which were done really well, so it all depends on the writing to me now. I definitely would not stop reading based on present tense alone these days. I liked, I will continue reading.
I’m really not someone who universally hates first person present tense- I’ve read books where the author pulled it off and I loved it. But I have to tell you, I’m completely turned off by it here. To the point where I couldn’t read this scene, I skimmed. I think the problem for me is what Elle identified- all the sentences that start with I (verb): I wince, I wheeze, I snap, I stare, I crack, I straighten, I wilt, I cluck, I raise.
I’d suggest you go back through and make sure that the way your sentences start varies so the reader can’t see this pattern. Seeing this pulled me out of the story.
Good luck! Thank you for posting.
Present tense is used frequently in successful books, mostly self published, and I rarely read any reviews mentioning that the tense is a problem.
Add me to the confused pile. Since this is paranormal, I assumed Emma was something paranormal, a witch, spirit, ghost, magic wand? Or a bird, as Kate originally thought.
And I agree with Elle and Michelle Mills regarding the “I verb…” sentence beginnings. It reads then like an outline or a synopsis, or the first draft that needs a polish. All the action, or too much, is there, but the repetitive beginnings take me out of the story.
I’m not allergic to present tense, but it has to be done very well. It seems that if I notice it, then it grates. I noticed it here, and it did start to grate. And that’s where reconstructiing sentences would help, I think.
Thanks for sharing. I think I’d read on. I would like to find out who or what Emma is, and to read about the wedding ceremony at least, and meet the groom. And find out what the paranormal aspect is.
I like the energy. I like the distinctive details, though I agree with other commenters that I’m having a little trouble picturing the setting (maybe a few more clarifying details?) I like the characters and their interactions. I’m assuming this is an early draft. The writing needs some smoothing and reshaping. If this were in past tense, I’d probably keep reading.
I hate present tense. It makes me continuously aware of your craft and the fact I’m reading a story. It feels like a gimmick and I don’t like gimmicks. I want to feel drawn into your story to the point that I forget I’m only reading. I want you to convince me that nothing else matters to you but telling this wonderful story in the most unobtrusive fashion possible.
Present tense feels like an intrusion. Just like the gimmicks of no commas or no quotation marks, it distracts. I know some readers like present tense, though, and you should certainly write with any gimmicks you like. I just won’t be your reader. However I do think you have an interesting start and a fun eye for detail and dialogue. Good luck with your work.
The reason I find present tense unnatural is that simple present is used for repeated or general statements. “I drive to school” means that’s how I get to school, not that I am in my car, now, on Sunday night, driving to school. (Note the “am driving” construction used for a specific event in progress now).
Present tense can’t refer to specific completed actions, because if you are in the process, you haven’t completed the action.
I think people who find present tense annoying find it annoying because they sense that it is being used to convey a meaning that is not in line with the way people use it in speech and writing.
At times, I find it slow to dive into the action in a book, since I’m reading the present tense as general statements, backstory, not the beginning of events happening in the book.
o, when it’s used to in place of past tense, it can be distancing if you take the statement to be part of an info dump about how the character usually gets to school, rather than a specific event. drives to school
I read the page twice, and both times you lost me at:
“I crack my knuckles before patting my anxiety tablets at the back of my trouser pocket. Just one more day and I’ll be back home to the land of the ordinary and Catsby.”
There’s just so much to figure out: Who is Emma? What’s the security guard guarding? Is the narrator male or female? Why is there incense? What happened 24 hours ago? Does he have asthma? – and Catsby is just one step too far. I don’t get the reference, and I’m confused, and nothing that’s happened yet makes me want to read on.
If I was browsing, I’d absolutely stop there.
And contrariwise, I like the second part of the page. If your page started at: “I straighten the lapels of my cheap tuxedo jacket…” I’d be interested. I can understand the interaction between Dylan and Marty, and there’s enough to hook me into the story – I want to know where Emma is, and which bird in particular the cat has killed.
My reservation about that half of the page is over the line: “My shoulders tense but I smile breezily at my best friend who in one hour is entering into a marriage that has nothing to do with love and everything to do with escaping bad memories.”
You create an interesting situation for the reader – why is this woman who is beaming with excitement downing gin?
And then rather than stringing the reader along, so they read on, you just answer the question. (And I think that then weakens the line: “Lots of happiness. Got me?” because the reader doesn’t get to work out for themselves that ‘the lady protests too much’.)
And “I pause. Maybe the brother too.” reads as a bit hackneyed to me. It reads as romance-novel code for ‘Love-interest alert!’ (If I’m wrong, and he’s not the love interest, I like it, because I like being wrong-footed sometimes.)
In summary – I like the last half of the page – I think it could be fine-tuned, but it engages me. I like your voice there, I would read on. But IRL, I wouldn’t make it through the first half of the page.
Good luck.
I think you have something interesting here, but I agree with most of the commenters – there’s a little too much going on and it needs to be tightened.
I’m confused about the setting – the use of loo makes me think Britain or Australia, but everything else read as vaguely American to me (not sure why).
I didn’t notice the tense reading it, so for me it wasn’t too intrusive.
@cleo: I’d say one reason it reads American is “tuxedo”. That’s not usual wedding wear in Britain. That made me unable to figure out what the setting is too. I was definitely confused as to what’s going on.
I find it hard to believe that if the bride’s been slugging enough gin (ugh) to make her wobbly when she walks that she still looks “dewy”.
I think there are too many short paragraphs, which makes it very choppy, and too many sentences starting with “I”.
Oh and feet are not usually “clad”, they’re “shod”.
I’m another who doesn’t mind present tense. Lots of New Adult is in present tense and I love it. I’m finding out right along with the narrator. Sure there will be people who don’t like it but loads of people do as well. Use it if that works for you and your story.