Urban Fantasy WIP - Beginning

[Bontemps]

Phew! - This is my first posting of work on here, a big step for me.
It is intended as a 8-12 age range Urban Fantasy if that helps anyone.
I have donned my storm gear and any and all critique is welcome (it's for my own good). This is the first half of chapter 1.


Chapter 1
She’ll never find me here, not this time. Jane crouched behind the bushes at the end of the street. In the early evening light, she blended in with her surroundings. Invisible.


‘Coming ready or not’, Sailed a voice, high and shrill, from up the oak lined road. There it was, the signal. The hunt was on, and the battle continued - the ultimate contest of Sarah versus Jane.


This game of hide and seek had been going on for the last ten minutes now. The fact that Sarah hated this game made it all the more fun for Jane, as her friend always won when they competed at anything else.


Ordinarily, Jane would have loved to spend her days at the library, or in her room reading, but her Dad shooed her outside, telling her to ‘go out and play’, in that exasperated voice he often used. I mean, what kind of parent denies their child the chance to read? A rubbish one, that’s what. So here she was, playing with tomboy Sarah, her only friend in the street.


Soft leaves fluttered on the hedge, tickling her, and dirt shifted under her knees as Jane peeked out, watching Sarah search. Sarah was flicking her hair from her face again, as she looked from garden to garden. Why doesn’t she ever tie it back? Jane found herself thinking, or at least get it cut short like mine.


‘Colder’, she said to herself, as Sarah trudged off, hands in pockets across the road, bending to look under a chunky, white transit van.


‘Much colder.’ Now Sarah was looking up the street. She may have been a friend, but she was so hopeless at the game she was going to need a pack of bloodhounds to find Jane. Not long now, before she could creep forward toward the base and win again. Sarah was a fast runner, so Jane made sure to wait until she was far away before she made her move.


Then, Jane began to hear something faint from behind. A gentle, long tune spun its way forward, the notes unwinding into her ear. The tune had a life of its own, bouncing along randomly, quickening, and then slowing unexpectedly. It followed a path unknown by any music she had ever heard. She turned to see where the notes came from, and that was when she saw the house. It had managed to sneak up on her from behind, and now loomed over her.


The house was odd to Jane for many reasons. It was ancient, much older than the rest of the buildings on her street. Her dad said their house was old and falling apart, but it was spotless compared to this one, it could have done with a hefty makeover. This house was far bigger than hers too, a real mansion. The windows seemed out of place, an absolute black, lacking even a reflection from the bright sun overhead. They reminded Jane of the car windows on the boy racer’s red-striped Fiesta that he parked opposite her house.


However, the oddest thing about the house was, it had not been there a moment ago. There had never been a house on that patch of grass and junk behind her. It was an empty plot, always had been, a magnet for unwanted rubbish and litter. The house had just appeared, and everyone knew that things like that did not happen every day. Nope, not any day in fact.

The tall front door stood open, patchy white paint peeling, as the music crept toward her out of the gap between door and frame. The notes continued swirling and breezing through the air, beautiful and peaceful. Jane yearned to hear more, it didn’t sound like chart music, more like the classical stuff her dad listened to, but this was good.

She skipped up the small steps to the door, and looked back. Right at that moment, everything seemed still and so far away, the street separated from her by a haze. The road was deserted, except for the lonely distant figure of Sarah, standing with her back to Jane, hands on hips, looking fed up. Jane wanted to wave to her, tell her to forget the game and call her over to join in with the neat thing she had discovered, but the music played on, turning her around and walking her into the house. One foot plodding after the other, she was aware that the door closed slowly behind her, but right now, following the tune was all that mattered.

-​

 

[The Judge]

Hi. Well, congratulations for having the gumption to post something for public evisceration!

I haven't ever read any 8-12 Urban Fantasy so I have no idea what tone and/or level of word use/writing is needed - with luck someone more knowledgeable will be along in a minute to help you out there. What I can do is a nit-picking critique, which I'm afraid is needed.

She’ll never find me here, not this time. Jane crouched behind the bushes - OK, this jarred immediately. You're going from first person present to third person past and it doesn't work. I imagine that you intended the first sentence to be her thoughts - in that case you have to make it explicit by putting it into italics, so it's effectively unspoken dialogue which is OK in third person. I think I'd also put the 'Jane crouched...' as a new paragraph, though, to separate it further. Your other option is to write the whole thing in first person but I wouldn't recommend that.

she blended in with her surroundings. Invisible. - she's dressed in green leaves perhaps?

‘Coming ready or not’, Sailed a voice - right, this is a problem and you make part of the same mistake later. There's quite a bit on punctuating dialogue in The Toolbox thread in Aspiring Writers - have a good read of it. Basically this should be ' "ready or not,[comma inside the quotation marks]" sailed [lower case] a voice'.

the oak lined road - 'oak-lined' - hyphenated.

This game... for the last ten minutes now - be careful using words like 'this', 'last' and 'now' when you are writing in the past tense, because these are present tense words and can pull you out of the story - as they do here. You don't need them, since the sentence is fine with 'The game... had been going on for ten minutes'. And I defer to anyone in my knowledge of children and their games, but isn't hide and seek a little young for a bookish ten year old?

Ordinarily - this is otiose unless this is an extraordinary day when she hadn't wanted to read inside.

Jane would have loved - watch your tenses and verbs. Something like 'would have preferred' is fine, but the construction jars with 'loved' to my mind.

to spend her days - 'days'?? How long has this game been going on? I do know what you mean to say, but again, the construction fails since we are not talking of her preference over the year but on this one afternoon from what precedes ('would have') and what follows ('shooed').

but her Dad shooed her outside -if you are wanting 'days' then this has to be eg 'always shooed'; otherwise if we are simply talking of this afternoon 'had shooed' - or combine both for eg 'as usual had shooed'.

I mean, what kind of parent denies their child the chance to read? - this is either a change into the first person again, and one which cannot be so easily corrected by simply using italics, or more likely it is a lapse into authorial intervention which frankly doesn't work. Delete the 'I mean' and add something like 'Jane wondered again'. And 'parent' is single, 'their' plural. It may be fashionable in these circumstances, but it's still wrong.

Why doesn’t she ever tie it back? Jane found herself thinking, or at least get it cut short like mine.- punctuation and drift into first person again a problem. Full stop after 'thinking', italicise 'Or at least...' and question mark at the end. And unless Jane's short hair is of great relevance to the story and it can't be introduced later to better effect, frankly I'd consider ditching this entire section as it doesn't progress the story or characterisation.

‘Colder’, she said to herself - dialogue punctuation again. If she indeed says this out loud, then fine; but if she's thinking it only, then drop the quotation marks and italicise.

as Sarah trudged off, hands in pockets across the road - her hands were across the road, were they? That's how the sentence reads unless you punctuate it properly - or re-write it.

as Sarah trudged off... bending to look - I can't for the life of me think of the technical expression for this mistake, but you can't have her 'bending to look' when it is not a continuing action as she trudges. You can have 'putting on her gloves' as that co-exists with the 'trudged'; or, less satisfactorily, 'bending when she reached [a van] to look' as that gives a start for the action. Otherwise make it a separate sentence.

OK. I'm going to have to stop the nitpick there as it takes quite a time to do it properly. I have read through to the end, and I think you have an intriguing premise of a Pied Piper house, but I don't know that you handle its sudden appearance to the best of your ability. I know that the fact it's appeared out of nowhere is the punchline which you are leading up to, but the lead is too long - and the power of the punchline is dissipated. I'm also far from convinced at Jane being able to express her thoughts about the music quite so coherently and intelligibly. But you have the makings of something here, and wait to get the reaction of others before you start making any big changes, as I may well be in a minority of one in my feelings.

Good luck with the writing - and do continue with it.

J

 

[Sparrow]

I'm not nearly so formal as Judge on sentence structure or playing loose with tenses, so I'll limit my criticism to content...

First, a young girl would not have so keen an ear for music nor would she make such articulate assessments on an old house materializing out of thin air. You need to quickly acclimate the reader to Jane's surroundings and circumstances without giving away too much. Keep it straight ahead and visual. I would also drop the premise that kids these days play hide n' seek. It seems dated and a bit trite.

You seem to be casting Jane as a bookwormish kid, good enough, drop Sarah and lose the hide n' seek episode as it seems forced. I'm not fond of the Pied Piper allusion either. Unless music plays a role here and is crucial to the story you might perhaps consider changing that too. Being a parent of a curious girl who was once Jane's age, I know of no sound or musical string that would have rendered her spellbound. But give her a warm summer day with nothing much to do and chance meeting a stray dog or cat, and she would follow the creature through the gates of hell!.. yes, it's the Rabbit Hole allusion!

If the House is going to be a living breathing character than give it some organic qualities. Remember, this is a child experiencing these events, children are visual and visceral, so keep it simple.


Perhaps the finest first paragraphs in all YA English Literature...

__________________________________________________

CHAPTER I

Down the Rabbit-Hole


Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister
on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had
peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could,
for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether
the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble
of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White
Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

_________________________________________________



That's how children experience the world.
They lead restless, linear lives.

 

[Bontemps]

Thanks for the comments so far, some of them seem so obvious now, but I couldnt see them at all when I wrote it.

A pretty serious re-write is required.

A couple of points that become clearer as the story progresses.
The music is really magical, and this becomes clear as Jane enters the house and is unable to control her movements. A pied piper effect was intended and is performed by the house owner to lure children inside.

I used the hide and seek game as it foreshadowed Sarah's quest to find Jane, which is the main story, but I guess its not working.

The house itself is not intended to be the main setting for the story merely the threshold, leading to another world.

 

[Sparrow]

ahhh, I understand it better now.

If the relationship between Jane and Sarah is important you'll need to spend some time relating that to the reader. I was looking at Sarah more as a prop than a character. I would consider using something other than a house as a gateway to a fantastical world. You mention the lot the house materializes on being used as a junkyard of sorts... why not use an item found in any junkyard as the portal to another world.

Why would Jane hide in the bushes when there's a perfectly good junkyard on the street? Her hiding place could be a beat up car, an old sea trunk, a refrigerator?

 

[The Judge]

I guessed about the music having a semi-hypnotic effect on her. That's fine. It's just the description of it from her POV that didn't seem to ring true. It's difficult, I know, because you want to get over the beauty of it, but at the same time you need to remain well within her vocabulary. Perhaps if you know a girl of that age you could get her to describe some classical music which comes close. Otherwise experiment with a kind of unknown 'voice' weaving through the lines, using italics (but only if all the other italicised bits are excised) or a different font and perhaps indented or something, as being the music itself talking. See if that works.

The hide and seek - yes, I can see how you would want that foreshadowing, it would be a clever touch. How about having a third - very much younger - child there, and they are having to play to amuse him/her despite both wanting to do something else? I don't know that I'd agree with Sparrow that it's out of date, a three or four year old might still enjoy it - though whether nowadays the child's parents would allow him/her out in the street to play it, is quite another matter.

Re Sarah's search being the main story - I take it that you do still have scenes from Jane's POV? If not, think seriously about this one - take it to a prologue if necessary.

And finally, I'm no expert on this but I wonder if 'Sarah' and 'Jane' might be perceived as being too white middle-classy in this proletarian multi-cultural society we are all supposed to be reflecting in our work? (This is only half joking.)

J

 

[Bontemps]

The second half of my chapter that I didn't post, is a change of scene from Sarah's pov. I didnt add it as I thought I'd be posting too much at one time on the forum, but I can see how it leaves the chapter unbalanced, and makes Sarah's character a bit 'so what?' by the end of this short excerpt.

Sarah is the main character, but I do go back to Jane for a couple of scenes to describe what happens to her.

The mirror is the portal within the house (yes I know Alice Through the Looking Glass but I'm keeping it ), not merely entering the house itself. I may need to elaborate on the rubbish-strewn empty plot as the junk is small rubbish (think stinky bin bags and cardboard boxes), rather than burnt out cars and old refridgerators.

Not too bothered about white middle-classy syndrome, but I haven't mentioned their ethnicity, and they both come from single parent families. I think all I have in the way of physical description is one is bookish and has a bob, and the other is sporty with loose, long hair. I realise their names might be too norm, but they could be changed easilly enough if it ever came to that.

I take your good points about the music, I guess I just got too wrapped up in trying to describe it and made it too writerly rather than serving the story. I like the idea of the music speaking to her directly, much more immediate than just 'telling' its effects. A change required again.

Thanks again for the nit-picking I really did need that, all those horrible slippages and changes in tense. Yikes!

I think part of that was me trying to inject some voice into the piece. I first wrote it flat but it looked to bland.
So I guess I went the other way, and overdid it with my ham-fisted attempts at spicing it up.

 

[ctg]

I would say that it's not ham-fisted attempt but rather aimed to older audience then 8 - 11 years old. The mood that I pick up is that it's quite scary story rather than one that is struck by an extraordinary adventure.

When you write to that age group you may want to avoid writing in horror, because many of the kids have high imagination and suggesting anything from the dark side will get their socks shaking.

Like other, including you, have said, you should do a rewrite and when you do it, pay a close attention on how you construct each sentence and connect them together in paras. With that age group you should use stronger narrator then with adults. So settle in telling it in voice of grandfather rather then diving into the definite POV. Or at least use the omniscient narrator much more strongly in the beginning, so that you've established who's who and then dive into the POV.

 

[Bontemps]

Thanks for the comment, I agree with you on the re-write but I disagree on the avoid writing horror.
It's more of a dark urban fantasy than a horror. It has a bit of peril and danger with some dark and possibly scary villains, but no swearing.

I read that Darren Shan's works are categorised as 10+ and his are definitely children's horror, with mutilation, mild swearing, smoking and drinking.

I think I'm going to keep the tone and style, and try to tighten it up. The horror not explicit and is more a supernatural danger.

 

[ctg]

All right, that's fine and you're right. I was just worried over your audience. So sorry about that.

 

[Bontemps]

No, no need to apologise, and sorry if my reply came off as snarky, I didnt mean it to.
It is a valid concern, but rest assured, I'm not planning on mutilating anyone in the story!

 

[Bontemps]

I've re-written it taking the excellent criticisms on board. Hope this one reads better.
I am very grateful for any comments and thanks for anyone who takes the time to look at this.

I'm trying to improve - honest!


She’ll never find me here, not this time.


Jane crouched behind the bushes at the end of the street. In the early evening light, she blended in with her surroundings. She felt invisible, like a ghost.


‘Coming ready or not,’ sailed a voice, high and shrill, from up the oak-lined road.


The game had been going on for ten minutes. The fact that Sarah hated this game made it even more fun for Jane, anything to get one up on her sporty friend.


As much as she was enjoying herself now, Jane would have loved to spend her time at the library, or in her room reading all summer. Lately though, her Dad had begun to shoo her outside, telling her to ‘go out and play’, in that exasperated voice he often used. Sarah knew it would be because of those newspaper reports on fat kids he read. That newspaper made him worry about everything, and she wasn’t even fat, but he kept banging on about the need for exercise. So anyway, here she was, playing with tomboy Sarah, her only friend in the street.


Soft leaves fluttered on the hedge, tickling her, and dirt shifted under her knees as Jane peeked out, watching Sarah. Sarah was flicking her hair from her face again, as she looked from garden to garden.


Colder, she said to herself, as Sarah trudged off across the road, hands in pockets. Not long now, I’ll just give her a bit longer to move away from the base.


Then, Jane began to hear something faint from behind. A gentle, soft tune spun its way forward. She ignored it at first, much like she would the buzzing of a fly. Whoever that is has their radio on too loud, she thought. Soon, however, the music grew, the tune nudging its way into her head, and she found herself listening. To her, the tune had a life of its own, tumbling oddly.


As she listened, she began to pick up a voice tangled within the notes. It spoke to her softly, a shimmering noise, Come with me, come and see. Far away, Sarah was still looking for her up the street.


Follow, come inside, it continued, whispering into her ear, a delightful tinkling noise. She forgot the game and began to listen closely, falling in love with the mysterious voice.

Magic awaits you, lucky girl. The music cast its spell, enchanting her.


She got up now and turned to see where it came from, and found herself staring up at an enormous house. It had managed to sneak up on her from behind, and now loomed over her.


That wasn’t there before, she thought staring up at the house. Maybe I’m going nuts?


But no, the more she thought about it, the more certain she became this house had appeared now. It certainly was not there when she had chosen her hiding place.


In fact, Jane knew deep down, that there had never been a house on that patch of grass. It was an empty plot, as far as Jane knew it always had been, a magnet for unwanted rubbish and litter. This house must have just appeared, and everyone knew that things like that did not happen every day. Nope, not any day in fact.


Now she looked at this newly arrived house on her street she noticed more strangeness. It was much older and larger than the rest of the buildings on her street, old and falling apart, a real spooky mansion. The windows seemed out of place too, an absolute black, like holes leading somewhere deep and dark.


The tall front door gaped open, patchy white paint peeling, as the music crept toward her out of the gap between door and frame. The notes continued swirling through the air, promising her adventure and delight. It was so beautiful, Jane yearned to hear more of this unearthly music.


She skipped up the small steps to the door, and looked back. Right at that moment, everything seemed still and so far away, the street separated from her by a haze. Apart from the lonely distant figure of Sarah, the road lay deserted. She saw her friend standing with her back to Jane, hands on hips. I should tell her about this. She would like this more than hide and seek for sure. Jane wanted to wave to her, but the music played on, turning her around, walking her into the house, one foot plodding after the other.


She was aware that the door closed slowly behind her, but right now, following the tune was all that mattered.