In this hop, participants post 250 words of their work in progress to be critiqued. Then everyone hops around to critique others. Don’t have a post of your own? We’d love a critique anyway! And next time you can sign up yourself.
Jennifer M Eaton is the host. Hop on over to her blog and read all about it. Also join us!
Want to join up? Click here for the rules, and leave a comment to have your name added to the list. The more the merrier!
If you want to read my other Sunday’s posts just click on the Sunday Snippets button to the right or look at my pages. It has a page of its own! Thanks so much.
Click on over to these great writers to check out and critique what they’ve posted!
http://mermaidssinging.wordpress.com/
http://caitlinsternwrites.wordpress.com/
http://jennykellerford.wordpress.com
http://richardleonard.wordpress.com
http://itsjennythewren.wordpress.com/
http://wehrismypen.wordpress.com
https://jlroeder.wordpress.com
http://letscutthecrap.wordpress.com/
Here is this Sunday’s snippet from my WIP “The Key” a mystery/adventure. It is in first draft so it is pretty rough!
For those that don’t know what my WIP is about let me first give you a brief synopsis.
Through accidents, illness and losing her great-grandmother Edith, Phillis is the last of a once strong family. On her deathbed Edith gives Phillis a skeleton key and tells her that it is the “key to the family’s heritage.” But, Phillis doesn’t know what the key opens as Edith died before she could tell her.
Now Phillis is on the hunt for what the key opens and also to find out more of her heritage. She is helped by Malcolm, who was once Edith’s lover. But Phillis is not sure he can be trusted. Along the way of discovery Phillis finds strength in herself and finds many mysteries about the family.
Phillis makes the realization that members of her family were killed off. They were not accidents as she had thought. Will she be next to be killed?
She must find what the mysterious key opens before an ‘accident’ befalls her!
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(This is when Phillis is taking Pal (wolf/dog) to the Vet’s for the first time. It shows their interaction)
“Come on Pal, the nice Vet is not going to hurt you. I promise!” Phillis blew some strands of fiery red hair out of her eyes. It was turning out to be a very long morning.
Phillis eyed the stubborn animal. It didn’t take too much convincing to get him into her small car. Although he took up the whole back seat, he seemed okay with riding in it. Once she got to the vet’s office though it was a whole different matter. Pal absolutely refused to budge. It was like he sensed where he was and there was no way anyone was going to stick him with a needle.
Phillis could see a few other people inside the vet’s building watching her out the large window. She sighed deeply. She never thought about how she was going to get Pal inside if he didn’t want to go. Now she had to figure out something. She felt so frustrated. Phillis looked at the animal and finally saw a spark of fear in his eyes. It broke her heart and she sat in the back seat and hugged him. She thought, maybe he thought she was going to put him in here and leave him and it terrified him. That thought set her back. She hugged him harder.
“I am never going to leave you Pal, I promise. I never thought about how you might be feeling. You’ve never been in a Vet’s office before. You think I’m going to leave you behind. I never would do that!” Phillis felt the big body relax just a little.
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- Sunday Snippets Critique Blog Hop #1 (jlroeder.wordpress.com)
The Last Chapter 
Glad to hear more of The Key.
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thanks Lois. I’m working on it again. 🙂
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aww a cute snippet 🙂 one thing I would take out the frustrated bit as already felt she is by the sigh x
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ah yes I see that now. Thank you! 🙂
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Want to read it! WIP get finished soon 🙂
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I don’t know about soon, but I hope I do finish it. Thanks for the vote of confidence Tiny! 🙂
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Great interaction between the animal and human – her realization to his fear was well done. Just some editing but you will get to it I’m sure. Great start.
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Thank you Mandy. I know I have some serious editing to do, but am holding off till I finish as I’m afraid I’ll get bogged down with that and not finish.
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Dogs are so sad at the vet! I definitely feel for your character here.
You might want to give a little more of his body language, though. Is he shivering? Pressing himself flat against the seat? Ears down? Giving her the puppy dog eyes?
You also might want to take a look at your dialogue. I do this myself all the time–but people tend to use contractions everywhere possible.
If you’re worried about getting bogged down in editing, you can always take good notes and keep going. 🙂
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I am for sure taking notes. That is the main reason these weekly snippets have a page of their own. Thanks for the suggestions! I will work on my dialog and see if I can’t strengthen it some. Also, I do agree with you about needing more emotions with the dog. Thanks again!
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This is pretty clean and well written. In the dialog, say it out loud to yourself. You will probably hear yourself using contractions, but that’s not the way you wrote it.
You used the word “felt” twice. Instead of using that tell word, describe what she sees to make her feel that way. In doing this, you will be infusing some of the body language suggested above.
Good luck!
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thanks Jennifer. I will do that about the dialog. 🙂
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Great work so far!
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thank you Hookster! It’s a work in progress, so it is always changing.
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Very nice. Animal stories always make me weak in the knees as this one does.
Paragraph two and three started with Phillis. In paragraph three, I wonder if some “she’s” might be changed.
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Thank you. I seem to have a bad habit of using ‘she’ too much. I will watch that.
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I just noticed your book cover for this book on your sidebar. Great cover! Did you do it yourself?
Everyone gave you really good tips here. Just keep writing. You will tighten it all up later. Nice job; I like this story and could see your character and the dog clearly.
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The book cover is one I won on NaNoWriMo, they had a contest where you entered your book with a brief synopsis and they chose which ones they liked for a professional graphic artist to design! I was so super excited when I won with my very first book!
This book is a constant work in progress, I’ve changed some things but the great friendship with Phillis and Pal is constant. Thanks for the great words. 🙂
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