Blurb
The world as we know it ended 209 years ago. From a desert wasteland springs a single kingdom, ruled by a tyrannical King and trapped in an endless war against the shadowy desert warriors. As a desperate bid to save what remains of humanity, society has been split into two distinct classes, nicknamed the Court and the Commons. For an oppressed population on the brink of revolution, a common thief could be the last hope. Up until now, Kay has survived by her wits alone. Reckless and impulsive, wanted by the King's guard, Kay has become known as the Runner. Using the city's rooftops as her personal domain, she manages to keep one step ahead of the King with one hand buried in the purses of the courtiers. Driven by the plight of the commoners and the unjust death of her family, Kay seizes the chance to graduate from small-time thievery to full-scale rebellion. Her opportunity comes in the form of Will, a wealthy ex-soldier with a dark past. Plucked from the streets and thrown into the shimmering palace court, Kay must use her every strength to blend into a world where she doesn't belong, closer to the enemy than she ever thought she would be.
Original (First 500)
My fingernails scratch and chip as I grapple to hold onto the building's roof, my feet kicking furiously against the rough stone below me. Finding purchase, my muscles screaming with the effort, I manage to hoist myself onto my forearms and over the ledge.
I'm sweating from exertion. Without stopping to catch my breath, I push up onto my feet and take off at a run, propelling across the roof toward the next building. The edge is just swimming into view when I hear a latched door flying open. Angry voices shout out as the guards' heavy bootsteps fall into pursuit.
Nearly there. My eyes are trained on the horizon as I recall the impending height and distance. My legs burn and my feet pound across the roof's surface, the reverberation of heavy footfalls at my back spurring me onward.
Finally, my runway ends. Without pausing or slowing down, I plant a foot on the raised ledge and throw myself out across the abyss.
For a single, perfect moment, I am sailing through the air, suspended and soaring weightlessly five storeys above the ground. This is it. This is what I chase after: this feeling of utter freedom. The flattened surface of the next roof rises to greet me and I absorb the impact with a practiced precision, landing cleanly.
A grin tugs at my face as I roll out of my crouched position. My legs already feel lighter. I straighten and wince at a familiar pain shooting through my left knee, then turn to look behind me. I push my hair back from where it whips around my face, swirling and tangling in the hot desert air. Squinting in the sunlight, I catch sight of the four red guards standing across the gap. The captain is at the forefront, red-face, his sword raised menacingly as he shouts his threats into the wind.
I raise a hand to my ear, pantomiming deafness while the captain's voice rises in fervour. He gestures madly for his men to return to the ground. Smirking, I turn and jog lightly to the next ledge, swiveling to glance back at the captain standing opposite the divide. Even at this distance I don't miss the daggers in his glare. A thrill of satisfaction runs down my spine and I cheerfully raise my hand to my forehead in a mock salute before I take one step backwards and drop off the roof.
Instinctively, my hands shoot up as I fall, catching a window ledge protruding from the building's facade. My feet grip the stone slabs and gradually, brick by brick, I am able to descend into the alley.
Sand kicks up around me as I land on the pathway below. I dust my hands off on my thighs and lower the scarf covering my mouth and nose. Listening for the sound of any pursuing footsteps, I make for the main road, intending to weave my way between the buildings before the guards reach the ground.
My Edit
I push up onto my feet and run, gasping for breath, trying to focus on the next rooftop through the mirage of hot, desert air. The edge is just swimming into view when I hear the latched door behind me fly open.
Nearly there. I calculate the height and distance. My legs burn and my feet pound across the roof's surface, the reverberation of heavy footfalls at my back spurring me onward.
I plant a foot on the raised ledge and launch myself out across the abyss. For a single, perfect moment, I am sailing through the air, suspended and soaring weightlessly five stories above the ground. I absorb the impact by rolling across the flat roof.
On the last roll, I use momentum to move into a standing position. I straighten and wince at the flare of pain in my bad knee, then turn to look behind me. I push my hair back from where it whips around my face, swirling and tangling in the wind. Four red guards have come to a stop at the edge of the other roof. The bright sun makes me squint, but it's worth it to see the captain is at the forefront, red-faced, his sword raised as he shouts his threats into the wind.
I raise a hand to my ear, pantomiming deafness. He shouts and gestures at his men without taking his eyes off of me, his glare rivaling the heat of the sun. As his guards retreat to the rooftop entrance, I turn and jog lightly to the opposite edge of the roof. I can never refuse an opportunity to show off, so I turn to face the captain, raise my hand to my forehead in a mock salute, and then take one step backwards and drop off of the roof.
Reflexively, my hands shoot up as I fall, catching a window ledge. I climb carefully down the brick wall toward the alley below. A few feet from the ground, I let go. Sand kicks up around me as I land on the pathway. I dust my hands off on my thighs and lower the scarf covering my mouth and nose. I make for the main road, pausing to check for guards before leaving the alley.
(Original word count: ~498 → Edited: ~374)
Critique
Fantastic blurb. The first line sets up when we are, then we get where (desert kingdom), and we get conflict (Court versus Commons). Beautiful. Then we get our hero's motivations and goals, and then we get the hook. Our little thief having to blend with the rich folk. So good. Honestly, I was holding my breath when I clicked on the first chapter. I would have cried if it had been a girl in class, bored, waiting for the bell to ring.
I am a bit confused by the action at the beginning of the scene. It seems like Kay has just jumped onto a new roof and she is running toward the next one, and the guards come up onto the roof she's just jumped onto (from the street), which is weird because shouldn't they have chased her up the last building, not the new one? It's possible that they anticipated her movements, but that's not stated.
There is a little bit of awkward phrasing, especially with the first sentence:
My fingernails scratch and chip as I grapple to hold onto the building's roof, my feet kicking furiously against the rough stone below me.
First, presumably, her hands should be above her head so she won't be able to see the state of her nails. And, in this situation, chipping a nail is not something you'd notice unless it's the reason it sends you hurtling toward the ground. Also, I get that we're joining Kay mid-action-scene, but it seems counterproductive to be kicking furiously while trying to hold onto a roof. I would think that would make holding on harder.
I couldn't really find a good way to rephrase the first paragraph, so I skipped it and went with her next move:
I push up onto my feet and run, gasping for breath, trying to focus on the next rooftop through the mirage of hot, desert air.
This is a stronger sentence to start with because it's a simpler visual (for the author and the reader) and it immediately introduces the reader to the desert environment, the fact that we're running, and that we're on a rooftop. I introduced the mirage because I liked the the visual of the other rooftop "swimming" ahead and although I think the author was trying to indicate that Kay was tired and maybe her vision was blurry, but she actually seems to get less tired throughout her escape, so I just switched it to the mirage. This way, we get the swimming rooftop and an intro to the larger setting of the desert as opposed to just the setting of a random rooftop anywhere.
Overall, this is a really strong sequence, and an incredibly dynamic way to start a story, but it does go on a bit too long. I was able to trim over a hundred words without losing any of the important information. Things like, "A thrill of satisfaction runs down my spine..." and "Finally, my runway ends." and "Without pausing or slowing down..." don't really add to the story and actually slow down the narrative, even while trying to indicate that we're in a hurry. So to go directly from, "...the reverberation of heavy footfalls at my back spurring me onward." straight to "I plant a foot on the raised ledge and throw myself out across the abyss." indicates urgency and immediacy without having to say it.
Setting
Rooftops in a desert environment on a sunny and windy day. The nice thing about an action scene is that the POV character wouldn't really be focused on details, so we can get away with the bare minimum of description. Rooftops are unique in that they are rarely used as settings, but they tend to be pretty uniformly boring to look at, so a reader will be able to picture a generic rooftop without much trouble or need for description that would slow down the action.
My only notes are that a) my assumption about a rooftop chase would be that it happens at night, so to find out that it's sunny day in paragraph six, it was an adjustment. If we throw in the mirage, in the first sentence like in my version, then people who assumed it would be daytime are not affected, but people who would otherwise assume that it was nighttime won't be picturing the wrong time of day for the first five paragraphs. And, b) there's a little bit of confusion regarding the building that we climb down at the end. We have stones and bricks kind of used interchangeably, but they aren't the same. Some buildings would have both, but when we're in a hurry like this, it's best to just pick one.
CharacterizationWe have Kay. She is athletic, loves the "hang time" from jumping, is a bit saucy with guards, and can shimmy down a brick building like nobody's business. I actually thought that the brick wall thing was the least believable part of the sequence, especially because the guards are right next door and have stairs to run down, so I just picture a bunch of guards running down the alley and waiting for Kay as she slowly and carefully finds toeholds. But, we'll take it on assumption that she's just super nimble and still able to outrun the guards after scaling the side of a building cartoonishly easily.
We don't get a lot of dimensionality with Kay's internal dialogue. Things like thrills of satisfaction and enjoying that moment of freedom after jumping and before landing are kind of what we'd expect from a character who gets themselves into this situation. If Kay was cursing and super neurotic about each move, that would make her more dimensional. Or, if a hint of bitterness or anger undercut her saucy salute to the captain, that would add some dimension, as well. We DO get Kay with her grinning and saluting the guard -- that's a bit unexpected. Her little move of stepping off of the building backwards does show some personality, so that's good.
The other characters in this excerpt are the four guards and the captain. The captain is furious and the guards have no personalities at all. Now, this is not bad, necessarily. We're in a running scene, we don't really have time to get into everybody's hopes and dreams. But if we wanted the guards to feel more human, we could have them bending over and panting, maybe one throws up (and then Kay could indicate for how long she's led these cops on a merry chase) or faints from heatstroke. Like, maybe the reason Kay gets away isn't about speed, but stamina.
Also, for the captain, all we'd have to do to give him characterization is name him. If Kay knows him, then she can comment on how he'll be in a bad mood for a week or how the king will have him executed -- some indication that this character exists in more than just this moment for the purpose of allowing us to see Kay escaping from guards.
Conflict/TensionThere are two things that make this sequence feel long. The first is that we have no stakes. Physically, we can guess that if she's running from guards with swords, her life is on the line. But we have no fear, at all, throughout this sequence. We have a thrill of satisfaction, we have a saucy salute to the captain, and we casually step off of a building backwards in order to show off to said captain.
We start out with muscles burning and panting from exertion, and then Kay is at full energy for the rest of the scene. If there was a slow deterioration of Kay's energy level, then that would raise the stakes because we'd wonder if her slowing down would get her caught. Similarly, Kay has a flash of pain when she stands after landing on the roof. This would be a great opportunity to display fear that her bum leg is going to make it harder for her to escape. But it doesn't, and it's never mentioned again. Also, wind can be dangerous, especially when we're high up, but the wind just makes Kay look cool with her hair whipping back and forth (very insensible choice of hairstyle for Kay's chosen profession, by the way).
A hint at what she's stolen (jewelry, information, food, a cat) would give the reader some texture to hold onto. If it's a physical object, then running across rooftops is an opportunity to almost lose said object, especially if it's large, which would add tension. Naming the object would also imbue the scene with some emotional stakes. A treasured heirloom or a map of the enemy's lair would give the reader a sense of what we're fighting for. If we know if Kay is being altruistic (which is suggested by the blurb) or selfish, that will also affect how much the reader is rooting for Kay to get away.
The second thing that makes this sequence feel long is a lack of contrast. We have heat, but we do not have cool. We have hard stone and brick but we do not have anything soft. I suppose we have contrast between the red guards and the sandy desert, but those are still all warm colors. We don't know the color of Kay's scarf. If it's blue, that would be a nice contrast. If she's wearing all black silk (which would be weird on a hot day), then we'd have texture as well as color (or total lack of color). Little details like that wouldn't take a lot of word count but they would add a lot of texture to the scene.
Final Thoughts
All-in-all, we're lacking a sense of danger. We have implied urgency with running and swords, this is all strong enough of a start for a reader to immediately be caught up in it, but as the scene goes on, the lack of stakes gets more and more apparent. It feels like a scene from an anime. The difference between a movie and a book is internalization. If we get a sense of Kay's determination, fear, ability to overcome pain, to rely on intelligence rather than just her physical prowess, the scene would feel grounded, real, and be an even stronger way to start the story.
Now. All that said, this is a great scene. My criticism comes from having read it multiple times and really thinking about ways to improve it. My initial read of it, my internal impressions were a lot of "oh, thank god, a story called 'The Runner' starts with a chase scene" and "this is great" and "wheeeeeeee!". Any added characterization, conflict, setting development (a prop like a stolen object is part of scene-setting) would add a richness to the story.
