Blurb
How exactly did I end up the best friend of the guy I hated my entire life? Listen, this is going to be a long story. Let me take you to the beginning. The year was 1992...
ENEMIES-TO-FRIENDS-TO-LOVERS
Victor Manning has been infuriating Becka since she sat behind him in 7th grade English. He's cocky, self-centered, and obnoxious. When High School ends, the college dynamic slowly turns Victor into the one person Becka cannot live without.
Original (First 500)
Mami had stuffed all our baby photos along with her wedding album inside of the washing machine which is why they were saved. Our house was now a carcass of its former self, skin and bones and the meat, our things, all missing. I didn't know where we belonged, but we couldn't stay here, here was all gone, and by some miracle, we remained.
The newspapers called Miami a "Wasteland" and that's what it was like. God had reached down to earth and with his great big hand he had crumbled the houses into toothpicks then laid them back down for their owners to find. Mami said gather what I could, whatever could be saved. All that I was, all that I had, fit in a box. A brown wet box.
Kissimmee was somehow where we ended up because a long-time friend offered us a room to stay in, until we got our things together. I remember thinking how small it was, small streets, small people, slow and steady.
This town was sterile and orderly, people outside of the norm were frowned upon and I was a small brown girl with frizzy hair that had one pair of jeans and had to share a bed with her little brother.
"Can you escort Beckett -- is that your name?"
The school counselor dressed funny, everyone in Kissimmee did, much different from Puerto Rico or Miami.
"Becka. Becka Montana."
I realized suddenly that my accent was thick. Very thick. I could tell by the pursing of her lips. I wasn't welcomed here, this was not where I belonged, where we belonged. I wanted to explain to her that this was not my choice but I didn't have the words.
"Derek, can you escort Ms. Montana to Mr. White's English class? She's new", the woman said and in came a boy with blond hair that fell on his face even as he pushed it back.
I didn't dare look at him, I didn't dare look at most boys. I didn't know what to say and I didn't want them to see that all I owned was in a wet cardboard box under a guest bed. He signaled with his chin for me to follow.
Mr. White was smiling and dressed so well and sharp that I remember thinking that he looked like a businessman.
"Becka?"
"Yes, sir. Becka Montana."
The class, which had turned to stare openly at me, snickered and I didn't understand why it was funny but I thought that perhaps they already knew that Miami was gone, destroyed and I was the debris that had wandered in.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Becka, welcome to 7th Grade Engish."
His eyes were brown and warm and I smiled a little at him.
"Thank you."
"Where are you from, Becka?"
"Miami." I chanced a look at the room. The faces were foreign and strange, and I missed my friends in Miami but I didn't know where they had ended up, where the winds had blown them.
My Edit
The newspapers called Miami "a wasteland" and that's what it was. God had reached down to Earth with His great big hand, crumbled the houses into toothpicks, then laid them back down. All that I was, all that I had, fit in a box. A brown, wet box.
A family friend offered us a room in Kissimmee. Compared to Miami, the town was small, slow, and colorless. Even the school counselor was beige. I could tell by the pursing of her lips that my accent was too thick. My skin too brown. My hair too frizzy. I wanted to explain to her that I didn't want me to be there either. Sharing a twin bed in a strange house in a strange city at a strange school was not how I wanted to spend seventh grade, but I didn't have the words.
As quickly as she could, she passed me onto her student aid, Derek. He ran his hand through floppy blonde hair that re-settled immediately against his cheekbones, and led me down the beige halls to the beige classroom. I didn't dare look at him, I didn't dare look at most boys, but he seemed older than me. Probably eighth grade?
As we walked in, the entire class, seemed to perk up just to snicker at me. I was debris that Hurricane Andrew had blown in, and wished I could blow right out again.
Mr. White, my English teacher, had warm brown eyes, brown skin, and a gentle smile. He wore a full gray suit with a vest and tie, like a businessman, and spoke like one of them, his accent polished away to nothing.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Becka. Where are you from?"
"Miami." I chanced a look at the room. The faces weren't all hostile, but they were all strange. I wondered if the winds had blown my friends to equally unfriendly places. I hoped not.
(Original word count: ~604 → Edited: ~321)
Critique
We get so much backstory before any action takes place, that it feels like the author wanted to start the story earlier. We start with Becka's mom saving photo albums from the hurricane by the putting them in the washing machine, which could and probably should be it's own scene. Then we have the newspapers' interpretation of the hurricane, a description of the town Becka moves to, and then we get to the present moment, in the school counselor's office -- except, wait, we're only here for the counselor to stumble over Becka's name, and then be handed off to a floppy-haired boy who leads her through the hallways. None of this, so far, is a scene, except, potentially, the floppy-haired boy leading Becka to class. We meet the English teacher and the excerpt ends.
If we're going to stuff this much set-up into the first 500 words of a novel, we can do it a little more efficiently. First, dump the washing machine, and give that its proper moment later in the story. Second, we go on a bit too long about how quiet and boring this new town is and how Becka feels too big and colorful, so shorten that a bit.
In my re-write, I drop the name confusion and just have Becka be aware that the counselor thinks she's too brown and efficiently infodump all the reasons Becka is also uncomfortable with being there. Then we have the floppy-haired kid escorting Becka to her class. I like the line about not being able to look at most boys, which, to me, is an insight that is the price of admission to letting that be its own short scene. The boy's silence also adds to the awkwardness and Becka's sense of not being welcome (even though it's likely that's not his intent).
Setting
We're in a beige school in a beige town where all the people are beige (think "Blue" by Eiffel 65 except replace blue with beige). Becka and her brother and mother are staying with friends. We don't get a lot of information about the house -- we'll assume it's beige, but we do know that Becka shares a twin bed with her brother, and that they have a soggy box full of family photos under that bed. And here's where we have a bit of a problem with worldbuilding. Because we're trying to tell too much of the story at one time, we're condensing things in a way that doesn't make sense.
First, wouldn't the box be under Becka's mom's bed? Where the mom is sleeping isn't addressed, just the kids. Also, why would the box still be wet? If the contents are that important, I'm pretty sure the friend they're staying with could have given them a dry box to put their family photos in, and even if they didn't, how long does it take for a box to dry? Not longer than the presumably week or two that it took to move in with friends.
If your POV character is in one setting and is trying to describe another setting, stop and think if we can tell this part of the story earlier or later. Describing one setting takes a certain amount of momentum away from the action of a scene, so describing two does so doubly. And trying to describe a whole town and a school and a classroom and a guest-living situation is too many things for one scene. None of the settings are getting the attention they deserve and the scene feels longer and less eventful than it otherwise would.
I get that the author is trying to front-load EVERY reason Becka is uncomfortable, but there's an easier way to do that. Start the story earlier. Getting ready for school, the chaos and discomfort of being a guest, walking to school with little bro and being self-conscious about his bright clothes and loud chattering in this quiet, beige town where all of the other kids are being driven. Then, drop him off at kindergarten (or whatever grade?) and let his total lack of hesitation in joining the other kids work as a contrast to Becka's self-consciousness. Then let the school counselor be weird and the floppy-haired kid be quiet.
I understand that there's fear that maybe this stuff wouldn't be interesting, but as long as you're exploring a scene with conflict and tension (which just the one-line synopsis of these scenes have inherently), then it will be interesting. And the scenes don't even have to be long. Like, less important scenes can be shorter than important ones. I think of a scene under the rules of a one-act play. Any time we switch locations (even going from a bedroom to a hallway or vice versa) or a character enters or leaves, that's a new scene. So a scene can be a sentence long or a paragraph or an entire novel.
The other compromise would be to let us get to know Becka better AFTER meeting Victor and let Becka just be uncomfortable in the classroom because she's new and not beige. Then we would get to their witty banter and explore more of Becka's personality later.
Characterization
Characterization is another area that suffers with trying to tell too much story at once. We have a lot of characters in this short excerpt. Becka (the main character) her mother, her brother, the friend they're staying with, Becka's old friends, the school counselor, the floppy-haired boy, the teacher, and the students in 7th-Grade English class. We have all of these characters, and only three of them get physical descriptions (including Becka). Personality-wise, the school counselor is kind of racist and the English teacher seems nice. Mami is motherly.
Becka, herself, is the most dimensional, seeming to feel lost and too big for the space she's in. She describes her friends as fellow storm detritus (which is genius) and hopes that they all landed somewhere friendlier. She's also very poetic. I love this description of the hurricane: "God had reached down to earth and with his great big hand he had crumbled the houses into toothpicks then laid them back down..."
Becka's dialogue is her name, twice, and where she's from. This reads as natural because most kids in the same situation would answer exactly what they're asked and not offer anything.However, the dialogue spoken by the adults is unnatural. For one thing, the school counselor stumbles over Becka's ethnic name, which is SO weird. I feel like this is based on a real experience about a more Latin-sounding name and the author tried to use it but the name Rebecka is of Hebrew origin, which means that it's pretty common in Caucasian circles. Also, the counselor acting like she doesn't know Becka's name when she's probably holding Becka's file is a level of hostility I don't think the author is going for.
And then we have Mr. White welcoming her to "seventh grade English". I can't imagine any teacher talking like that. We all know what grade and class we're in, that's why we're here. This is obviously for the reader, but I feel like there's a more natural way to work in the fact that she's in seventh grade. What I'm curious about is, is this near the start of the year, middle, or end? Because the level of awkwardness increases the longer the year has gone on. This would be foremost in my mind, walking into a new school (I've only missed a couple of weeks, or the kids have already established their friend groups, or why am I even here, what can I learn in three days, etc.).
Conflict/Tension
One thing we're not missing out on is conflict/tension. We have God against an entire city, we have Becka uncomfortable in every aspect of her new city, the school counselor being weird, her classmates giggling as soon as she walks in, Derek's floppy-haired silence, and having no personal space. Even her bed is something she has to share.
We even have Becka's mother against the storm. Using the washing machine as a place to keep valuables is really smart. I definitely think that the author needs to explore the hurricane itself as its own scene, if not multiple scenes. It doesn't all have to happen before our main story starts, it can be done in varying sizes of flashbacks from a sentence or two to a few pages. Processing that level of trauma can take a minute, so I can see it being something that Becka has to deal with for years.
Final Thoughts
We have a lot of potential in the original excerpt. I like ALL of the story that the author is trying to tell. The major sin is trying to shove too much story into too few words. I don't think that most readers would clock that nothing is happening because of the conflict inherent in every line. But, after a while, it feels like we're waiting for the story to start.
This is because the author doesn't stop to nail down a particular moment -- sights, smells, nuances. Instead, we're trying to experience a hurricane, the aftermath of a hurricane, a new town, a new bed, the loss of possessions and friends, the first day at a new school -- all at the same time. It's too much. This isn't a story, it's a hurricane of information.
Having read ahead, the next few chapter suffer from the same issue. Not to the same extreme, but it always feels like we're trying to get to the next part of the story. We need to finish junior high so that we can get to high school so that we can get to college where the real story starts. I don't know if college feels the same way because I didn't get that far, but I will say that if you're writing a part of a story as a way to get to the part you want to write, just write that part. We don't need an epic romance that starts in junior high if you don't care as much about what happens in junior high as what happens later. Just skip that part.
All that said, the author definitely has the potential to really nail a moment. That whole God/toothpick thing is genius and I'll never not think of that when I see the aftermath of any storm. Also, a lot of the writing in the next few chapters is charming, it just feels rushed.
