GENRE: MG Fantasy/Adventure
His best friend's a dork. The girl he likes is taken. His dad's trapped in the world behind the boiler room. Middle school sucks.
The beast looked around, a syrupy line of spit dangling from its jaws as it sniffed the air in every direction.
It threw its head back and roared. The sound echoed through the hallway. As the silence found its way back into the school, the monster stepped out of the boiler room.
Asher stopped. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Bigger than a gorilla. The head of a wolf. Two devil horns made of evil and claws that could shred concrete.
Whatever this thing is, Asher thought to himself, it was made for one thing and one thing only. To-
And before Asher could finish, the monster shot orange lasers out of its eyes and stumbled past the actor playing Mr. Holcomb.
“Oh my God that was lame,” Asher said, turning down the volume on the small TV in the kitchen.
His mom scooted the eggs around in the pan in front of her. “Sweetie, turn that back up, I was watching it,” she said and hit the volume up button without giving Asher a chance to.
Asher listened to the news reporter interview the real Mr. Holcomb as the dramatic and incredibly stupid scene replayed behind her. Mr. Holcomb had been on the news before. They seemed to love him. He always had some crazy story or conspiracy to share and they always had local actors help recreate whatever he was going on about that week. Apparently this time he had opened up the boiler room at Asher’s school and let out a demon.
There are some great moments here. I like the logline for its simplicity - and the world behind the boiler room! Perfect middle grade fodder that. You probably could do with adding some stakes and choices to it.
ReplyDeleteYou have some good evocative writing eg - 'syrupy line of spit' and 'shred concrete'. Excellent.
For me, the part with Mr Holcomb starts to get hard to understand. What I mean is....
1. I really want Asher to finish that sentence and not just end with 'to...'.
2. You smoothed over the scene transition from TV to reality well but I felt like the dialogue was unnecessary like you thought you had to get it in because you needed it before your 250 words were up. It did nothing for the story and was made further redundant by the fact the mother turned the volume up herself so...why have it?
3. It gave me pause that a TV station will have people acting out Mr Holcomb's crazy stories. Or did I get that wrong?
Keep at this because I love that boiler room. Sounds like Goosebumps to me.
The logline reads like a tagline on the back of the book. It tells me nothing about the story at all. Who is the Character? What is the Conflict? What Decision must the MC make and what’s at Stake? Those are the key elements for a logline.
ReplyDeleteFor the excerpt:
Is a television interview/news report the best place to start your story? It seems like there might be a better place. Maybe something with action that happens to or because of the MC.
The writing style did seem appropriate for a MG story and I agree with the things Ms. Dunn said above as well...except for the logline, which did nothing for me.
Thanks for sharing & good luck!
Love your logline- this is a book that I would pick up and thumb through.
ReplyDeleteHis best friend's a dork. The girl he likes is taken. His dad's trapped in the world behind the boiler room. Middle school sucks.
The beast looked around, a syrupy line of spit dangling from its jaws as it sniffed the air in every direction.
It threw its head back and roared. The sound echoed through the hallway. As the silence found its way back into the school, the monster stepped out of the boiler room.
Asher stopped. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Bigger than a gorilla. The head of a wolf. Two devil horns made of evil and claws that could shred concrete.
Whatever this thing is, Asher thought to himself, it was made for one thing and one thing only. To-
(This is good...)
And before Asher could finish, the monster shot orange lasers out of its eyes and stumbled past the actor playing Mr. Holcomb.
(But then at this point, it gets confusing. I think maybe it's a movie?)
“Oh my God that was lame,” Asher said, turning down the volume on the small TV in the kitchen.
His mom scooted the eggs around in the pan in front of her. “Sweetie, turn that back up, I was watching it,” she said and hit the volume up button without giving Asher a chance to.
Asher listened to the news reporter interview the real Mr. Holcomb as the dramatic and incredibly stupid scene replayed behind her.
(I agree that this seems unbelievable. A news report acting out some crazy conspiracy theory?)
Mr. Holcomb had been on the news before. They seemed to love him. He always had some crazy story or conspiracy to share and they always had local actors help recreate whatever he was going on about that week. Apparently this time he had opened up the boiler room at Asher’s school and let out a demon.
Can you find a different way to introduce the monster in the school boiler room than a news report acting it out?
Good luck!
Love the log line - cute and too the point. I'm not sure I like when we see that this is a re-enactment of something. If there is a monster somewhere in the boiler room, could see maybe see this introduced by kids talking around the school?
ReplyDelete