Lilah kissed the cold casket. Papa, she whimpered in her mind. She wrapped her arms around the second coffin. I love you, she told her mama. Biting her lip in a futile effort to stop the sobs, Lilah staggered back under the big, black umbrella she shared with Daniel, her twin. Light rain pattered on the nylon.
Through the fog clouding her mind, she heard one of the mourners murmur. “Death is terrifying enough, even under the best of circumstances.”
A hushed voice responded, “Poor things, to lose their parents at fifteen... what are they going to do?”
Lilah rubbed a fist over the blazer she wore, trying to ease the knot in her chest. A short gust of wind rustled through the trees, blowing goosebumps under her stockings. Her teeth chattered. She barely heard the words of the minister as he said the final prayers committing the remains of their parents to the ground.
The string quartet played “Nearer, My God, to Thee” while the caskets were lowered to their resting place. The minister summoned the twins. Dan returned after tossing mud into the grave, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Cold fingers took the umbrella from Lilah and guided her hand to the mound of earth next to where she stood. Lilah couldn’t see through her tears. She didn’t want to see.
I'm not doing full critiques at the moment, but one thing jumped out at me that I wanted to comment on - your genre. I don't have any idea what a family saga/thriller is. Thrillers are quick, fast-paced, tight reads. In my experience, family sagas tend to be longer, slower-paced, usually more literary. There's a disconnect.
Also, "family saga" isn't a genre. Either the book is adult commercial fiction or adult literary fiction (or possibly upmarket). Determine what the main focus of the story is, and go from there.
You do an excellent job of showing us Lilah's emotions rather than simply telling us how she feels, and the funeral scene isn't overwrought, which is not an easy task. Without knowledge of where your story is going, that would be the end of my comments, but I got the impression the scene which kills her parents was part of your novel, and I'm wondering why you'd start here only to flash back to the their attempt to flee.
If you have reasons that outweigh this, then it's all fine, but without knowing where you're going, it seems having the funeral before we've grown attached to the children or their parents diminishes the impact of this scene, and knowing who dies and who lives will diminish the intensity of the other.
You do an excellent job of showing us Lilah's emotions rather than simply telling us how she feels, and the funeral scene isn't overwrought, which is not an easy task. Without knowledge of where your story is going, that would be the end of my comments, but I got the impression the scene which kills her parents was part of your novel, and I'm wondering why you'd start here only to flash back to the their attempt to flee.
If you have reasons that outweigh this, then it's all fine, but without knowing where you're going, it seems having the funeral before we've grown attached to the children or their parents diminishes the impact of this scene, and knowing who dies and who lives will diminish the intensity of the other.
Best of luck,
Cesar
Nah. Her parents' funeral is where the story begins. Their deaths put Lilah in a situation where she's abducted.
Your writing skill is very strong. Lilah's emotions are portrayed well here, and the sentence structure is smooth, with just enough detail.
My biggest critique is there are a lot of faceless characters. "Someone" said, "someone" pushes her forward. Filling in these with actual people would make the story stronger. Presumably most the people at the funeral are people Lilah knows. If she doesn't know them, she would at least know they're her parents coworkers, etc.
Post by Heidi Kneale (Her Grace) on May 16, 2017 3:34:18 GMT -5
Read this first, then read your query.
You've got a good voice and a nice balance with the emotions. This works for me as a opening page, especially now that I know it leads to the inciting incident of her getting kidnapped.
I don't mind the faceless people in this scene. It worked for me, because I know how isolating grief can be. You pull into yourself and the rest of the world retreats into a blurry background that no longer matters.