Re: Crit request: WIP middle section

On Feb 25, 6:04 pm, Jacey Bedford <lookin...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In message
<a968cf5a-3cb4-4ec6-8f90-e357f0cee...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Nicky <nicky.matth...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes





I am about half way through my new YA novel. My protag has been told
some fairly extraordinary stuff about the family she is living with
and given some tea, which made her very ill.  I just wondered if
people thought this worked? (apologies in advance for any
idiosyncratic punctuation)

'I woke to the certain knowledge that there was someone in my room.
Someone worried, fearful, tasting of concern. My eye lids still felt
heavy and as I struggled to open them. It felt like I was trying to
lift a ten ton weight with my eyelashes. The concerned person told me
not to bother. The concerned person reassured me gently. The concerned
person said: ‘Sleep some more. You’re not ready yet.’ Then the
soothing scent of sun-warmed honeysuckle sent me back to the refuge of
unconsciousness.

The next time I woke there was a terrible screaming in my ears. I was
flooded with sudden anguish, a visceral fear. I had to go to the
screaming one. I had to help at any cost. Everywhere stank of anxiety,
panic, frenetic activity. I was scrabbling to get out of bed, fighting
the bed covers that  entangled  me. My body was still leaden so I
battled with it too, trying to force it to action. Then abruptly the
screaming one was calmed and  there was peace.
‘What about Alice?’ The scent of guilt and worry.
‘She’s not ready yet.’ The taste of impatience.
‘She’s awake.’ The aroma of dismay.
‘I’ll sort it...’

When I woke again I felt OK. I could open my eyes and I could move. I
wondered if everything I thought I’d experienced had been a terrible
nightmare. I wanted to go to the bathroom, but there was someone I
needed to check on first. Someone very important and I had to see that
they were all right. I thought it might have been my mother, but I
knew it wasn’t. The someone was hungry, but it was all right she was
being fed. I was not needed. I could go to the loo.

I couldn’t walk as it happened. I didn’t know why. My legs refused to
bear my weight and I was incredibly dizzy. The room was no longer
lilac but a vivid blue and I could see the ghosts walking through it,
as if a section of the High Street cut across my carpet. The people
were all very oddly dressed. They couldn’t see me I knew and I
probably should have been terrified, but I was still disoriented  and
desperate to get to the bathroom. It was lucky it was so close as I
didn’t have to crawl too far. I still avoided the ghosts – it seemed
only right.

After I’d done what I had to do, I was sick, horribly sick, though I
managed to get most of it in the toilet bowl. The vomit was vile,
stinking of substances I didn’t have a name for. I managed to haul
myself upright, using the basin, so I could wash my face and clean my
teeth. I didn’t recognise the figure in the mirror, but I still wasn’t
seeing properly.'

Thanks

All I can say is that I'm very much looking forward to reading the whole
thing. This works for me.

Thanks. The two people who are reading it as I write are less sure. I
think the transition from normal - in the preceding chapters - to
weird in the succeeding chapters is too abrupt so I may have to either
expand this or smooth it out or something. Damn. And it was all going
so well...
I think I may have written another book where the two halves of the
plot do not make a unity : (

Nicky
.

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