Hi!
The reader age range of my novel is from 17 and older -- a mystery with light elements of Sci-Fi. My protag is a 17 yr old girl. I have tried hard (unpublished writer) to do my best and have worked on my 65,000 word novel for 2 years. About 5 months ago an editor read 85 pages with a line by line crit only and found a few punctuation errors and one or two changing the sequence of a few sentences within a paragraph. I have rewritten since about 15%, so not all has been professionally edited with my excerpt below. I'm copy/pasting the first 1,650 words as a sample so you can see if my whole novel interests you or not. I'm most interested in the larger impact of my story and not line by line crits. What I'm looking for from a Beta Reader: Plot, character... and the wheres whys of my story's strengths and weaknesses. If you see something obvious with grammar problems that's fine; but I'm most interested whether or not my story holds your interest. I'd appreciate even a speed read if that's all you have time for. Thanks for your willingness to be a Beta Reader! By saying "Beta Reader" I mean the definition here at AW where one reads and it is not where a swap is expected. Sorry about the line spacing as the automated formatting somehow first cancels out all double spaces between paragraphs and dialogue. When I hit return for each it somehow triple or quadruple spaces and I don't know how to correct that. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Winfred
Sitting side by side on the piano bench before their grand piano, Rita Hanson and her grandmother gaze far beyond the glitter and sparkle of their family's century old pair of diamond-studded Silver Slippers and beyond their winking Christmas tree lights. Rita still smells like bandages and medicine, that hospital kind of smell. Her clouds of curly blonde have been nearly all seared away from the left side of her head. The damaged remainder has been trimmed almost to the skin. She prefers to keep her undamaged hair on her right side shoulder length so for time being from under her various hats she can create the illusion of a full head of hair. To suit the season, this evening she wears a Santa hat. The left half of her face, her left wrist, and the top of her left hand, are all very reddened and shine with a layer of medical ointment. Her left forearm is wrapped in white bandages.
Rita re-emerges from her nightmare of the blazing semi truck, the monster that had leapt the freeway median and devoured her parents in a hell-fire of flame. Once again she reaches for the piano keys to save herself. Her fingers dance over the keyboard. The Silver Slippers, on their long tainted brass pedestal, sparkle in multitudes of yuletide color as only with Rita's music do they suddenly rotate and point northward. Pain meds make her lethargic and of a voice not quite her own.
“See Grandma? It's every time I play now. Every time. I just know it's Dad. It's...” Her notes crash as her tears stream again.
Her late parents smile through the wreath of white roses and over the shrine's candle flame, a memory portrait atop the piano. Grandma hugs her more tightly.
“Oh I know, all too well. It comes and goes, like waves.” She pauses, soul-searches. “It's our first Christmas without them, but we'll manage dear. We'll make it. I just thank God for the gifts of you and Suzie. I say, divine intervention, but what was God thinking? There just aren't the answers sometimes.” She looks solemnly towards the changing shapes of blinking tree light colors across the ceiling. “A thousand times, thanks to you God.”
The Silver Slippers are remnants of Rita's great grandparents' grandeur. The piano with its carved angels bearing harps within wreathes of flowers, all cracking away in the Mojave Desert dryness, is an icon of a better day. Even the listing giant's one missing leg is supported by an ancient leather-bound stack of literary history. What meager savings Grandma subsists on, she always has funds saved to keep the piano in perfect tune.
Grandma's pure white hair glows with every color's blinking, blue, green, yellow, red. Every Christmas Grandma's tree glows with new life over her near floor to ceiling shelves of dusty books. Stacks of classic titles and mysteries are also lined up over the yellowed porcelain tiled floor. It is all Rita's and her little sister Suzie's home as now Grandma is their legal guardian, their only guiding light left in the world. A piece of plaster falls from the wall. Grandma and Rita flinch then look to the shattering on the floor beyond the towering Christmas tree.
Grandma manages to smile. “Oh be quiet you old whale.”
Their smiles turn to an outburst of laughter. They hug each other more tightly. Rita suddenly sways again as tears re-emerge.
“I love you Grandma. There's nobody like you.”
***
In the dim reach of a distant street light Kazuki and Makoto's black hair, almond complexions, and tight black clothes, render them as mere shadows as they spy on Rita and Grandma through Grandma's large picture window. Flakes of paint curled from years of desert dryness and Grandma's lawn sprinkler crackle and fall as Makoto brushes against the wall of the house.
Kazuki frowns at Makoto's clumsiness. “Quiet.”
Over the decades encircling vines have spread like veins around the glass. Cracks, fault lines from desert suns' heat and desert nights' cold and the tribulations of time have long meandered across Grandma's view. From the low corner of the window, Makoto remains transfixed as Kazuki ducks low and sits out of sight. In plain view Rita and Grandma remain seated at the piano. The Silver Slippers refract with the myriad of blinking Christmas tree colors.
Makoto grins. “This place is like ancient man. See'em on the piano?”
Kazuki is preoccupied with the attache he opens in his lap. “Novaki wants full back and zoom, get any angles we can. This size window, hazy as it is and stupid vines and all, we still hit the jack pot.”
Makoto smirks. “Yah, Novaki's 'zoom', Novaki's 'angles'. Thinks he owns the world. Tokyo is his Tokyo, and capital of the world.”
Kazuki turns on a laptop. “Look, nothing's wrong with that, a little pride, after all it's our ancestry as well. Remember, he's more deeply rooted to the Japan we've become all too far removed from. It's his dollar. He puts his money where his mouth is. This job's a snap.”
Kazuki hands two suction cup microphones to Makoto. Makoto, with his long sleeve pulled over the heel of his hand, rubs away the dust of decades and attaches them to the glass.
“Yah, a 'snap'. Now I've seen it all, a pair of slippers that could put a real sparkle into my life and yours.”
Their grins of victory glow in the computer screen light. A tiny drone rises from Kazuki's grasp as he jiggers a small joy-stick. With a zoom shot through the vines and haze the Slippers still dazzle, wink with every color.
Makoto's hand, like a snake in the shadows, slinks out from inside his baggy black vest holding a high powered three fifty-seven magnum pistol. With a quick twist he attaches a sound suppressor to the barrel.
Kazuki looks up from the screen. “Keep cool! This isn't about diamonds.”
“Yah, so it's all about your 'boss' then isn't it? It's all Novaki's call, the boss dude. You know, it's those diamonds alone man. Toss the stupid Slippers! No one would ever know where the diamonds come from. Think. They're diamonds man, diamonds. We could retire for life. This would be our last job. You get one Slipper, I get the other. Better yet, I'll even take just two thirds the diamonds of one Slipper since it's your job.”
Kazuki gazes beyond the street light toward the starry night. “Satori,” he repeats as though a vague memory consumes him.
“'Satori', what 'Satori'...? Waking...? Don't get into some hocus pocus crap now.”
“Don't have a clue why... just remembering for some danged reason my great-grandfather. He was ninety-eight back then, outlived them all long after I got back to the states. A hundred and two. Worked 'til the day he died. They say they found him in his salt beds forever asleep. All he did all his freakin' life was.... He had these beds he'd made God knows when and dried and refined sea salt. That's all he ever did, salt.”
“Salt? So what? We don't need your frickin' stories right now. We're talkin' diamonds you know, and ten feet from 'em. Now. We walk away, no witnesses.”
Kazuki ignores him. “So I went along with him to his beds a few times, beds like diamonds man. I mean something about his salt, like no other... His salt like really sparkled dude, but salt, salt man. I finally asked him how on God's green earth did he just want to waste his life away ratting it out with nothing but salt. Salt. You know he'd just smile and say 'satori'. How in hell's danged fury could 'satori' mean anything 'cause he never answered what it was, just 'awakening'. He'd just smile 'satori', 'satori.'”
“Then 'satori'... big deal! It's do or die man.”
“'Satori', and his crystals, his salt, were diamonds man. Something about his smile too, 'Satori'. It's like just do our job, the video. Give the boss man what he wants and we're clean. Who knows, maybe Novaki's not so dumb. He gets the Slippers, whatever, legit, gives them an offer they can't refuse, and he's - ”
Makoto gives Kazuki a light shove. “Those are diamonds on those Slippers and you know it! 'Slippers'! That old lady's got nothin'. This rotting place is full of holes man. Look, they don't have diddly squat.”
Makoto grips an edge of siding that crumbles in his fingers. “Crumbles. The place is falling apart and she sits on those diamonds. That old lady don't know her ass. Who needs friggin' Slippers man?! Dorothy?! Oz?! Burn the Slippers. The diamonds alone and we've got it made for life dude!”
“Yah, 'for life', jerk. What's got into you Makoto? You weren't like this before. We do our part, the video, just the video... and we're home free not mass murdering and runnin' around some black market tryin' to get a fair price. You're crazy man!”
Makoto peers again through the haze of countless desert seasons with his pistol site aimed at the back of Rita's head and leaving its tiny laser dot aglow in her hair.
“One quick pop to this lousy glass, then it's just three, some of my well placed three fifty-seven magnum lead... one the blonde chick.” He swings his laser bead to the back of Grandma's head. “Two the old lady.” Laser off he aims for their dog Britney curled up with Rita's little sister Suzie both sound asleep on Grandma's hospital bed. “Three that four pawed rat. Then we're millionaires. Easy as one, two, three!”
Katsumi is stunned. “Are you real? Dude, what the hell has come over you? Diamond fever? Diamond madness? We stick to our job, come out clean on this man. I'll have nothing to do with any wet work and you know it. Be a lone wolf, or get yourself some other partner.”
***
Grandma cheers up. With her arm across Rita's shoulders, she squeezes her more tightly.
“Sometimes I feel like I'm a kid again, Huntington Beach, where those giant ocean waves just wash it all away. That's your mom and dad doing that too. That's what they want. We can wash it away too dear. You can pour yourself out right over those keys now like you do. I hear it, your waves, your soul singing. Do it.”
The reader age range of my novel is from 17 and older -- a mystery with light elements of Sci-Fi. My protag is a 17 yr old girl. I have tried hard (unpublished writer) to do my best and have worked on my 65,000 word novel for 2 years. About 5 months ago an editor read 85 pages with a line by line crit only and found a few punctuation errors and one or two changing the sequence of a few sentences within a paragraph. I have rewritten since about 15%, so not all has been professionally edited with my excerpt below. I'm copy/pasting the first 1,650 words as a sample so you can see if my whole novel interests you or not. I'm most interested in the larger impact of my story and not line by line crits. What I'm looking for from a Beta Reader: Plot, character... and the wheres whys of my story's strengths and weaknesses. If you see something obvious with grammar problems that's fine; but I'm most interested whether or not my story holds your interest. I'd appreciate even a speed read if that's all you have time for. Thanks for your willingness to be a Beta Reader! By saying "Beta Reader" I mean the definition here at AW where one reads and it is not where a swap is expected. Sorry about the line spacing as the automated formatting somehow first cancels out all double spaces between paragraphs and dialogue. When I hit return for each it somehow triple or quadruple spaces and I don't know how to correct that. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Winfred
The Silver Slipper Affair
Chapter One
The Slippers, the Myths, and Their Shadows
The Slippers, the Myths, and Their Shadows
Sitting side by side on the piano bench before their grand piano, Rita Hanson and her grandmother gaze far beyond the glitter and sparkle of their family's century old pair of diamond-studded Silver Slippers and beyond their winking Christmas tree lights. Rita still smells like bandages and medicine, that hospital kind of smell. Her clouds of curly blonde have been nearly all seared away from the left side of her head. The damaged remainder has been trimmed almost to the skin. She prefers to keep her undamaged hair on her right side shoulder length so for time being from under her various hats she can create the illusion of a full head of hair. To suit the season, this evening she wears a Santa hat. The left half of her face, her left wrist, and the top of her left hand, are all very reddened and shine with a layer of medical ointment. Her left forearm is wrapped in white bandages.
Rita re-emerges from her nightmare of the blazing semi truck, the monster that had leapt the freeway median and devoured her parents in a hell-fire of flame. Once again she reaches for the piano keys to save herself. Her fingers dance over the keyboard. The Silver Slippers, on their long tainted brass pedestal, sparkle in multitudes of yuletide color as only with Rita's music do they suddenly rotate and point northward. Pain meds make her lethargic and of a voice not quite her own.
“See Grandma? It's every time I play now. Every time. I just know it's Dad. It's...” Her notes crash as her tears stream again.
Her late parents smile through the wreath of white roses and over the shrine's candle flame, a memory portrait atop the piano. Grandma hugs her more tightly.
“Oh I know, all too well. It comes and goes, like waves.” She pauses, soul-searches. “It's our first Christmas without them, but we'll manage dear. We'll make it. I just thank God for the gifts of you and Suzie. I say, divine intervention, but what was God thinking? There just aren't the answers sometimes.” She looks solemnly towards the changing shapes of blinking tree light colors across the ceiling. “A thousand times, thanks to you God.”
The Silver Slippers are remnants of Rita's great grandparents' grandeur. The piano with its carved angels bearing harps within wreathes of flowers, all cracking away in the Mojave Desert dryness, is an icon of a better day. Even the listing giant's one missing leg is supported by an ancient leather-bound stack of literary history. What meager savings Grandma subsists on, she always has funds saved to keep the piano in perfect tune.
Grandma's pure white hair glows with every color's blinking, blue, green, yellow, red. Every Christmas Grandma's tree glows with new life over her near floor to ceiling shelves of dusty books. Stacks of classic titles and mysteries are also lined up over the yellowed porcelain tiled floor. It is all Rita's and her little sister Suzie's home as now Grandma is their legal guardian, their only guiding light left in the world. A piece of plaster falls from the wall. Grandma and Rita flinch then look to the shattering on the floor beyond the towering Christmas tree.
Grandma manages to smile. “Oh be quiet you old whale.”
Their smiles turn to an outburst of laughter. They hug each other more tightly. Rita suddenly sways again as tears re-emerge.
“I love you Grandma. There's nobody like you.”
***
In the dim reach of a distant street light Kazuki and Makoto's black hair, almond complexions, and tight black clothes, render them as mere shadows as they spy on Rita and Grandma through Grandma's large picture window. Flakes of paint curled from years of desert dryness and Grandma's lawn sprinkler crackle and fall as Makoto brushes against the wall of the house.
Kazuki frowns at Makoto's clumsiness. “Quiet.”
Over the decades encircling vines have spread like veins around the glass. Cracks, fault lines from desert suns' heat and desert nights' cold and the tribulations of time have long meandered across Grandma's view. From the low corner of the window, Makoto remains transfixed as Kazuki ducks low and sits out of sight. In plain view Rita and Grandma remain seated at the piano. The Silver Slippers refract with the myriad of blinking Christmas tree colors.
Makoto grins. “This place is like ancient man. See'em on the piano?”
Kazuki is preoccupied with the attache he opens in his lap. “Novaki wants full back and zoom, get any angles we can. This size window, hazy as it is and stupid vines and all, we still hit the jack pot.”
Makoto smirks. “Yah, Novaki's 'zoom', Novaki's 'angles'. Thinks he owns the world. Tokyo is his Tokyo, and capital of the world.”
Kazuki turns on a laptop. “Look, nothing's wrong with that, a little pride, after all it's our ancestry as well. Remember, he's more deeply rooted to the Japan we've become all too far removed from. It's his dollar. He puts his money where his mouth is. This job's a snap.”
Kazuki hands two suction cup microphones to Makoto. Makoto, with his long sleeve pulled over the heel of his hand, rubs away the dust of decades and attaches them to the glass.
“Yah, a 'snap'. Now I've seen it all, a pair of slippers that could put a real sparkle into my life and yours.”
Their grins of victory glow in the computer screen light. A tiny drone rises from Kazuki's grasp as he jiggers a small joy-stick. With a zoom shot through the vines and haze the Slippers still dazzle, wink with every color.
Makoto's hand, like a snake in the shadows, slinks out from inside his baggy black vest holding a high powered three fifty-seven magnum pistol. With a quick twist he attaches a sound suppressor to the barrel.
Kazuki looks up from the screen. “Keep cool! This isn't about diamonds.”
“Yah, so it's all about your 'boss' then isn't it? It's all Novaki's call, the boss dude. You know, it's those diamonds alone man. Toss the stupid Slippers! No one would ever know where the diamonds come from. Think. They're diamonds man, diamonds. We could retire for life. This would be our last job. You get one Slipper, I get the other. Better yet, I'll even take just two thirds the diamonds of one Slipper since it's your job.”
Kazuki gazes beyond the street light toward the starry night. “Satori,” he repeats as though a vague memory consumes him.
“'Satori', what 'Satori'...? Waking...? Don't get into some hocus pocus crap now.”
“Don't have a clue why... just remembering for some danged reason my great-grandfather. He was ninety-eight back then, outlived them all long after I got back to the states. A hundred and two. Worked 'til the day he died. They say they found him in his salt beds forever asleep. All he did all his freakin' life was.... He had these beds he'd made God knows when and dried and refined sea salt. That's all he ever did, salt.”
“Salt? So what? We don't need your frickin' stories right now. We're talkin' diamonds you know, and ten feet from 'em. Now. We walk away, no witnesses.”
Kazuki ignores him. “So I went along with him to his beds a few times, beds like diamonds man. I mean something about his salt, like no other... His salt like really sparkled dude, but salt, salt man. I finally asked him how on God's green earth did he just want to waste his life away ratting it out with nothing but salt. Salt. You know he'd just smile and say 'satori'. How in hell's danged fury could 'satori' mean anything 'cause he never answered what it was, just 'awakening'. He'd just smile 'satori', 'satori.'”
“Then 'satori'... big deal! It's do or die man.”
“'Satori', and his crystals, his salt, were diamonds man. Something about his smile too, 'Satori'. It's like just do our job, the video. Give the boss man what he wants and we're clean. Who knows, maybe Novaki's not so dumb. He gets the Slippers, whatever, legit, gives them an offer they can't refuse, and he's - ”
Makoto gives Kazuki a light shove. “Those are diamonds on those Slippers and you know it! 'Slippers'! That old lady's got nothin'. This rotting place is full of holes man. Look, they don't have diddly squat.”
Makoto grips an edge of siding that crumbles in his fingers. “Crumbles. The place is falling apart and she sits on those diamonds. That old lady don't know her ass. Who needs friggin' Slippers man?! Dorothy?! Oz?! Burn the Slippers. The diamonds alone and we've got it made for life dude!”
“Yah, 'for life', jerk. What's got into you Makoto? You weren't like this before. We do our part, the video, just the video... and we're home free not mass murdering and runnin' around some black market tryin' to get a fair price. You're crazy man!”
Makoto peers again through the haze of countless desert seasons with his pistol site aimed at the back of Rita's head and leaving its tiny laser dot aglow in her hair.
“One quick pop to this lousy glass, then it's just three, some of my well placed three fifty-seven magnum lead... one the blonde chick.” He swings his laser bead to the back of Grandma's head. “Two the old lady.” Laser off he aims for their dog Britney curled up with Rita's little sister Suzie both sound asleep on Grandma's hospital bed. “Three that four pawed rat. Then we're millionaires. Easy as one, two, three!”
Katsumi is stunned. “Are you real? Dude, what the hell has come over you? Diamond fever? Diamond madness? We stick to our job, come out clean on this man. I'll have nothing to do with any wet work and you know it. Be a lone wolf, or get yourself some other partner.”
***
Grandma cheers up. With her arm across Rita's shoulders, she squeezes her more tightly.
“Sometimes I feel like I'm a kid again, Huntington Beach, where those giant ocean waves just wash it all away. That's your mom and dad doing that too. That's what they want. We can wash it away too dear. You can pour yourself out right over those keys now like you do. I hear it, your waves, your soul singing. Do it.”
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