Manuscript Title: Death in the Second Act
Manuscript Genre: amateur sleuth murder mystery
Manuscript Word Count: aiming for about 75K words, but only about half are already written
Is your manuscript finished?: No
Hook:
For stage manager Trish Travis, three months of summer stock in the country with several old friends is a welcome break from city life. The chance to work with -- and date! -- Danny Roeder, one of the artistic heroes of her youth, is a dream come true for Trish as he tries to rebuild his once-brilliant career from the ashes of burnout and substance abuse.
But when she witnesses Danny in a questionable situation with a pretty, young costume assistant named Melisande, Trish begins to have doubts. When Melisande is murdered and then Danny disappears, Trish’s resolve to find the truth about the man whose bed she’d been sharing uncovers dangerous secrets about more of her friends and coworkers. Can Trish's backstage knowledge help uncover a killer?
First 750 words:
Scarlet spandex blazed against the back of the stage left platform – damn! I swear, actors could be as scatterbrained as children when it came to cleaning up after themselves.
Carbs, grease, and iceberg lettuce sang their siren call from the Kozy Korner downtown, but they would just have to wait. I detoured from my quick pass through backstage to retrieve that stray costume piece dangling from a nail.
Easy enough to miss under stage lighting -- I could almost forgive whichever chorus girl left it there during the dress rehearsal. But there was no excuse afterward, with the worklights on and daylight from the pine-scented Adirondack afternoon streaming through the open door from the loading dock. That useless English costume assistant should have checked backstage before taking her dinner break.
First she missed a cue assisting a quick costume change in the second act. And now this. I was going to have to have another talk with Miss Melisande Hart. Just because her mother was a world-class fashion designer didn’t mean she could get away with slacking at her own job. Costa Playhouse may be a dinky little upstate summer theatre, but I pride myself on running a tight ship backstage.
I headed toward the backstage hallway with the offending garment. Brenda, the rotund red-headed designer, emerged from the women’s dressing room, laden with an armful of jewel-toned tops
Danny had requested more sequins lining everyone’s cleavage. Directing musical comedy might be a change from the avant garde experimentalism and classics that had made his name, but he was catching on quick.
I added the scarlet shirt in my hand to her pile. “Shouldn’t Melisande be doing that?” I asked. Yet another demerit for the missing Miss Hart.
“Eh, probably,” Brenda said, cheerfully resigned. A summer stock veteran, she was no stranger to the time crunch of tech week. She creaked up the two wooden steps to the costume shop annex.
I turned around and was promptly greeted by Danny, snuggling into my personal space like he owned it. The heavy-framed glasses he hated wearing and the crease between his eyes told me he was feeling just as burnt out from the stress of tech week as I was. “Got any ibuprofen, Trish, sweetheart?”
With every touch, every smile and endearment, I still felt amazement at this summer’s intimacy with a guy whose work I’d once written term papers on.
"Yeah, just a second." I rummaged through my backpack and came up with a bottle. He shook out a couple and swallowed them dry.
"Put that ridiculous thing down," he said, as I started to lift my bag off the floor. "What is it, your home away from home?"
"Sort of." He'd teased me about it before. But I needed that room to carry promptbooks, tools, pencils, tape, anything else a busy stage manager might need at a moment's notice. So what if carrying it caused hell on my neck muscles?
I rubbed my neck. Danny brushed my hand away and began kneading it himself. I shivered involuntarily at the warmth of his fingers and his coffee-infused breath against my skin.
"Let's go somewhere," he whispered huskily.
Brain and stomach warred with my genitals. He still owed me one hell of an explanation for last night. "I was thinking dinner."
"Not the diner. Last thing I want right now is to run into half the cast."
"Have you had any food since breakfast?" I asked. Sometimes I feel like the biggest part my job is playing mom to creative types who can't be bothered to exercise the simplest common sense.
"Coffee."
"Me too. I have got to eat something, Danny, or I'll be even crankier tonight."
"I've got something for you to eat," he deadpanned. Maybe he meant he had food in his room . . . or not.
Before I could work that one out, we heard a scream.
Danny's hands froze on my shoulders.
"Costume shop," I said. I was up the stairs in double time, Danny close behind me.
Brenda stood to the right of the shop, pile of shirts at her feet, amid more than the usual disorder. Hyperventilating, she gaped at the open door of the industrial‑sized clothes dryer.
A stream of tangled gold hair trickled out onto the floor. Inching closer to confirm that was really a person in there, I recognized the ridiculous ruffly white dress before the upside-down, too-red face.
It was Melisande Hart.
What do you look for in a beta?:
Some scenes are already polished; others are still in rough draft or not yet written. So I am not looking for line-by-line critting.
I’m mainly looking for feedback on plot and characters. Can you follow what’s going on? Do the motivations and relationships make sense? Can you keep track of all the characters? What needs more explanation, or less?
Manuscript Genre: amateur sleuth murder mystery
Manuscript Word Count: aiming for about 75K words, but only about half are already written
Is your manuscript finished?: No
Hook:
For stage manager Trish Travis, three months of summer stock in the country with several old friends is a welcome break from city life. The chance to work with -- and date! -- Danny Roeder, one of the artistic heroes of her youth, is a dream come true for Trish as he tries to rebuild his once-brilliant career from the ashes of burnout and substance abuse.
But when she witnesses Danny in a questionable situation with a pretty, young costume assistant named Melisande, Trish begins to have doubts. When Melisande is murdered and then Danny disappears, Trish’s resolve to find the truth about the man whose bed she’d been sharing uncovers dangerous secrets about more of her friends and coworkers. Can Trish's backstage knowledge help uncover a killer?
First 750 words:
Scarlet spandex blazed against the back of the stage left platform – damn! I swear, actors could be as scatterbrained as children when it came to cleaning up after themselves.
Carbs, grease, and iceberg lettuce sang their siren call from the Kozy Korner downtown, but they would just have to wait. I detoured from my quick pass through backstage to retrieve that stray costume piece dangling from a nail.
Easy enough to miss under stage lighting -- I could almost forgive whichever chorus girl left it there during the dress rehearsal. But there was no excuse afterward, with the worklights on and daylight from the pine-scented Adirondack afternoon streaming through the open door from the loading dock. That useless English costume assistant should have checked backstage before taking her dinner break.
First she missed a cue assisting a quick costume change in the second act. And now this. I was going to have to have another talk with Miss Melisande Hart. Just because her mother was a world-class fashion designer didn’t mean she could get away with slacking at her own job. Costa Playhouse may be a dinky little upstate summer theatre, but I pride myself on running a tight ship backstage.
I headed toward the backstage hallway with the offending garment. Brenda, the rotund red-headed designer, emerged from the women’s dressing room, laden with an armful of jewel-toned tops
Danny had requested more sequins lining everyone’s cleavage. Directing musical comedy might be a change from the avant garde experimentalism and classics that had made his name, but he was catching on quick.
I added the scarlet shirt in my hand to her pile. “Shouldn’t Melisande be doing that?” I asked. Yet another demerit for the missing Miss Hart.
“Eh, probably,” Brenda said, cheerfully resigned. A summer stock veteran, she was no stranger to the time crunch of tech week. She creaked up the two wooden steps to the costume shop annex.
I turned around and was promptly greeted by Danny, snuggling into my personal space like he owned it. The heavy-framed glasses he hated wearing and the crease between his eyes told me he was feeling just as burnt out from the stress of tech week as I was. “Got any ibuprofen, Trish, sweetheart?”
With every touch, every smile and endearment, I still felt amazement at this summer’s intimacy with a guy whose work I’d once written term papers on.
"Yeah, just a second." I rummaged through my backpack and came up with a bottle. He shook out a couple and swallowed them dry.
"Put that ridiculous thing down," he said, as I started to lift my bag off the floor. "What is it, your home away from home?"
"Sort of." He'd teased me about it before. But I needed that room to carry promptbooks, tools, pencils, tape, anything else a busy stage manager might need at a moment's notice. So what if carrying it caused hell on my neck muscles?
I rubbed my neck. Danny brushed my hand away and began kneading it himself. I shivered involuntarily at the warmth of his fingers and his coffee-infused breath against my skin.
"Let's go somewhere," he whispered huskily.
Brain and stomach warred with my genitals. He still owed me one hell of an explanation for last night. "I was thinking dinner."
"Not the diner. Last thing I want right now is to run into half the cast."
"Have you had any food since breakfast?" I asked. Sometimes I feel like the biggest part my job is playing mom to creative types who can't be bothered to exercise the simplest common sense.
"Coffee."
"Me too. I have got to eat something, Danny, or I'll be even crankier tonight."
"I've got something for you to eat," he deadpanned. Maybe he meant he had food in his room . . . or not.
Before I could work that one out, we heard a scream.
Danny's hands froze on my shoulders.
"Costume shop," I said. I was up the stairs in double time, Danny close behind me.
Brenda stood to the right of the shop, pile of shirts at her feet, amid more than the usual disorder. Hyperventilating, she gaped at the open door of the industrial‑sized clothes dryer.
A stream of tangled gold hair trickled out onto the floor. Inching closer to confirm that was really a person in there, I recognized the ridiculous ruffly white dress before the upside-down, too-red face.
It was Melisande Hart.
What do you look for in a beta?:
Some scenes are already polished; others are still in rough draft or not yet written. So I am not looking for line-by-line critting.
I’m mainly looking for feedback on plot and characters. Can you follow what’s going on? Do the motivations and relationships make sense? Can you keep track of all the characters? What needs more explanation, or less?