Hey, all! I've been really struggling with the quest for readers for an LGBTQ+ YA Horror I finished a few months ago. The main problem I've run into is typical YA readers' general aversion to horror/gore and general horror readers' aversion to the highly contemporary voice the story is told in lol. However, if you love reading where the two intercept, please give my story a try! I've had a terrible year for reading and beta-reading alike, but I'm willing to try for a swap, too, if we have similar word counts (I've been digging into contemporary lately? if that helps!)
I'm not looking for any specific comments, I'm looking for a read through in the most general sense (like if you were posting an Amazon review of a published book). Any comments you have will be helpful, but no pressure!
All that being said, here's a direct copy/paste from my "Beta Project" entry from June!
Manuscript Title: Dead Girls Walking
Manuscript Genre: YA Horror
Manuscript Word Count: 73K
Is your manuscript finished?: Yes
Any trigger warnings?: Blood/Gore
Hook:
Temple is a 16-year-old girl whose father was arrested and convicted of serial murder. She gets a camp counselor position for her latest school's Queer/Horror-Aficionado Club, Pride Rocks—and their trip is to the well-known old home and gravesite of a famous horror writer. Of course, it's known better to Temple as her father's old dumping grounds.
While all the other girls are there to have fun and geek out, Temple is on a mission to find her missing mother's dead body and find out whether or not her father murdered her. Instead, she discovers a paranormal evil haunts the woods, and soon girls go missing, turn up dead, or get possessed and kill each other. Once girls start dying, Temple is driven by her desire to survive and repent for her father's evil, and lead her fellow campmates through the woods she grew up with.
First 750 words:
Temple Baker came to Cary Lauren Horrors Camp alone. In hindsight it was stupid, but she thought it was pretty stupid throughout the journey, too. She stood by herself on the far end of the mall parking lot, past any of the good stores, with the tumbleweeds and local repair shops. That was a good place to get murdered.
For a whole hour, she waited for the shuttle bus, a half-bus that drove in from the nearest town over to the campsite she'd gotten her first job at. That was ample time for some man—like, statistically—to run up and slit her throat.
Wait, no. Not every killer out there was a serial killer like her father, she had to remind herself. Of course, Temple wasn't to blame for stereotyping them like that. One hundred percent of the murderers she knew were serial killers.
Plus, she was a lesbian. It wasn't like she'd be killed by an ex-boyfriend or anything, like most murder victims. She assumed like most murder victims. She probably had some classmates that hated her enough to want to do it, but they had none of the guts. And she went to an all-girls' school. So no murderers there, probably.
The shuttle finally showed up, and she was the only rider that climbed on before it peeled out of the mall and out onto the highway. The driver didn't speak to her. She had perfected an expression that begged to be ignored, and it was her most prized possession.
After another absurd amount of time, the bus turned off of the road into a path that cut into the forest. It was also abandoned, with nothing but mowed down, folded brush and bushes more bowled over than cleared out. It would have been nothing for the bus driver to slit her throat, toss her body out on the shuttle path, and leave the horror nuts to chalk it up to spooky mysteries.
But then she finally got to the campsite and met Brenda and Lam, her boss camp counselors. Over the past month, she'd emailed them incessantly with details and lists, camp games and songs. It was exhausting to pretend to be likeable, even if it was just digitally.
"Oh my gooood, Temple. Finally," Brenda gushed, hugging Temple to her chest like Brenda was forty years older—and they were related somehow.
Lam hung back, peering over like an age-matching grandfather figure. She put out her cigarette on the countertop, giving Temple a curt nod.
"Oh, the camp is finally starting," Brenda said. Her eyes bugged out as she pat over Temple excitedly, fidgeting with her coat, and ripping it off while her mouth went a mile a minute. "There's always such blackness in the air when I see you guys coming in and I can't wait for you guys to see all the creepy corners of this camp, and Cary Lauren's grave, and the rooms her students wrote in."
Brenda babbled about death and darkness with the giddiness of a toddler high off of sugar. That was when it all settled in—holy shit. That whole time she could have been murdered.
It was what the camp was all about—Black queer icon and horror writer, Cary Lauren, and all her mystery death bullshit hidden around some poorly maintained buildings in the Northern Virginia forest.
Brenda grabbed Temple's bag, tossing it aside just as the door slapped open. Another teenaged girl walked in, and Brenda squealed again. "Anysaa! Temple! Do you guys know each other—do you know each other?"
Temple and Anysaa nodded to one another, and cut their eyes away immediately. It was best not to acknowledge the other existed. It didn't matter to Brenda. She went on with the screeching.
"So. Tour!" She threw her arms wide to the small room.
It was about the size of a studio apartment. There was a dining table on the right side, with benches and mismatched chairs so it could sit the thirteen teenaged girls. Behind that, there was a tiny kitchen with a sink, oven, and mini-fridge. On the left side of the room, a simple, large couch blocked a boarded up fireplace. Beside the couch, the door to the adult rooms.
What a luxurious suite.
Brenda held onto her giddy grin. "When Cary Lauren opened her school for fiction writers, she used this hall as the main classroom." She closed her eyes in bliss. "Sometimes it's like I can hear their ghosts writing."
Thanks to anyone interested! (I'm leaving the country for the next few days, so responses will be delayed)
I'm not looking for any specific comments, I'm looking for a read through in the most general sense (like if you were posting an Amazon review of a published book). Any comments you have will be helpful, but no pressure!
All that being said, here's a direct copy/paste from my "Beta Project" entry from June!
Manuscript Title: Dead Girls Walking
Manuscript Genre: YA Horror
Manuscript Word Count: 73K
Is your manuscript finished?: Yes
Any trigger warnings?: Blood/Gore
Hook:
Temple is a 16-year-old girl whose father was arrested and convicted of serial murder. She gets a camp counselor position for her latest school's Queer/Horror-Aficionado Club, Pride Rocks—and their trip is to the well-known old home and gravesite of a famous horror writer. Of course, it's known better to Temple as her father's old dumping grounds.
While all the other girls are there to have fun and geek out, Temple is on a mission to find her missing mother's dead body and find out whether or not her father murdered her. Instead, she discovers a paranormal evil haunts the woods, and soon girls go missing, turn up dead, or get possessed and kill each other. Once girls start dying, Temple is driven by her desire to survive and repent for her father's evil, and lead her fellow campmates through the woods she grew up with.
First 750 words:
Temple Baker came to Cary Lauren Horrors Camp alone. In hindsight it was stupid, but she thought it was pretty stupid throughout the journey, too. She stood by herself on the far end of the mall parking lot, past any of the good stores, with the tumbleweeds and local repair shops. That was a good place to get murdered.
For a whole hour, she waited for the shuttle bus, a half-bus that drove in from the nearest town over to the campsite she'd gotten her first job at. That was ample time for some man—like, statistically—to run up and slit her throat.
Wait, no. Not every killer out there was a serial killer like her father, she had to remind herself. Of course, Temple wasn't to blame for stereotyping them like that. One hundred percent of the murderers she knew were serial killers.
Plus, she was a lesbian. It wasn't like she'd be killed by an ex-boyfriend or anything, like most murder victims. She assumed like most murder victims. She probably had some classmates that hated her enough to want to do it, but they had none of the guts. And she went to an all-girls' school. So no murderers there, probably.
The shuttle finally showed up, and she was the only rider that climbed on before it peeled out of the mall and out onto the highway. The driver didn't speak to her. She had perfected an expression that begged to be ignored, and it was her most prized possession.
After another absurd amount of time, the bus turned off of the road into a path that cut into the forest. It was also abandoned, with nothing but mowed down, folded brush and bushes more bowled over than cleared out. It would have been nothing for the bus driver to slit her throat, toss her body out on the shuttle path, and leave the horror nuts to chalk it up to spooky mysteries.
But then she finally got to the campsite and met Brenda and Lam, her boss camp counselors. Over the past month, she'd emailed them incessantly with details and lists, camp games and songs. It was exhausting to pretend to be likeable, even if it was just digitally.
"Oh my gooood, Temple. Finally," Brenda gushed, hugging Temple to her chest like Brenda was forty years older—and they were related somehow.
Lam hung back, peering over like an age-matching grandfather figure. She put out her cigarette on the countertop, giving Temple a curt nod.
"Oh, the camp is finally starting," Brenda said. Her eyes bugged out as she pat over Temple excitedly, fidgeting with her coat, and ripping it off while her mouth went a mile a minute. "There's always such blackness in the air when I see you guys coming in and I can't wait for you guys to see all the creepy corners of this camp, and Cary Lauren's grave, and the rooms her students wrote in."
Brenda babbled about death and darkness with the giddiness of a toddler high off of sugar. That was when it all settled in—holy shit. That whole time she could have been murdered.
It was what the camp was all about—Black queer icon and horror writer, Cary Lauren, and all her mystery death bullshit hidden around some poorly maintained buildings in the Northern Virginia forest.
Brenda grabbed Temple's bag, tossing it aside just as the door slapped open. Another teenaged girl walked in, and Brenda squealed again. "Anysaa! Temple! Do you guys know each other—do you know each other?"
Temple and Anysaa nodded to one another, and cut their eyes away immediately. It was best not to acknowledge the other existed. It didn't matter to Brenda. She went on with the screeching.
"So. Tour!" She threw her arms wide to the small room.
It was about the size of a studio apartment. There was a dining table on the right side, with benches and mismatched chairs so it could sit the thirteen teenaged girls. Behind that, there was a tiny kitchen with a sink, oven, and mini-fridge. On the left side of the room, a simple, large couch blocked a boarded up fireplace. Beside the couch, the door to the adult rooms.
What a luxurious suite.
Brenda held onto her giddy grin. "When Cary Lauren opened her school for fiction writers, she used this hall as the main classroom." She closed her eyes in bliss. "Sometimes it's like I can hear their ghosts writing."
Thanks to anyone interested! (I'm leaving the country for the next few days, so responses will be delayed)
