Give anticipation room to breathe (page critique)

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Now then. Time for the Page Critique. First I’ll present the page without comment, then I’ll offer my thoughts and a redline. If you choose to offer your own thoughts, please be polite. We aim to be positive and helpful.

Random numbers were generated, and thanks to DaisyD, whose page is below:

Title: MCGUIRES TO THE MOON
Genre: Middle Grade Action/Adventure

All eyes are on me right now, and I have to look cool. I leap into the air and try not to wince as the ball hits my hands with the sting of a thousand bees. I smack it away, blocking the final penalty kick and sealing the tournament win for my seventh-grade soccer team.

Wow. I kind of can’t believe I just did that. I usually screw up everything.

I punch the air in rapid fire and hike my knees up from side to side. The crowd jumps to their feet and cheers me on as I ramp up my little boxing cowboy victory dance. I’ve been working on it in my room when nobody’s looking.

“Ben! Ben! Ben!” My friends and two little brothers jump up and shout from the stands. But mid-hip swing, I look up and spot a growing brown cloud heading toward the soccer field. It looks to be about a mile out, which means everyone at the game has five minutes to scram, at best. I freeze on the spot and feel the color draining from my face. My younger brothers recognize my sudden shift to panic mode and turn to see what I’ve just laid eyes on.

“Dust storm!” the referee yells at the top of his lungs. It’s a biggie. Everyone in the stands starts freaking out. Moms grab babies, dads dash to fire up minivans, and the ref falls to his knees and starts crying. So much for crushing it at the game. We’re all about to get crushed for real if we don’t high-tail it outta there.

Time to put on a brave face and act like I’ve got this.

This page has an engaging voice that draws us in, and I like that we’re getting situated around Ben’s life. That said, this opening encapsulates a problem I often see at the start of novels, where there are vaguely describe Things happening, then we quickly get both the setup (penalty kicks in a 7th grade soccer tournament) and the payoff (he blocked it). Sometimes, as in this case, the setup even comes after the payoff, so we have to go back and reimagine the scene with that in mind.

Not only is it sometimes a disorienting way to read because we have to piece together clues and why they matter, it’s a missed opportunity to prime the reader around what the protagonist needs to and feel satisfaction on their behalf when they succeed.

Give anticipation room to breathe! Build mysteries around whether protagonists will succeed or fail rather than making it mysterious what’s happening entirely.

Aside from that, this page also has quite a bit of excess verbiage (leaping “in the air,” aimless looking when it’s clear what the protagonist is seeing, tacking needless “options” onto sentences, etc.), and it wouldn’t surprise me if this manuscript came in above the word count band recommended for middle grade. Those little extra redundancies really add up over the course of a novel.

Here’s my redline:

Title: MCGUIRES TO THE MOON
Genre: Middle Grade Action/Adventure

All eyes are on me right now, and I have to look cool. [Missed opportunity to be more specific/vivid. What do “all eyes” and “look cool” mean specifically to the protagonist?] I leap into the air and try not to wince as the ball hits my hands with the sting of a thousand bees. I smack it away, blocking the final penalty kick and sealing the tournament win for my seventh-grade soccer team. [We get the setup and the payoff at the same time. We might have felt excited on his behalf, but we didn’t have any time for anticipation to build and the stakes aren’t clearly established]

Wow. I kind of can’t believe I just did that. I usually screw up everything.

I punch the air in rapid fire and hike my knees up from side to side. T the crowd jumps to their feet and cheers me on as I ramp up my little boxing cowboy victory dance. I’ve been working on it in my room when nobody’s looking.

“Ben! Ben! Ben!”

¶My friends and two little brothers jump up and shout from the stands. But mid-hip swing, I look up and spot a growing brown cloud is heading toward the soccer field. It looks to be about a mile out, which means e Everyone at the game has five minutes to scram, at best. I freeze on the spot and feel the color draining from my face [Pick one, they’re redundant together]. My younger brothers recognize my sudden shift to panic mode and turn to see what I’ve just laid eyes on.

“Dust storm!” the referee yells at the top of his lungs.

¶It’s a biggie. Everyone in the stands starts freaking out. [Just show this] Moms grab babies, dads dash to fire up minivans, and the ref falls to his knees and starts crying. [What’s the context for this reaction?] So much for crushing it at the game. We’re all about to get crushed for real if we don’t high-tail it outta there.

Time to put on a brave face and act like I’ve got this. [Got what? I don’t understand what he thinks he needs to do]

Thanks again to DaisyD!

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