I was not chosen to progress past the entry process and into the quarterfinals with BENEFICIARY. As I've said in previous posts, I know BENEFICIARY has flaws and a long way to go before it is saleable, but I figured it couldn't hurt to enter. Also, a friend entered last year and I followed the contest to its conclusion as a result (and read FRESH KILLS, the winner).
Blah, blah, blah; enough background. My excerpt was reviewed by two "experts" and two separate sets of feedback were posted today to my CreateSpace account, as follows. I have one word: MIXED.
ABNA Expert Reviewer: This was well written. Clear, to the point, and quick. The dialogue flowed well, it was natural, just as it should be. I read this, and I could imagine actual people talking this way. Depending on how this story goes, it could be something good, or it could be a standard dead beat dad comes around looking for money. I get the feeling this is something a bit more. That maybe Dad the Dead Beat has something more to him. He knows he owes a debt, and is surprised to hear his sons might be coming into some money. So the question here is-Does he go to his sons and will they give him a second chance? Will he find redemption, or will he disappoint them again? Will Tommy bail his father out after all this time, or will he leave him to Roscoe's switchblade? This is something I would read. Again, just from what I have read, I sense something deeper. Something stronger than just your typical story. The characters were well fleshed out, but there wasn't so much given away that we feel as if we know everything already. Good beginning, and I really see some potential!
ABNA Expert Reviewer: This writer writes well, uses words well. He can describe an action scene, and he knows how to built character and makes his characters come alive. But I have an argument with content. This may be me, but a novel that starts with a 50-year-old man being beat up for owing money to the mob is not a turn on. Also, I need quite a bit more than a commitment to volleyball playing to gain my sympathy for the debtor's son (obvious one of the main characters in the novel). The first three-and-one-half pages of chapter 2 describe a volleyball game that doesn't really move the story forward. The main or one of the main characters appearing in chapter one is a fifty-year-old (or more) man who abandoned his family, disappeared for years, owes thirty thousand dollars to the mob and now must contact his sons to try to get them to pay his debt for him. Granted, he may not be the hero, overall, of this novel, but why should I care about this man? I mean, I can feel for him and the situation his mistakes have brought him to. But in the novels I read, I'm looking for more, for a character I like, admire (usually), maybe would even like to emulate. This character, obviously, isn't it.
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