: Re: Does the following opening grip you? Of all the people who wanted to join the trip, Paola was the the last I expected would come. It surprised me. We barely knew each other at school,

Overall, the opening seems fine. I've seen worse. I don't see a problem with the setting being mentioned a couple of paragraphs below. The only thing I can't figure out is the genre. Every genre is suited different types of opening. If it's a short story (I see on your profile that's what you like to write), then it's a pretty good opening. For an YA novel, I would consider rewriting it, maybe starting directly with something happening on that beach and then incorporate various details.

I have a problem with this line:

But if all my rejections had taught me anything, it was this: if a
girl never looks at you, it probably means "not a chance."

This makes me think: "Okay, so this is a story of boy pining after girl and that's it." I'm not sure if I would read that. The story on itself might be good, but if you're showing me the conclusion right in the beginning, why bother reading? Then again, if the story takes a totally different turn (boy ends with girl), it's different. But something interesting must happen soon.

On the next paragraph, you say that the girl is "almost a dot in the distance". You can't distinguish features if people are so far away. You can say that he remembers her features, or that he sees her almost like she was near him.

Last paragraph, I'm not sure why the guy is sighing. Does he think the girl is too beautiful for him? Is he tired? Is he cranky for some reason? We are in his head, so we should have a better view on his emotions.

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: There is no advantage. Most people in this forum are from a technical background, so they automatically look for technical solutions. You don't write a book how you write code. When writing

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: Re: Does the following opening grip you? Of all the people who wanted to join the trip, Paola was the the last I expected would come. It surprised me. We barely knew each other at school,

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: There is no advantage. Most people in this forum are from a technical background, so they automatically look for technical solutions. You don't write a book how you write code. When writing

: How do you casually address a child in the Midwestern dialect? How do you casually address a child in the Midwestern dialect?

: Misleading facts in the About the Author section In the 'About the Author' section of Cuckoo's calling, it says that Robert Galbraith spent several years in the military etc etc. But now that

: One of my go-tos is "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction" by Jonathan Culler. It's great for people who are new to literary theory, or for veterans that are looking to brush up on

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