The Drifters

This came to me highly recommended...and I wasn't disappointed. Very intriguing and marvelous reading. I wish you best of luck with this great work. On my shelf.

L. Anne Carrington, "The Cruiserweight"

I just finished it. I really like the story line, but you need to do some serious editing. The comma thing in my earlier comment, of course, but you also often have verb disagreement. Is the story told in the present tense or the past tense? Usually books are told in past tense - you probably already knew that - and so reading in present tense can throw off some people. But it can be done. Choose a tense and stick with it.

And this is more a personal pet peeve, but using exclamation marks in prose has always bugged me. Someone once told me it's like laughing at your own joke. Or maybe that was in a movie. Nevertheless, it's true. While exclamation marks can make the narrative in a first-person story seem more like the character's actual thoughts, it usually just makes it look amateurish. In The Hobbit, I think, there are parts where Tolkien uses it, and even then it kind of jarred me out of the story. So I guess if you still want them there, you can keep them, but usually a properly written reveal with a period will make just as much impact if not more. To me, anyhow.

Go through and do that and you will have a very nice book :) I think I'll keep it on my shelf for now because I like your story and I think you have lots of potential. Remember, your first million words are for practice, and you get better at writing by writing. Good luck!

I've only read the first chapter, but I think I'll add it and finish it later. The story sounds like something I'd be into :)

The one thing I liked in particular, though, was the bit about "I know I'm pretty because my aunt was". It says a lot about the character without saying too much. Nice bit of work :)

One thing I'll say is that your use of commas could use some work. There are some places where you need one and don't have one and some places where one is there and shouldn't be. Common problem, but don't worry, it's easily fixed.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm
This is a good site to help you. :)

Hi Lauren, your time travelling tale of distant paramours, experiencing each other's existence across time and space, is quite a difficult thing to achieve. But you have woven the two together, like a tapestry of imaginative characters that have been so inventive in your book. I was pretty much hooked from chapter one, particularly surprised, that I found myself at ease with the Heroine, which most Men find difficult, but it was that damn good. I wish you all the best with your book, and I shall back it as soon as there is room on my shelf. Good luck with everything and Take care. Cicuta, [ Carl, Arcane ].

What a great story! I just LOVE time travel stories! The fantasy of that alternate universe, and the opportunity to look at life from a different standpoint, is such a draw for me.

I love how your story starts out in the prologue with your character disappearing into the white light. The only suggestion I would make is to expand that scene a little with more description. It seemed slightly "brief", leaving me wanting more of a build up before she makes the jump.

Anyway, I like the story. Good luck with it!

Shelly
A Duke from the Past, The Scandalous Tutor

Hiya Lauren, strong narrative voice. strong story-teller's eye. hooked.
on my shelf.
saw the odd VERY minor grammar nitpick:
"Of course any party in the Hill family no matter how simple, ..." - maybe add comma after "family" seeing as you use one after "simple"
best wishes, andy

An engaging science fiction tale. Empathetic characters. Wonderfully detailed, vivid settings. True-to-life dialogue. Insightful, thought-provoking narrative. Awesome world building. Remarkable writing. A stellar read. Backed.

Lauren,

Good opening chapter. You provide a little back-story without distracting from the main story, always a difficult trick.

One thing I noticed was that you used the phrase, 'So I wasn't surprised . . .' twice in the opening (once about the decorations, then about Sarah) in close proximity.

Chapter two and three flow equally well, though I notice a minor typo in three:

They are giving these out! In ever[y] color over there.

All in all a nice light story, which should appeal to the YA audience.

Backed.

You have written a very interesting and unique storyline, which I do like, and created a most memorable main character in Ava. I also really like your use of the first person narrative voice as this allows you to fully explore her wide range of feelings and thoughts. The dialogue is realistic and well written and the pace of your story flows well. All of this along with your descriptive writing ensures that your science fiction romance will appeal to the YA audience. Backed with pleasure.

Andrew Burans
The Reluctant Warrior: The Beginning

You've written a jewel, Lauren. You need to be promoting your work more. I came to your book because another author had it on her watchlist and I was just curious. I see that your ranking has come down. Do that means that you don't visit this site often? I know that your book has great potential to make it to the editor's desk, but to get there, I recommend you come often to Authonomy and support books you deem appropriate. I think that's the best way to call attention to your book, and I'm sure they will back you too once they see your caliber and the exemplary work you've done.

David Placeres
Sunless Shadows

Great read...great flow. This is one that the reader gets into quickly and you keep us engaged. Great job!

Lockjaw

The premise is really good, and the story is intriguing. However, the writing lets you down a little. I think all it needs is a good edit - there are stray apostrophes and in the prologue alone you used the phrase 'so I wasn't surprised when...' twice.

As I said, it just needs a polish. I love the addition of the fortune teller and the introduction of the mystery bracelet, and the strange world that Ava visits.

I hope this does well :)

Esme C
'The Summoner'

Hi Lauren, If the aunt is the true mother then her real father must have made her real mother pregnant. Did her adoptive mother mother and her father adopt her or did her mother die in child birth? Interesting reading. I BACK it. Harold Alvin(ICON)Wesley

Hi,

I`ve really enjoyed what I`ve read so far and will definitiely come back and read more. Backed with pleasure.

Good luck,
Cerys (Gabriel)

This is a great coming of age story, filled with vivd imagery and sparkling characters. You find yourself enthralled by this world which you have painted so strongly and I can't wait to see what the secret is. Recommended.

Ava is a wonderful character, right away we're drawn in by her, and you keep things moving along at a perfect pace, feeding us one intrigue after another.

Backed with pleasure.

Abi xxx

Dear Author
Your book inspires and threads a fine path. It is stimulating and provocative in content. Your style of writing is unique and offers up a treat. It was indeed a pleasure to read it.
Backed
The Lord of the Dawn. Beyond 2012.

The Drifters:

Lauren,

Before Ava receives the gift of the bracelet from her friend, Sarah, we see Ava with the palms of her hands unaccountably sweating and she is feeling dizzy. Then there is a pleasant lull as Ava enjoys the kindness of her friend and all seems innocent friendship until Ava is aware of an aura and we have as a consequence the very abrupt twist to 'I was gone'.
Where? Why? How? You have the reader well hooked into scene2.
Clearly the bracelet has some magical or supernatural quality that seems to take possession of Ava - but from what source? We have to read on...
The second scene plays very subtly on the similarity between being transported to a dream world and actually dreaming. We know she isn't actually dreaming or that there is only a world of her imagination but rather the beautifully described landscape of which she becomes aware each birthday is, we can suppose, real - even if only visible to she who is attuned to it.
Well crafted, plotted and beautifully described settings.

Backed.
Ray
(A Child from the Wishing Well)

The Drifter

I know what she means; I enter a state of altered reality on my birthday.
Seriously this is a great story very, very well told. The thing that impressed me the most was how you create characters, they are so strong and well written. This book is a great read. – Good luck

All of us wish at some point we could enter an alternative world to get us out of our problems. So that makes this a good story. And also a warning: Be careful what you wish for; it might come true. You have a sympathetic character in Ava. It's easy to see why she's so drawn to Ethan. All together, makes this a good read. I'm adding this to my shelf. Burgio (Grain of Salt).

Thanks for your story, Lauren. Hope you'll read mine, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not & my unedited version, Tell Me True Love Stories of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. Thanks, Susie :)

Hi -- I read your book a while ago. Backed. Punctuation is a problem but it can easily be sorted.
Best wishes, Barry
(Little Krisna and the Bihar Boys)

Backed a few days ago and just wanted to say I very much enjoyed the four chapters I read and to wish you the best of luck with The Drifters

Natalie

A nice beginning, a nice opener, but with one almighty problem... punctuation. You use apostrophes in the wrong places, your dialogue isn't correctly formatted and you don't break up your chapters into readable indents. You use exclamation marks as sentence endings when the sentence hasn't finished, and many of your commas are not necessary and redundant. The answer to this problem? Editing, and editing for a long time. It's not a pleasant thing to do... I'm in the middle of editing myself at the moment and it drives me crazy. But it will make your book a better read and this is a good thing, because the storyline is strong and I can see this having real appeal for the Y.A market.

Ava is the reluctant heroine, with a mysterious ailment and a missing Aunt Rachel who I suspect may hold the key to her solution. You have the handsome romantic lead and bucketloads of suspense. You write with an honest and true to heart manner which clearly echoes the thought patterns of a young girl- very well done, because I can never get that youthful tone correct in my writing.

One more thing... watch your tenses. They jump occasionally and this jars your prose even more than the punctuation errors can.

All the best with this one. I'll watch it closely! All the best. L.x

I liked your pitch and the premise of the story so I read through chapter 4. Here are my notes:

Watch punctuation (i.e. "mother's were lawyers", "moms car", and "it's own game").

I liked the drama of "I was gone" and how it stood out by itself. I did wonder how Sarah reacted. Did she notice? Later on, you mention that it never happens when someone is there, but Sarah was there the first time, so that confused me.

Look for and remove extraneous words (i.e. "charm bracelet with a charm" and "day of my eighth birthday")

Be careful not to switch between past and present tense (i.e. "as I stand in front of the mirror"). The whole story should be past tense.

The paragraph about Sarah's parents confused me, as I don't think it is established where the story takes place (NY or CA?).

Good description of the surroundings in chapter 4 ("no birds chirping, no traffic in the background").

I think you have an interesting and unique story here, and I encourage you to go through it and do some meticulous editing to really bring it to life.

Best of luck with your manuscript!

Cyndi
Between

I read the first few chapters and then skipped on to the end.
Well, that was a shocker. Whatever I was expecting that little bombshell wasn't it.
Well done, a very good read.
Backed.

Very intriguing! This is pitched for the perfect audience, young girls looking for a love story. Definitely something I would have been reading at that age!

Best of luck,
Andrea, MARIPOSA

Very cool beginning. I suppose I'd be pretty freaked out too if I ended up in a place that confusing.

I read through the first few chapters and this is definitly something I'd continue with. There are a few grammatical errors but nothing that can't easily be fixed with a bit more editing.

Good luck with this. Shelved.

The line, ' Why do I disappear every birthday and where do I go,' captures my imagination and makes me want to read the book. It might make a good short ptitch. I think you have an enviable imagination and a strong voice. I noticed only because I use them myself a lot that you use adverbs and I am told this slows the plot down. I have found by removing them it does indeed speed things up. I wish you good luck with this story which I think is off to a good start.
backed
Christina
From Under the Bed

YA, sci-fi, and romance all rolled into one. Damn but you're good. I struggle with one genre at a time and even then find it hard to pull off. You, however have pulled it off in a mastery fashion. The youngsters are going to love this, and I can see them come running.

“The Drifters” ticked all those boxes and I’m backing it right now.

Nicholas (“The Warlock”) – Horror/Thriller

Saw this on another bookshelf and had a peak inside. Liked it.

Lauren, this is a wonderful premise and your pitches set the scene beautifully - packed with intrigue and guaranteed to attract the attention of a YA readership in particular. You have the imagination and the narrative skills to carry a story of this nature along, even though there are areas where you could tighten up. I never look at previous comments until after I've read the book and made notes, but having done so this time I see that your previous reader, S.A, Sayuri, has covered just about all the areas I'd noted so I'll concentrate on a reader's overview. I went back and read all you've posted to date. Just one note, from chapter 11, 'bosom's' should be 'bosoms' but I've picked that out, not just for the misplaced apostrophe, but also because the word itself is awkward, redolent of the Jane Austen era perhaps. Choose another word. The uploaded section ends with Ava and Ethan, together at last, in the rain. That's a good place to break for now, intriguing and enticing for the reader. Some technical work to do in an edit, but the story is strong and you understand the demands of your audience. Great cover too. Backed.
Jared
Mummy's Boy.

Lauren - inventive and mysterious. Enjoyable read well targeted. Backed. CW (To Save the Sun)

An intriguing storyline. The writing could use a good polishing and tightening. You can lose the phrases like "I noticed" and "I realized." Some punctuation issues with commas and apostrophes. And why is there an exclamation point every time Sarah says something? Quite a few sentences use the phrase "beginning to" or "starting to" or something like that. Often those phrases can be removed and makes for a tighter, more active sentence.

Overall there's a feeling of the narrator telling the story to the reader. See if you can bring it more into the mode of letting the reader fall into the story and forget she's reading rather than the narrator talking to the reader, which keeps the reader at a distance.

The scene where a first person narrator stands in front of a mirror to brush her hair so the writer can describe the character has been done so many thousands of times, agents and editors consider it a really bad cliche and sign of an amateur writer. Don't mean to sound harsh, just letting you know.

I do think you could have a compelling story here, but keep polishing and perfecting the writing. It's not that far off, so please know I intend this as encouraging, not harsh or discouraging.

Savvie

This is one of my favorite books so far that I have read on this site - seriously from the piitch to th epolished prose this is so well paced and character driven it will move up the rankings quick! BACKED 100%

Liz
The Cheech Room

I liked it...shelved.
You've got a sympathetic character and a catchy plot,
but this triumphs by the way you write.
Congrats........mikegilli.............The Free

Lauren,

I like the title and you have a great premise!

I liked the bit about missing Aunt Rachel, very intriguing.

I love the characters of Ave and Ethan, very likable. And of course I truly believe that all novels regardless of genre should have a least one ‘hot’ guy.

There’s a lot to like about The Drifters. I really like how you’ve handled to traveling from one world to another, it works well and feels like it hasn’t been done before.

I also like your straight forward and easy to read style or writing, just the right amount of details.

Happy to shelve this!

Laurie – Into The Master’s Lair

I read the first couple of chapters. You have the pulse on this genre. Nothing to complain about here. Really LOVE those pitches. If you can sell the casual reader you'll be fine. SHELVED!

I can use your comments on my book when you get the chance. Cheers!

JC
The Obergemau Key

This was recommended to me too and I wasn't disappointed with what I found.

Very nicely written, great idea for a story and it is building wonderfully.

Great work

Melxx
Impeding Justice

Hi Lauren, The concept of the trips on birthdays and then aunt Rachel's disappearance was fascinating in that Ava keeps those things to herself. Especially when the guy shows up and she isn't telling her friend. Her aunt's necklace, the happenings being in lapses - it builds gradually and Ava's fear is gripping. I guess there are some repeated passages in the first chapters. The writing is clear though. A good start! Shelved - Katherine (The Swan Bonnet)

Great cover, premise and very original!

A tweak here and there and this should do well on here.

Backed,
Dan-
Eunice Stubbins, among others...

Fantastic read. Charcters and diolouge are polished and speak to the reader. C W

Being transported on one's birthday to another world must be the best present you could get, even if it scares the hell out of you. The next best thing is reading about it. I like Ava and YA will too, I'm sure. Well done. Backed. lynn

Thanks to some very perceptive criticisms on this site (thank you Authonomites!) I am, at present, in the process of a major rewrite and don't have time for individualized comments.
If you are reading this it means I have read the first couple of chapters of your book and think it is worthy of my support. My training is in the visual arts so I can't really help with the 'nuts & bolts' but if you would like to know what I really liked about your work, just send me a message and as soon as I can I will get back to you.
A look at Sicilian Shadows would be greatly appreciated.
Frank.
If you back my work, you may also want to approach BJD (a big supporter of my work) for a further read of your book.

I like the plot and will be eager to see what becomes of Ava and her birthday disappearances. I do think you will want to edit the text - there are some minor typos, grammar errors and ommissions. I try to read through my chapters several times each month. Sure enough, I find mistakes that I could swear weren't there before.
Nice writing. Well done.
Ellen
(Thoughts of a Teenage Girl)

Fascinating. I like the first person, present tense narrative… very engaging. What impresses me the most here is the effective movement of Ava from this world to that and back. I know firsthand how difficult that is, having dealt with this same issue in my books. There is some very fine story telling going on here. A very inventive premise.
Backed with pleasure.
Rodney

Your pitch tells of a good story with interesting and unusual developments. Ava is a strong central character, with something special in her life, but otherwise a very normal girl, with some good friends; worried about her future and about her friends moving away as college looms closer. The mystery of the thing which has happened to her on every birthday since she was eight, and which she describes as, 'disappearing...being transported to some other world,' is a great hook into the plot. When at last on her eighteenth birthday Ava is allowed to stay for more than a few moments, and meets a strange and beautiful boy, the excitement begins to build. The words of Madame Bijioux, and her vision of Rachel, the aunt who disappeared years ago when she was Ava's age, move the plot on to another dimension, and we are gripped and ready for more. Your writing is clear and easy-to-read, and the story is well suited to its YA audience, who are bound to find it riveting. Backed.
Gerry McCullough,
Belfast Girls.

Hiya Lauren...phew girl you can write. Okay there are some grammatical errors but I have them as well and am learning how to edit daily from some of the generous people on the site. Bless 'em. this is good strong work. The pacing is great, the characteization of Ava and the 8/18 thingy works well. more importantly you have a good writers voice and a unique style that rare x factor thing that we would all like to attain but seldom do.

This is going to do very well in my opinion.
I have backed it with pleasure and have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who enjoys a rivetting reading experience.
Suzannah Burke.

I like the premise, the execution is good, the cover is OUTSTANDING. I noticed a funny typo in Ch 3 (waisted days at school - it's 'wasted') and hated the fortune telling scene but apart from that, it's a good read. Backed.

You have such an easy way of telling a story. Start off just perfect for me, with the hint of something big happening. A minor thing is editing, especially the first page. If the first page isn’t perfect, it will turn the floating agents around here away, so I would suggest working on this and presenting your best. Another thing to watch out for is redundancy. Repeating a phrase slows the story down. For example, chapter 2 first par. “I’m actually glad she decided to stay the night (last night – unnecessary). Third par, you start with the word “So…” which is incorrect. As you see, these are only minor nits. I would suggest you look up this website. It continues to help me as I clean up my MS (on my 6th edit)
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102594

Enjoyed how you built your story with Aunt Rachel, which was a nice touch. So many people lack imagination, and yours is clearly evident.

Chapter 2 has more of the other world she goes to. Very nice…

Chapter 3. Your chapters are short, so I think now’s a good time to start with some serious dialogue. I know you have some near the end, but I think you need more. Perhaps some confrontation linked with her disappearance? . Can you change your ‘Tell’ to more ‘Show’? Dialogue is critical to carry a story, even if it’s non-fiction or an autobiography. If there’s little dialogue, it sounds too textbookish. Because you already have some, it’s only a minor change.

Chapter 4 also carries well…but break up your dialogue. Instead of having one large paragraph with multiple dialogues, put each ‘say’ in its own sentence. It helps the reader. For example, in the paragraph starting with, “Where am I?” I ask…
(Next Line) “You are in a place called Nova…” he says to me in a calm and assuring voice.
(Next Line) “So you mean…

Lauren, I really enjoyed this. Keep working at it, it’s entertaining and I think it would sell.
Backed
Paul
We’ve Seen the Enemy

Initially I was confused because you seem to have uploaded the prologue and first chapter twice and I thought I was suffering from deja-vu! Otherwise you give the impression of a bewildered teenager quite well. Later chapters also involve the reader in finding out more of what is happening to Ava. Chapter 8 ends with a good hook. Jim Darcy Serpent's Blood