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It's my muse's fault: UF medical thriller

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LBlankenship

LBlankenship

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I usually write high fantasy and hard science fiction, but this time the muse visited upon me something quite different. I think it's an urban fantasy medical thriller.

I am looking for feedback from a thriller writer or serious fan so that I can get an idea of how well/badly I've fit the genre. The novel is named AIRBORNE and the first draft clocks in at 94k. I suspect it needs trimming.

First scene of the prologue (730 words) here.

Tough/harsh crits are not a problem. I'm a self-publisher, graduate of Viable Paradise, and a long time member here -- though I haven't been very active in a while.

Glad to trade crits in the fantasy or sci-fi field. Erotica is no problem. YA is not my strong suit, but I'm willing to try. I tend to be a tough critter and I especially focus on world-building.
 

object of my charm

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Isn't it funny when the muse leads you out-of-genre? I'm a romance writer usually but I've had a SF vision. Yikes!
 
Marlys

Marlys

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In general, your writing is clean and easy to follow--a definite plus. Here are some things to consider:

POV: omni is distancing unless done really, really well. I didn't care for it here. Give us one or the other character to latch onto to bring us into your world--either the kid or the counselor. Then the descriptions could be more natural and relevant to what's going on. Like, the kid could resent that the wingless goblin gave him a chair with a back, and think that if she'd been a faery she'd have provided a stool instead so his wings wouldn't be crushed. Or the goblin could think that it was just about impossible to tell the faery girls from the boys, and that could be just another detail that annoys her about them.

World-building: hard to judge as yet. So far, you seem to have grafted faeries and goblins onto our world. Jeans, t-shirts, poker, reading glasses, bureaucracy. I don't know yet whether these folk live alongside humans, or whether they've developed their own world that looks just like ours. I did note that the faeries don't have their own t-shirts--he had to modify a human(?) one to accommodate his wings.

The main problem with this excerpt, though, is that nothing much is happening, which is bad for any story but probably especially for a thriller. There's a lot of description and backstory, but no apparent conflict to drive the story forward. I'm not even sure why the kid is in the office, and thought they were in school until the counselor (or whatever she is) specifically said they weren't. An arrest is mentioned right at the end--is that it? If so, add that detail up front so we know what's going on. Or, you might want to find a more gripping place to start your story. This may not be the optimal start. Maybe back up to where the kid does the thing that gets him arrested?
 
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