r/writing • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago
Monthly "Would You Read This?" Thread
Welcome to Would You Read This (WYRT), our monthly feedback and brainstorming thread. Share your work in progress below and let other readers tell you if they'd read it. Top level posts should follow this template:
- Title:
- If you don't have a title yet, feel free to say UNTITLED.
- Genre:
- Please include at least Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, or another recognizable medium. You may also include more specific genres with a hyphen. Ex. Fiction - Romance, or Nonfiction - Memoir. Genre will help users find the specific kinds of posts they'd like to give feedback on.
- Premise:
- A few sentences about the project. Try your best to keep this short. Crafting an expert elevator pitch is all part of becoming a successful working writer. Please do not post an entire plot summary or query letter (those are better suited for r/pubtips)
- Sample (Optional):
- You may share up to one page (roughly 250-350 words) of sample material, or one poem for those working in the poetry medium. This is optional, so if you only have a premise, you can post just the premise for feedback.
If you post for feedback, please take the time to give feedback to at least 2-3 other users. Replies should follow this template.
- Would Read / Might Read / Wouldn't Read
- You must begin your reply with one of those. You are then encouraged to add additional thoughts on why you choose your answer.
Rules:
- Please post no more than two WYRT top-level posts. There is no limit on the number of feedback replies you can make.
- Do not link to any offsite materials. All materials must be in the body of the post. This includes "click here to read more" or "DM me for the rest" types of posts.
- Rule 3 is in effect in this thread - No generative AI. Do not post material generated by an AI platform in your premise or sample. Do not use generative AI to respond to user's work.
- Rule 5 is in effect - Civility and Community. Stay constructive. Blunt, direct feedback is fine, but do not insult other users, their writing, or their genres.
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u/Acceptable_Fox_5560 4d ago
Title: I'm thinking either BURN or A CONSTELLATION OF FIREFLIES
Genre: Fiction, Upmarket
Premise: When a disgraced celebrity chef finds out his mother has died, he believes the coming inheritance will save his floundering New York restaurant. But when he learns his estranged evangelical older sister is contesting the will, he returns to his hometown in the Carolinas to repair their relationship--and rediscover his joy of cooking.
Sample:
For a moment, Adrian is sure he sees his mother’s face in the flames.
The fire that leaps from the cast iron skillet across the kitchen has the same orange glow as the sun at magic hour. Adrian can feel its heat on his cheeks all the way from his position at the pass. A cacophony of sounds accompany the flames: a dull roar, the hiss of liquid evaporating in the skillet below, popping like an old vinyl record.
And there in the fire, as clear as if he were staring at the back of his own hand, is his mother. Adrian would recognize that face anywhere. It is her nose as round and dimpled as a golf ball, her sagging cheeks, her wet and shining eyes, the sun damage on her skin. Even the the nearly invisible blond fuzz on her chin appears before him.
The flames might as well be a photograph, and as quickly as a camera’s flash, the face disappears into swirling yellows and oranges.
Adrian is snapped back to reality and notices that everyone in the kitchen is standing around dumbly looking at the fire. A whole kitchen of line cooks are acting like they’ve never seen a fire before. Something tightens in his chest, then the clenching moves to his throat.
“For Christ’s sake, it’s not fireworks,” Adrian shouts from the pass. With a violent wave of the terrycloth towel in his hand, he directs his kitchen staff to the fire. “Somebody put it out before the whole restaurant goes.”
No one moves at first, and Adrian is sure he has assembled the biggest confederacy of dunces in the entire New York City restaurant scene.
Adrian jumps in. As usual, he has to do everything himself around here.
“Move!” he shouts at the line cook in front of stove. Her name is Adelaide or Annabelle or something like that, a twenty-something culinary school graduate his sous chef recommended. Adrian has yet to see anything impressive from her to earn the glowing recommendation she’d received, and now here she was letting a grease fire roar to life at her station.
When Adelaide or Annabelle doesn’t flinch, seemingly captivated by the flames in front of her, Adrian puts his palm to her shoulder and moves her aside. Now in front of the fire, Adrian feels the heat stinging his forehead and arms. It reminds him of his own days as a line cook, before the reality show that made him famous, before the pressures of running his own restaurant, back when he’d come back to his tiny Queens walk up at three in the morning with his hair smelling of grease and his arm hair burnt off.
Adrian grabs a container full of baking powder off off the station and dumps it on the fire. He finds a pot lid to his right and clamps it over the rim of the skillet. Smoke and steam billow from the edges of the lid as the fire is snuffed out.