YA Fantasy: STILL DREAMING

Author's Name: Ariane Peveto

Category: YA

Genre: Fantasy

Stage of Completion: Mostly Polished and Looking to Query

Preferred Critique Style:  A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down

Cat Person or Dog Person: Dog person (but cats are all right)

Tea or Coffee: Definitely tea 

Short Pitch

It’s easy to believe in Nightmares, especially in a world where they prowl the streets like wolves. As an orphan trapped on the city floor, Ransom struggles to protect his makeshift family of friends. It’s much harder to believe in dreams. Ransom has none, but he tells himself that it’s okay. He’ll hide his doubts, and no one will know he’s about to break.

 Then Ransom’s reality shatters. The Insomnus, shadowy monsters he thought existed only in stories told to scare children, attack him. When these sinister beings kidnap the youngest in his family, Ransom must fight nightmares to keep his family, and himself, from being torn apart.

Writing Sample

             For a mistaken three minutes, he knew he belonged right where he was. In the collapse.

            Get up!

But the world was ending, crashing in around him.

Wake up!

But he couldn’t move. Chipped concrete bit into his cheek. As he struggled to push himself up, something heavy slid off his back. Rusted metal shards and glass crunched beneath his gloves.

Someone pulled him to his feet and dragged him forward. But he remembered being alone. He had come alone. A roar from behind crashed against his ears and the floor tossed beneath him. Then it stopped, and he stopped, too, dropping to the ground after his rescuer let him go.

Alone again. He imagined Sleep whispering gently to him, offering peace like a blanket over his shoulders. In a panic, he shook the storybook image out of his mind. It was just a story. It wasn’t real. He couldn’t pass out.

Please—wake up.

Ransom’s eyes opened and he jerked to his knees at the sound of a voice he knew. He winced at bright light coming from above him. It was only partially blocked by a familiar silhouette, his friend Frost.

His strong hand took hold of Ransom’s arm and propelled him towards a crumpled door in a wall ahead of him. One arm raised against the fierce glare, he crawled through the space, blundering into light.

            Ransom staggered a few steps onto an adjoining roof before he felt a tug on his right hand. Squinting, he saw a small boy wearing an orange coat.