Prose Critique: Don't Let In The Cold
I was lucky enough to read an early copy of Keely Parrack’s YA thriller, Don’t Let In The Cold, and I’m intrigued by the changes Keely made to prepare her novel for publication. Published by Sourcebooks Fire, Don’t Let In The Cold tells the story of stepsisters who must survive a blizzard after a fire forces them from their remote cabin—and into the path of a dangerous stranger.
In this scene, Lottie and Jade struggle to light a fire in their cabin’s fireplace during a power outage. Their newly-married parents are away for the night, so the girls are on their own, even as a snowstorm looms. Keely adjusted her word choice throughout the excerpt to shift the focus of this scene from the technical details of working the fireplace to the tricky dynamics between the characters, who don’t know each other well and will soon depend on each other for survival.
Keely’s notes follow in the footnotes.
“Great.” Cold curled in under the windowsills. The fire gave a small amount of heat but highlighted the dark around us. Black, on black, on black—near shadows with darker shadows hiding behind them. “Can you turn the fire up? Should we add another log?”
[Originally, there was a back and forth argument here about the remote for the fireplace, as well as a predicament in which they couldn’t get the remote to work.]1
Snow spattered harder2 against the window.
“Yeah, but we’ll need them to last all night if the power…” Jade pursed her lips.
I got it. Saying it out loud made the possibility too real. I opened the glass doors to the fireplace and took two giant Tahoe pinecones from the basket of fireside props.
“They’re not meant for fires,” said Jade, as if they were pinecone bombs.
I opened the glass doors to the fireplace and placed two giant Tahoe pine cones from the nearby basket onto the dying embers instead. They caught fast, blazing to almost nothing in seconds.3
“Those aren’t meant for fires,” said Jade. “Use…”
I balanced a log on top of the flames as she spoke. “This?” I asked. The log fizzed and smoked. “Sorry, not that.”
“No, not the damp logs.” Jade coughed and fanned the smoke away. She coughed again. “Dry, never damp,” she said between wheezes.
“You have asthma, why didn’t you say?” I gagged on a mouth full of pine burn and shut the doors to stop the smoke pouring out.
“You okay? Is it asthma?” I poked the damp log away from the flames. “I’m really sorry.”4
Jade nodded as she caught her breath. “I only get it around…smoke and cold air.”
Perfect. “Do you have an inhaler?”
“In my room,” Jade glanced at the gaping black hole that was the stairwell. “I’ll be fine.” She wheezed in and out slowly.
She took a deep breath, slow in and out.5
“I’ll be right back.” She disappeared down the stairwell and came back two minutes later, clutching an inhaler. “See. I’ll be fine.” She took two puffs.
“You sure?”
“The miracle of modern science.” She smiled to let me know she was fine, everything was okay, and having a stepsister who didn’t even know how to make a safe fire was totally normal.6
“Alright then. I’ll fix this.” I cracked the fireplace doors back open, and placed a dry log on top of the smoldering pine cones. The flames flickered, reluctantly at first, before running along the top of the log and bursting brightly as they fell onto the pine cones. We had fire again. I slammed the glass doors7 shut and grinned at Jade. “Crisis averted!”8
You can read more about Don’t Let In The Cold here.
I changed this from a gas fire because I thought, Why go into so much detail about a gas fire—which took attention away from their predicament and reduced the tension with unnecessary details, like how the ignition works—if they can have a real fire in a regular fireplace?
Removed “harder” to increase pacing.
(After I read a draft of this novel, I asked Keely if pinecones really could act as miniature fire bombs. She changed the wording to add clarity, but she kept the tension by focusing on how fast the pinecones burn. —Parker)
Here, Lottie shows her concern instead of being just mean and petty.
I changed this because I wanted Jade to seem more measured and in control, like she knows how to handle her asthma.
I added this line to show Lottie’s insecurities, against Jade’s smarts without either of them seeming to be mean. Highlighting how little they know each other adds tension.
Originally, there was only one glass door but I changed it so that there are two of them that swing open—making it easier for them to be accidentally left ajar so burning kindling can fall out later and start a fire that burns down the cabin.
I really wanted to end with the feeling Lottie had saved the day! Spoiler—she has made it worse!