Description

[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]When pretending is your profession, real feelings are the scariest script of all...

"You're going to look me in the eyes when we do this scene," Noelle demands, standing too close in the furniture closet they've claimed as a rehearsal space, the fake bed between them suddenly feeling all too real. "Or it won't work."

Elliot meets her gaze, something electric passing between them. "I'll look wherever you want me to."

Noelle Laken is starting over. After a disastrous final year of college, Deer Lake Acting Conservatory is her chance to rediscover the performer she used to be. But when she's paired with frustratingly handsome Elliot Vian for the semester showcase, their chemistry proves impossible to ignore.

Elliot has walked away from a stable career, a five-year relationship, and his entire planned future. At twenty-eight, he's the oldest in his cohort and definitely the most terrified. The last thing he needs is to develop feelings for his sharp-witted scene partner who just started dating someone else.

As rehearsals intensify and boundaries blur, Noelle and Elliot find themselves caught between the lines they're supposed to say and the words they're afraid to speak. But when real relationships, past wounds, and uncertain futures collide with their onstage chemistry, they'll discover that sometimes the most authentic performance happens when the curtain falls.

Community Reviews(1)

EshmatarelRoyal Road

★★★★ 4.0

Tl;Dr: Looks like a cute romcom with a nice and distinct cast of characters, main ship is clear from the start, which I always appreciate.
The premise isn’t something that I know anything about, but it’s written well enough that I would believe it if the author told me they went to a school similar to the one in the story.
Style:
The PoV changes to a couple of chapters to get used to, and for each character to get a more distinct voice. Some of the characters are a little predictable, but not in an unrealistic way.
Story:
so far it looks clear where the story is headed, to MCs are interested in eachother from the start. I wonder if this is planned to be on the shorter side or not, or even if it’ll be a slice of life comedy following a bunch of acting students.
It is yet unclear how much drama there will be, and how much of it will be “love triangle” drama and how much will be “terminal illness” drama.
(I’m personally hoping for little to none of any of them, def the second type - I want wholesome romcoms, but the writing’s solid enough that even if it gets capital-D Dramatic, I’ll keep reading to see where it goes.
Characters:
A medium-large cast of characters that somehow stay distinct and pleasant so far. 2 MCs, 2 close friends for each MC, and a tertiary supporting cast of students and faculty.
I usually have difficulty keeping track of characters and character names (years of Chinese web novels have conditioned me to recognize a name as a visual pattern rather than read the orthography), so the large-ish cast all being present in one place made me have to backtrack a bit to make sure I remember who’s who.
One really big pet peeve of mine is the mother character. Incoming:
There’s a really consistent issue in modern storytelling about the relationship between mothers and daughters, and the concept of Matricide.
For a daughter to become a woman of her own, she must, in a sense, commit matricide. Cut herself off from Her mother and the way her mother views the worl