A Novel Idea

Davy Brown

Ok so long time lurker, first post is here in creative writing. I'm going to attempt to post the first 1 chapter of a novel I've been trying to write. I got 160+ pages done so far so if people want more I can throw up the second chapter. Its my first attempt and I'm debating whether to submit it to a publishers. Try and ignore any spelling mistakes haha and feel free to ask me any questions about it. Any feedback at all is really appreciated thanks. It's a bit of a slow burner.

edit I've added 2nd chapter and fixed an error in the 1st

pickarooney

Boards can play havoc with indentation and paragraphs. I'll read it when you've added them back in:)

Davy Brown

pickarooney wrote: »

Boards can play havoc with indentation and paragraphs. I'll read it when you've added them back in:)

yeah i just noticed that thanks!

EileenG

Don't submit it as it stands. It needs a lot of work first.

Try reading it out loud to an audience, and you'll see what I mean. Meanings are not plain, the words you've chosen are not the ideal ones, many of the sentences are far too long and the rhythm sounds wrong.

It took a lot of reading before I had any idea of when the story was set. For some reason, I had picked up the impression it was pre-historic, or at least very primitive. I still have no idea where it is set, and only the vaguest impression about the hero.

Don't start with weather, or if you do, keep the weather specific to how it affects your hero. Don't go into the history of weather.

Try going back and pruning heavily. I get the strong impression that you think a novel has to have lots of unusual words and strange phrases, and you have put in a lot that don't work. For instance, "Dray" is a cart, not a horse.

I can't cut and paste to show you other examples, but there are a lot.

Why not start with the gun cleaning/potential suicide? That was the only bit where I sat up and read eagerly.

If chapter two is where the action starts, maybe you should just cut chapter one and start with chapter two?

Davy Brown

EileenG wrote: »

Don't submit it as it stands. It needs a lot of work first.

Try reading it out loud to an audience, and you'll see what I mean. Meanings are not plain, the words you've chosen are not the ideal ones, many of the sentences are far too long and the rhythm sounds wrong.

It took a lot of reading before I had any idea of when the story was set. For some reason, I had picked up the impression it was pre-historic, or at least very primitive. I still have no idea where it is set, and only the vaguest impression about the hero.

Don't start with weather, or if you do, keep the weather specific to how it affects your hero. Don't go into the history of weather.

Try going back and pruning heavily. I get the strong impression that you think a novel has to have lots of unusual words and strange phrases, and you have put in a lot that don't work. For instance, "Dray" is a cart, not a horse.

I can't cut and paste to show you other examples, but there are a lot.

Why not start with the gun cleaning/potential suicide? That was the only bit where I sat up and read eagerly.

If chapter two is where the action starts, maybe you should just cut chapter one and start with chapter two?

Thanks for feedback, maybe I should have tried to explain in my first post. I kinda am trying to write it in an archaic style like thats the kind of style that appeals to me, I don't exactly want it to be just another Tom Clancy or John Grisham book if you get me.

I don't mean for that to sound snobbish or something like that, I like both those authors I'm just using them as examples of a certain style that they use.

Yeah the dray part should be dray-horse hold my hands up there. Also the start is intended to be slightly ambiguous and not entirely obvious as to where the protagonist is. Anyway thanks again for the feedback and taking the time to read it.

I'm procrastinating at the moment on whether to post the 2nd chapter.

EileenG

If the second chapter is where the action starts, then yes, post it.

The trouble is, you are trying to write in a style that is not natural to you, and as a result, you are misusing words, leaving out verbs and generally tying your text into knots. Try saying it out out, and see does it sound the way you meant it. Better still, read it out loud to someone else and watch their reaction.

Why are you trying to be ambiguous about where the main character is?

Antilles

If the action starts in the second chapter, then get rid of the first chapter and make the second chapter your first. Anything that you were going to put into the first chapter can be worked through the rest of the novel.

The first chapter is the single most important part of a novel, and if its not interesting, nobody will even make it to the second. No excuses about what the first chapter contains or how it sets the tone/scene - if its not interesting, its a rubbish first chapter and you need to change it or remove it.

Also, unless the weather/scenery is a defining theme in your novel, don't open your story with it -- its boring as hell. If you make me read a long, convoluted paragraph just to find out "It was dark", then you have wasted my time, and made me more likely to put down your novel because I don't want to waste any more.

Davy Brown

EileenG wrote: »

If the second chapter is where the action starts, then yes, post it.

The trouble is, you are trying to write in a style that is not natural to you, and as a result, you are misusing words, leaving out verbs and generally tying your text into knots. Try saying it out out, and see does it sound the way you meant it. Better still, read it out loud to someone else and watch their reaction.

Why are you trying to be ambiguous about where the main character is?

Its not really an action type story but I'll add it anyway. Could you show me another example of something else I've misused? The out loud thing does sound like a good idea.

Basically its revealed further in the story that maybe he's living through a new ice age or something along those lines where society as we know it doesn't exist. I just don't think giving the reader everything about the characters world in the first chapter is the way to go.

EileenG

Trouble is, if you don't give your reader something, then she will stop reading. You need a great situation or a sympathetic character or the threat of something awful or something that will hook the reader. Just plodding along in bad weather feeling miserable won't do it.

Hang on. "maybe he's living through a new ice age"? You don't know? By the time you sit down to write, you should at least know if there's a ice age or not.

Action doesn't mean guns or bombs, it means that something significant is happening to your MC. If it's just same-old, same-old, then start somewhere that something is happening.

If you can post the first chapter in a form I can mark, I'll show you some of the examples that jumped out at me.

Davy Brown

Antilles wrote: »

If the action starts in the second chapter, then get rid of the first chapter and make the second chapter your first. Anything that you were going to put into the first chapter can be worked through the rest of the novel.

The first chapter is the single most important part of a novel, and if its not interesting, nobody will even make it to the second. No excuses about what the first chapter contains or how it sets the tone/scene - if its not interesting, its a rubbish first chapter and you need to change it or remove it.

Also, unless the weather/scenery is a defining theme in your novel, don't open your story with it -- its boring as hell. If you make me read a long, convoluted paragraph just to find out "It was dark", then you have wasted my time, and made me more likely to put down your novel because I don't want to waste any more.

The weather is, I reckon anyway, a defining part of the story, as I said its to do with an ice age.

I appreciate everyones feedback and for taking the time to read it.
I'm feeling like forgetting bout the whole thing now though it does seem to be a bit cack alright haha.

Davy Brown

EileenG wrote: »

Trouble is, if you don't give your reader something, then she will stop reading. You need a great situation or a sympathetic character or the threat of something awful or something that will hook the reader. Just plodding along in bad weather feeling miserable won't do it.

Hang on. "maybe he's living through a new ice age"? You don't know? By the time you sit down to write, you should at least know if there's a ice age or not.

Action doesn't mean guns or bombs, it means that something significant is happening to your MC. If it's just same-old, same-old, then start somewhere that something is happening.

If you can post the first chapter in a form I can mark, I'll show you some of the examples that jumped out at me.

Well when I say maybe an ice age I mean there is an ice age happening but I'm not sure how exactly it started, like it could be a natural ice age or a man made one if you get what I mean.

That would be great like I'll take all the pointers I can as I say I've never done anything like this before. What way could I do that as like an excel doc or something?

EileenG

"Curled and caked did he lie and shuddering as though gripped by palsy".

"He lay an time yet."

"When he had drunk his fill, he fell upon his back and panting".

"...he began to scratching at the snow..."

"A brown bear, a sow thinned and athirst it had come now or rather almost near to a kind of delirium when it caught his smell and now ravenous and mad with hunger."

Those are only a handful of examples that weren't too long to retype.

What I don't understand is that you are clearly literate and intelligent and able to write clearly. Your posts are full of excellent English. So why have you written your novel in what is NOT excellent literate English?

EileenG

Davy Brown wrote: »

Well when I say maybe an ice age I mean there is an ice age happening but I'm not sure how exactly it started, like it could be a natural ice age or a man made one if you get what I mean.

For your story, it doesn't matter why it happened, only that he is living in an ice age. Forget the cause of it and get on with the story.

EileenG

Second chapter.

A fight with a bear is good, but you need to write as though you are describing a fight. Keep sentences short and simple. Keep paragraphs short. Go heavy on sense detail (sounds, smell, feel, touch). Be sure whose point of view you are using, the Nomad's or the Bear's.

Be very careful with your pronouns. It's easy to get mixed up with "he": at one point it reads as though the bear dropped the revolver from his grip.

Davy Brown

EileenG wrote: »

"Curled and caked did he lie and shuddering as though gripped by palsy".

"He lay an time yet."

"When he had drunk his fill, he fell upon his back and panting".

"...he began to scratching at the snow..."

"A brown bear, a sow thinned and athirst it had come now or rather almost near to a kind of delirium when it caught his smell and now ravenous and mad with hunger."

Those are only a handful of examples that weren't too long to retype.

What I don't understand is that you are clearly literate and intelligent and able to write clearly. Your posts are full of excellent English. So why have you written your novel in what is NOT excellent literate English?

I think maybe the problem might be that I've switched to using open office instead of ms word a few months ago and turned off all the notifications for grammar and spelling. Then add to that I mostly don't read too carefully over what I've written. I'm thinking that I should try to redo it all again and read it aloud as I do.
Ugh the effort involved in that :eek: Again though I appreciate you reading and typing them again. I don't know how to thank your post so thanks!

Storywise would you be interested in reading the story going on the bones of the story itself if the grammar was changed (or fixed says you )?

EileenG

You'd need to do a huge amount of work on the style. Yes, I'd be interested in a man fighting a bear in a new ice age, but honestly, I wouldn't read it as it stands.

I understand you like the more archaic style, but it doesn't suit the story. If it was a historical, then it would make sense. For a sort of post-apocalyptical scene, I'd imagine a sort of terse, semi-educated language would work better.

You must read what you've written, and be prepared to edit and rewrite and then do it all again. If you won't read it, how can you expect anyone else to?

Davy Brown

EileenG wrote: »

You'd need to do a huge amount of work on the style. Yes, I'd be interested in a man fighting a bear in a new ice age, but honestly, I wouldn't read it as it stands.

I understand you like the more archaic style, but it doesn't suit the story. If it was a historical, then it would make sense. For a sort of post-apocalyptical scene, I'd imagine a sort of terse, semi-educated language would work better.

You must read what you've written, and be prepared to edit and rewrite and then do it all again. If you won't read it, how can you expect anyone else to?

Yeah I think you've hit the nail on the head right there.

I'm going to start to re-examining the whole thing again tonight.

I'm still not sure about losing the archaic style altogether though. In my head it's Faulkner's apocalypse not Orwell's. If only I could write as good as either of them haha.

EileenG

As more than one person has said, you need to find your own writing voice. Just work out the plot and tell the story, and your own natural style will emerge. Don't try to force yourself into a particular style. You've just seen that it doesn't work.

ToasterSparks

+1 to everything that everyone has said. EileenG is giving you most of the pointers I would too.

One thing I've noticed with a lot of people on this forum is the amount of writers that try to write in a certain style they've seen before. I can see where you've deliberately set out to insert very complicated descriptions for its effect, which in reality doesn't work at all. I found myself skipping words, then sentences, then paragraphs to find some story or action. TBH, I found the first chapter too wordy and vague to continue reading. And that is exactly what I'd do if I picked your novel off the bookshelf too.

One thing I would say is to know your story. Not every single aspect, but enough so that you know where the story is going. When you know your story, write it. Don't try to make a sentence or a paragraph look like a certain style. Just write your story and let your own style emerge naturally. Readers don't like a story because it has a certain style - they like a story when the plot and/or characters are interesting to them.

pickarooney

The first paragraph has its tenses all over the place. I would immediately stop reading a book at this point as I'd have no confidence in a storyteller who doesn't know if he's talking in the past, present or future. I can handle slow plots, heavy descriptions (up to a point - see my own efforts for examples of how not to do that) and an ambiguous setting, but poor basic grammar is just too annoying and lazy for me to bother with.

Also, I can't work out if it's night or day from the first line:

The sun had long fallen from the sky and night had bled out carrying with it all the darkest black of midnight. The fires men light to stave off the dark and the wild had burned bright and now burning out, unstoked and scorched to low glinting embers in a barren place.

When something 'bleeds out' it dies, so when night dies and brings the dark with it, surely it should be morning?

dawvee

I really like the idea behind this story, it reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, only colder.

That said, I agree with the previous suggestions regarding your language and pacing. It seems to me that you're depicting a brutal land, so the style your prose should reflect that. Right now it seems a bit affected, and parts of it read a bit like an odd translation from Old English.

Also, all the first bits of a novel (first chapter, paragraph, sentence) are like establishing shots in film. They're not just window dressing, but they establish important things for the reader, not least of which is a desire to keep reading. I hope it's not out of line, but I had a go at the first two paragraphs to show what I mean. If it's not better, just ignore me!

The sun fell like a stone in black water. Within minutes its glow vanished in the Western sky and he felt the chill settle into his lungs, the steaming sweat from the road already freezing on his brow. He had travelled miles of howling wilderness after his dray horse had fallen. He had sliced loose a surge of blood and watched it run steaming from the gelding’s throat, freezing in a pink scrawl as it touched the ground. He had dragged the meat hacked from the animals belly behind him like a sin through the snow until the cold had erased the line between that frozen carcass and his own. Now the only thing that kept him alive was the spectre of that meat between his teeth, that blood running hot down his throat, and a paltry flame to thaw his blackened hands.

Razors of frost locked the world outside the shack's charnel gloom as he stirred the decaying embers. He fumbled to pull his overcoat tighter around his gaunt shoulders, fingers hardened and swollen from the cold. Looking around the room he could almost make out the portraits lying shattered on the floor where they had fallen. Their faces glinted in the firelight, now just dead ghosts in a dead land. Icy draughts stung at his neck and scalp, the shack's roof and sashes having been long since stripped by the withering storms. The northern wind of this barren steppe had been gentle here. The lee of the rise to the north had held the plaster and timbers, while all across the shelved land bulwarks of bald granite lay buried in rime and hoar.