   First Five Chapters of my (Fiction) Book!
  So, back in the days of yore when I began work on a fiction novel called Paradise, I created a thread where lots of spectacular and awesome people gave me all sorts of fantastic and super-useful feedback about the two chapters I had at the time.The Summary: Paradise is, in a nutshell, a dystopian, post-nuclear, romantic, darkly comedic, dramatic psychological thriller with a hint of political satire kind of book. Which is to say that this is, primarily, set in a world that may or may not have gotten the crap nuked out of it in the "FLASH! MUSHROOM CLOUD! BIG LOUD NOISE!" kind of way. The book is set in a shelter designed to house a fairly decent amount of specially-chosen people (we're talking about 12,000 souls, if I may), but as is typical of these kind of situations: shit just happens.Anyhoo, it's three months after my initial thread and I'm back with four ENTIRELY NEW AND FANTASMIC chapters for your reading pleasure -- as I was told to keep you guys updated and the like. Since that last thread, I have changed the introduction fairly extensively, and polished up the first chapter a decent amount, so if you were one of the (un)lucky few who read it back in the day when spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were REAL men, women were REAL women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small furry creatures from Aplha Centauri then you might want to re-read that particular segment. Maybe even glance over the first chapter again. Maybe. This is by no means a mandate aimed in your general direction. Just a recommendation. Though still aimed in your general direction.I'm not going to lie to you kids, though, this is a decent amount of reading. We're talking about thirty of them Word pages in a single-spaced, standard-sized font here. I'd say we're talking in the range of 17,825 words. With about five of those being in Latin. We're also talking about HARSH LANGUAGE. So if swearing frightens you into the kind of ball that baby kittens make when they're cold and they want to feel warm and cuddly while they sleep, then you best back away slowly before you alert the cougars.Now, on to the links. The general book page is: http://www.polycat.net/fiction, under the heading of Paradise. Here are the chapters, with a variety of forms for the consumption of your eyeballs:Introduction (HTML, DOC, or PDF) -- The newly-rewritten introductory chapter for the book. Nothing like a quality Thanksgiving bomb scene to really start the book off with a bang. Or a boom.Chapter 1 (HTML, DOC, or PDF) -- This is where the actual story begins and the main character, Adam, is introduced along with Seth who has red hair. Thrilling.Chapter 2 (HTML, DOC, or PDF) -- This chapter picks up the day after the first one left off. The main issue from that is covered fairly quickly, but in doing so many more problems are discovered. Throughout the course of the chapter there are four new characters (at least one of which is a secondary character) introduced and the reader learns far more about Adam in a general social and psychological sense.Chapter 3 (HTML, DOC, or PDF) -- This is a fairly short chapter, but an important one all the same. Plus it has a sappy flashback. Points for somber romance!Chapter 4 (HTML, DOC, or PDF) -- A lengthy chapter which covers a whole crap-load of stuff. A major plot point is revealed that will launch the story into the main, over-arching conflict that will run throughout the rest of the book, and a lot of history on Adam is revealed while simultaneously introducing a very important main character. The flashback style that was introduced in Chapter 3 is brought back again for this chapter, so yay for more sap!This may in fact be one of the longest threads I've ever written, so if you're still with me and have plans to read any of these and provide some form of feedback, then I can't begin to thank you enough. Any feedback is good feedback. Except for the stupid feedback. That shit's just no good here.<3Now, by popular demand, reader TESTIMONIALS!"Paradise changed my life. I killed three children immediately upon receipt of the book."   --Ravuya[Edited by - mittens on May 28, 2006 9:42:48 PM]
Quote:Original post by mittensThat shit's just no good here.That is sort of how I feel about your book!!!!!!LOL;Quote:Original post by skjinedmjeetQuote:Original post by mittensThat shit's just no good here.That is sort of how I feel about your book!!!!!!LOLThats sort of how I feel about you! rotflcopter!!!111;  Great job! Much better than the crap I throw together. [smile]I'm sort-of disappointed that I can't read more, as the book really caught me in. Didn't seem like thirty pages though, or maybe I was just to distracted to notice. Again, excellent job, and make sure to post when you get more online.Quote:Except for the stupid feedback. That shit's just no good here.And yet, sadly, that is all some people wish to provide.Also, the language wasn't so bad as some things out there.I can't find the testimonials; is Ravuya's the only one?   ;  Good job mittens!Your work has sparked ideas in my head to implement in my own amatuer work, thanks! (no, its not plagurism)   ;  I was actually asked a few times about the writing process in general. I make absolutely no claim that anything I do in terms of writing this book is "correct," or even any semblance of "right," but this is just my personal process. I know my girlfriend, who is probably a far more serious writer than myself, has a completely different way of approaching things. For instance, she likes to seclude herself from anything positive and write in the most depressing environment that she can think of. She can also write, for the most part, whenever she has free time and in a variety of places. As for me, I'm very peculiar about how, when, and where I write. I generally only write on my home computer with music that I've listened to over-and-over before and, even then, I only write in 3-5 hour sessions once every few weeks (though, when I start a chapter, I generally try to pile as many sessions into a row as I can). Now, for the generic feedback that I responded to someone else with. As a warning, it ended up being a far longer response than I had originally intended... But what else can you ask of a bored, drunk writer?Well, the reference I made to LOST was a thinly-veiled insult at both the show at my own writing process. It's a commonly-believed theory that the writers of the show really have absolutely no idea what kind of stuff they're building up to, much less an idea about how they're going to end the show in general. The producers, in fact, have openly admitted that they have no ending planned whatsoever and are just discovering things along the way. I personally don't mind except when the show completely loses track of some of my favorite subplots by either giving a lame explanation or just dropping it off the face of the Earth without so much as mentioning it. As a specific example, the show was originally going to have Michael Keaton play the role of one of the central characters, Jack, with the intention that the character would never live past the series' opening episode. Though, what ended up happening, is that Matthew Fox filled the role and the character of Jack ended up being one of the series' most important and necessary characters, but that's neither here nor there.My writing process is similar, to be honest. I started the book with an introduction which placed the unnamed character in a pitch-black room. He eventually got his bearings, found a light switch, and as the flourescent lights warmed up, realized that there was a crucified corpse hung on the wall opposite him (which he realized in the reflection of a dirty mirror). I was going to use this "vision" as the first piece of the book that would tell the reader that the narrator of the book wasn't all right in the head. I was building to the idea that the narrator suffered some kind of delusion which created the world of the end-of-the-world shelter and then created his own situations about people that would justify him killing them in his world... But being that he was just absolutely insane, the book would eventually switch to a real-world detective and provide his thoughts towards figuring out what was going on. Eventually the book would reach the conclusion that the main character was actually killing people in the real-world as we know it, and then so on and so on.What happened, though, was that after I wrote the first full chapter (which wasn't entirely different from the current draft) is that I actually really quite liked the direction things were heading with the idea of a dystopian society created out of the necessity of human preservation after a potentially world-destructive nuclear war played out across the surface of the planet. I also grew attached to the main character (Adam); this attachment became especially apparent after some of my close friends read the early chapter and noticed that Adam had taken on a number of my own personality traits, conversational manner, and so on. Eventually I just completely redrafted the goals I was planning to take in the future and came up with a rough idea for where to proceed from there. Granted, I was completely clueless on what the central conflict of the book was, along with what the hell kind of ending I was going to be working towards... But I figured that would just come to me in time.This project was originally started with my junior-level Creative Writing workshop class that I was taking from January through April, so thankfully I had a whole classroom full of students whose grade depended on reading my work and providing feedback. The things I heard back from on the first chapter (and especially the introduction) were... Less than stellar, to say the very least. I did a decent amount of restructuring and rewriting of the first chapter -- along with heavily simplifying the original grammar and language that were utilized -- and eventually my teacher said that it was one of the most single-improved works in the class. After I submitted the second chapter for workshop, the feedback was almost universally positive. Some even quite liked it, dare I say that some raved about it. Some people declared me as the most bold and imaginative writer in the surprisingly-talented class I had. I say this not to toot my own horn (though that was a nice perk), but because those were the comments that really convinced me to continue moving forward with the book. The change in comments, the obvious increase in people who actually loved the second chapter (in comparison to the first) told me that the changes I made in terms of overall plot, tone, mood, and writing were definitely a step in the right direction.So, with Chapters 3 and 4 of the book, I have really started taking a step in deciding what the overall conflict of the book will be. I'm not going to reveal it, because that would be simply mean and uncool, but I'm fairly certain that it'll be far better than anything I had in mind from the start. So, while I look forward to continue working on the book, I highly doubt that the kind of free time that I had this week to start and finish a full draft of Chapter 4 is something that will be afforded to me often. Though, in general, the average turnaround from new chapter to new chapter is about three to four weeks, so yeah. There's that, I suppose!Thanks for the feedback!   ;  Dont be afraid to NOT say things.Rather than try to describe an environment, character or situation I usually try to touch on one or two things that capture it's essence or just touch on the most important points. You have to trust your readers to fill in the gaps. This helps them engage with your work and it keeps it moving along quickly which stops people getting bored.Similarly, you should try to get your message across not just by what you say but also how you say it. If you can put a sub-text in a sentance which reveals something about your story and negates the need for you to explain it outright then your work stays fast, energetic and acquires depth because it necesitates interpretation which engages the reader.Character development and ambience are not bad things but they should always serve the story and neither can be indulged as an end in itself. If something is not absolutely integral to the story I leave it out. Try to work these things into crucial story elements. I usually end up relegating most character development to sub-text and try to make sure that any descriptions of environments are relevant to a situation or to a characters mood (affecting it, reflecting it or contrasting it), or ideally both.a overly simple example:Jake held up his old gun and wondered if it would even work in this rain.Illustrated that Jake is a loser (his gun is rubbish).Established that he has a sardonic nature since this amuses him more than frightens him.We have described the environment and provided ambience (rain).We have also engineered some tension... now if the gun works we will be more satisfied.Anyway, it's not bad. Don't take me too seriously, you probably do more writing than I do anyway and also I should mention that J.K. Rowling, for example, does none of the above and has sold hundreds of millions of books.peace   