I've been working on a non-fiction novel for about the past two months. This is a sample from my very first chapter in the book. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, so I'd like to see if people on SEN would be interested in the book based on the introduction chapter alone. I basically only care if the content is interesting to you or not. Any typos you see, you can point them out, but I'm not looking for grammatical assistance for the most part. If you have an interesting observation or something to say about my work so far, I'd love to hear it.

What the book is about:
An analysis of the blurring of reality for people who suffer from one or more mental disorders. A character who suffers from an array of mental disorders describes his otherwise normal life. This book is NON-FICTION, so if you're looking for some fantasy bullshit, this isn't the book for you.

And... Here it is. I hope you enjoy!



Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on May 26 2010, 6:19 pm by Norm.

Too many small sentences compacted together in this first paragraph. You also need to change out a few weaker sentences using the "poor" verb of "is". Substitute in "is" with a much stronger and vivid verb. Don't just avoid using is, but avoid using "to be" as well. Here is what I mean:

Here in Michigan, autumn is suppose to be a time of beauty. We have a million trees with their leaves changing color. We have kids jumping in piles of the leaves. Everyone enjoys the calm. Halloween, then Thanksgiving.

Could be changed to:

Autumn in Michigan; millions of trees quivering in the breeze as their own color changes from day to day. This place should seem a place of beauty, a place where children frolic, jumping in piles of crackling Autumn leaves. People here love the calm.

The "Halloween, then Thanksgiving." sentence threw me off. I'm not sure what you were trying to say here, and again, you don't need to cram a bunch of tiny sentences together in the first paragraph -it makes it seem both poorly thought out and disjointed. Contrast long descriptive sentences with short and to the point sentences following. Make use of punctuation like the semicolon and hyphen -even parentheses!

I understand that you are writing from the point of view of this man, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep the quality of the writing from sucking the reader in. I really dislike all the short sentences which need to be clustered together in a natural and easy to read way. However, I do really enjoy the content of this little glimpse onto your book.

I only thoroughly read your first two paragraphs, but skimmed through the rest. Just remember: You want the reader to be able to understand everything you are saying naturally, you don't want so many small sentences clustered together. If you are trying to emphasize on how the thoughts of the narrator are disjointed, fragmented, hopping around.. Well, that isn't the right way to go about it. Though, I think you are definitely on the right track on setting the tone. You really just need to polish things up

I hope this post helps you when you proofread and edit things in the future, if you would like me to go over more sometime, let me know. For now, I have to finish my own writing..

I get the feeling this isn't a non-fiction novel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonfiction_novel

Are you recounting an actual experience you or a friend went through?

The novel is actually non-fiction. If you need to question that, then you're missing the entire point of the book.

@Cecil: Thanks, I still have a long way to go polishing things up of course, this was one of the first things I wrote, so it obviously needs to be re-worked now that I have more experience.

them*

Try not to repeat similar words too close to each other unless you're empasizing it. One case of this was "restroom" and "room" in the same sentance, but there were more I can't remember right now.

I don't know whether you ever tried pouring hot water (vapor-hot) over frozen hands. If you did, our experiences were totally different: for me, cold hands are very sensitive to heat, so pouring hot water over them directly causes lots of pain.

First you say: but at the end of the paragraph you state that he can see only one eye. If I were you, I'd note that he can see only one eye from the very beginning. It will add to the oddity of his face straight away and form the first impression.

That's the technical part dealth with. Now, moving on to the actual language used...

IMO, his inner monologue (especially after the guy shoots himself, when he's in a state of utter shock) is too... polished, too... smooth. I'll give a few examples of what I mean and how would I see/write it:
=>
=>
Other things:
Sounds too obvious for my liking. And does not fit the mood of the shock he is in.

This is the stuff I'm after in a shock description. These lines between the obvious (duh) descriptions of what's happening are the things that make the biggest impact. I like how you didn't go into high-flown wordings and philosophical ideas and used simpler, yet effective conructions.

I also liked how you start with the gentler memories and move onto the present.

You're missing the point of my question. Is the a re-telling of things that have actually happened to you or someone you interviewed? If this actually is non-fiction, I'm guessing the narrator/main character is you, because you seem to know every little detail. Is the main character homeless? Were you at one time homeless?

Jaff, thank you! Here's the thing though:

#1. TY for pointing out that typo, it has been corrected in my main draft =).

#2. Words repeating. I guess I didn't really notice the times I did it. I will have to look over my drafts again to find out said places where it occurs. It is something I try to avoid.

#3. You were saying about the hands. This character turned the water off just as it became too hot for him to handle.

#4. The facial details: I cannot really explain to you why it has to stay the way it is without spoiling the entire plot of the story for you. Just keep in mind that if the narrator is writing this, the events must have happened in his past, so from his point of view, he is aware of the fact that both eyes are bloodshot. due to a certain circumstance, he does not need to actually see the man's eyes to know the details about them. Let's just say that if you were to read the book once, and then re-read this first paragraph, you would understand why I chose to write it the way I did.


You have a half valid point here, and let me explain what I mean by that.

First of all, remember that smoothed and polished might just be what the narrator wants while he tells this story to the reader. After reading some of your alterations (especially the first) I can see that the writing COULD use some improvement, I'll definitely work on it next time I open up my main draft. Thanks, but a lot of it goes back to the narrator's state by the time this story is told. If I post additional writings up to SEN, you will start to notice the pattern of the writing and why certain things must be written the way they are.


Thanks =). You will appreciate it even more so once you realize how these sentences fit into the greater picture of the plot.


Yes, it is an actual experience, but I'm not going to disclose who's it is.

Yes, it is a re-telling of events that were witnessed by somebody.

I do feature myself figuratively in this book, but I am neither the narrator or the main character. I do not know every detail, I only know one perspective of the story at any given time. Which main character are you talking about in respect to your homeless question? Both the narrator of the first chapter, and the man he sees in the restroom are main characters. One of them definitely has a home with his parents still (You find out in a later chapter he is only 19 years old.) The other main character COULD be homeless, but it's hard to say based on the technicalities of what you mean by homeless. The other character also has no age because the Author (ME) is unable to determine what it is.

p.s. No, I am not homeless nor, and I haven't been homeless before. I can also hope that I will not become homeless in the future.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 16 2009, 3:58 am by Norm.

You shouldn't have to explain what you're writing about so much. And I don't want to know "what it's about" before I start actually reading it. Let your reader start without any preconceived notions.

The writing has some good ideas... i guess, but overall is really mostly mediocre, if you want to go by 'aspiring author' (that is actually going to be published) standards. I was tempted to stop after 2 paragraphs, and noting the choppiness of the language. But it is kind of interesting enough for me to keep reading... or at least try to help. I feel like the best I can do for you is just some close analysis of some of it, to give you an idea of where you can improve, and how to do so. I'll just start with a little here....


very awkward wording. 'as to if' is not standard English.


You 'imagine' that you stop...? That threw me a bit at first. Cause then you just continue with normal narration again, as if it's actually happened. Is this entire paragraph actually 'imagined'?

You say 'my hand from the glove' as if you only have one hand. Don't you mean to say, "I remove one of my hands from its glove." Or, as would be a more suitable description, "I remove my glove from one of my hands (or, 'my right hand', or 'my left hand'). Or, as would be possible be least awkward: "I take my gloves off to see my hands." - or something like that. Then you could proceed with... something like, "My naked hands are frighteningly losing their shades of red and turning closer to blue, and onto purple, (and once again reminding me of the death I have been sensing at the nape of my neck, as I see my hands turning black.)" I got wordy at the end, but i think you can gather the ideas. On another note, or to continue what I said in the first paragraph, if you're really imagining all this (which is unclear and awkward), then you may want to bring the reader back with something like, "My hands are crisp when exposed to the shivering wind (which convinces me that it's a winter), and I see (or something like 'picture') them turning blue."

"Underneath, I see my fingers." Well, underneath what? I thought you just take your glove off, or as you phrased it "removed your hand from your glove." So you're fingers aren't underneath anything, at least not that the reader can gather from what you have just previously been speaking about.

"Lifeless appendages stiffly attached to a hand that is turning purple from the cold." is a fragment (unless you care to tell me where i might find the subject and verb). I would guess it was not on purpose. But if it was, I would recommend strongly against it. I think it would better to actually master an understanding of the language before you go willy-nilly playing around with its rules. If that is not the case, then just pay more attention to subject/verb use.

"It looks disgusting in my mind." Well, at least you finally bring us back to the fact that this is being imagined. However, 'it looks disgusting' is very vague. How does something look disgusting? You have been giving us some decent images to convey to the reader what the image of your hand exposed in the cold looks like, but you take a step back here by simply stating "it looks disgusting." This does not strengthen the paragraph, it does, rather, the opposite, it distracts, and is awkwardly jammed into the middle of the paragraph.

Here: Showing vs Telling. If you want to become a better writer of prose, this is a great place to start improving. I'm not going to take the time to find a specific link that I think works best... but I recommend you just look & read around if you're really concerned about improving your writing.

"I see my veins popping up and pushing against my skin. Inside, my blood looks like it has been frozen in place." This first sentence here is solid. I might recommend saying "I can see" which seems to flow more with the idea of it being imagined, but that's not a big deal. What I have more issue with is this second sentence here. "Inside" - well, inside of what? Inside of your skin? You haven't specified this. Also, 'Inside' implies to me that whatever is 'inside' is beyond your range of vision from the just looking at your hand. I'm not sure, but maybe your vision has ventured to beneath the skin and we're looking out from inside your veins. By the text, I can see this as being plausible. But I doubt that is what you meant. The earlier misplaced "Underneath" might work better here. But once again, not just "Underneath, my blood looks like..." - but, "Underneath/Beneath my skin, my blood looks like it has been frozen in place."

Furthermore, on the subject of this 'inside' sentence. If you can already clearly establish to the reader that we are in a daydream sequence, and immerse them in it, you can now leave the 'looks like' business, and clearly state it. Like this: "Underneath my skin, the blood slowly pulses, as if it is starting to freeze, and my bulging veins finally settle, like the Himalayans, ranging over my palm(s) and fingers." I elaborated again, at the end, further than necessary, just to give you an idea of possible simile and detail of imagery, I suppose. But what I'd like you to pay more attention to is the use of active language. The blood is now in the process of freezing, rather than the stagnant imagine of blood which 'looks like it has been frozen in place' - which is far less likely to get an image into your readers head. There was also the previously difficult of moving from a good image of the veins popping and pressing against the skin, to the non-moving image of you're being able to see that the blood has frozen, which not only takes us a step back in quality, but also contradicts. (on one last note... why would your veins be popping and pressing against the skin due to coldness...? could you explain this to me?)

This 'active language' bit reminds me of another useful tool to look into:verb density.

Hopefully I have been helpful here, and maybe you can realize how much really goes into every little word choice you make. When proofreading you're own work (preferably after having been away from the material for a while), it would be a good idea to take to some 'close reading' like this on at least certain sections of your writing, and see how you can improve it.

If you would like me to have at a few more of your paragraphs, let me know. If it is appreciated, then it is certainly something I will take further time to get around to.

O yeah, and another initial question I thought of almost as soon as I started reading, how old are you?