first 4 pages off word & onto thread

[fiona]

Hope this works and you'll be able to view it
Fiona

CHAPTER1

The evening class seemed to accept habitual absentees with little or no regard. By now, it being five weeks into term, Connie was checking the register and deleting two such students with a thick red marker pen. She couldn’t even recall their names without the records. The third missing member, the oh so memorable Jack Marshall, hadn’t turned up tonight and she was well hacked off.

“Bugger!” she thought, as a blood red false pinky nail dislodged itself in the chaos that was her pencil case. “ And bugger that too. bloody shame about him,… . Such potential.”

As far as she was concerned, drop-outs, even Jack, simply didn’t have what it took. After all, Connie Ernthwaite’s
Cordon bleu cookery classes were not for just any wannabe gourmet chef. As she often spouted forth when in thrall.

Well, the whole class could see it wasn’t really Jack’s culinary skills she was interested in. Her subtle –as- a -brick flirtation with the poor guy had been viewed with varying degrees of interest, disgust and general amusement, as each student stole sneaky glances from various vantage points around the college kitchen.

Lucy Newton, a plump, recently married twenty-one year old, with a well worn, permanent frown and figure she shouldn’t have for another twenty years, had spotted a definite knee fondle as she took rather longer than necessary to look for a balloon whisk in the balloon whisk drawer!


This info was swiftly shared with her oddly matched class compadre ‘shelle. Another newlywed with the stunning looks of Brittany Spears and the gob of Sean Rider in full, Tanked- up flow.

She duly poo-poo’d Lucy’s snippet with little interest and proceeded with her own X-rated version of what she reckoned the pair of them were up to now in the dry goods locker. Shockingly graphic as it was, the rest of the class were secretly enjoying an earful too.

All this speculation and more went totally un-noticed by Connie, but Jack was obviously uncomfortable with the attention, which probably accounted for his absence this week.

Connie loved to regale her class with the inadequacies of the entire cheffing fraternity. – In fact anyone with a fraction more training than her was doomed to the status of pretender at the first sight of an “amateur” wielding his or her Sabatier with less parry and thrust than she would deem worthy of a professional.

You had to bear in mind of course, that her own training was a culmination of two years at Mac the Knife’s transport café and a whole lot of UK TV food, gleaning just enough through constantly applied study, to pass herself off as a bon vivant. This and a natural talent for the theatrical, seemed to be enough to convince the half dozen newlyweds in her Tuesday class.

The two attending middle aged spinster sisters, Trisha and Belle were onto her, but they didn’t let on. They were having a laugh, and besides the TV was rubbish on Tuesdays.

‘ Shelle of course had a theory about “that pair” too.
“ Why the hell would two okay looking dames like them give up on blokes Together” she asked with the promise of an answer to the gaggle of newlyweds, who stood boggle eyed, expectant and slightly fearful. Waiting to be enlightened.

‘Shelle surveyed her edgy audience with a slow, sweeping, look.
“Well what do you think. Are you all chuffing blind, daft or both.” The faces about her appeared even more gormless.
“They’re chuffing girlfriends” she said the word as though explaining to someone mentally deficient - “you flaming bunch of loons.” She couldn’t believe they weren’t following.

Still the quizzical, glazed looks returned nothing but a unanimous blank.
“Bugger me!” she exhaled hard, Cigarette smoke making the yet to be informed cough and splutter and ask timidly, almost as one, if she really ought to be smoking in the kitchen.
“phfh!” Was their answer. Like she cared.

“Okay, I’ll spell it out for you…..Ready….. the sisters are gay. Got it?... No?...Les-bi-ans?”

Suddenly dawn filtered through. One at a time the gawping mouths opened a fraction wider. Like an oral Mexican wave.

‘Shelle walked away in exasperation to the open window. Hitching herself onto the worktop, she flicked the offending cigarette end into the darkness and onto any poor sod passing below. Looking over her shoulder at her newly educated flock she wondered for the umpteenth time how folk could be so bloody thick.

Meanwhile, only six feet away, hidden on the floor behind the open saucepan cupboard door. Trisha and Belle were trying very hard not to be heard, as they muffled their giggles with a handfuls of quilted pot holders.
“How can folk be so bloody thick” Trisha echoed ‘Shelles thoughts to Belle’s muffled “I know, I know.”

They sensed the floor show was breaking up and made to leave their hiding place. “I guess the Cat’s well and truly out of the bag now babe.” Trisha said, reaching up to the worktop for leverage as she hoisted her ample frame skywards.
“I know, I know.” Belle giggled back.
“That Michelle’s a canny one eh!. Had us well sussed”

Belle was almost vertical herself, when she remarked to Trisha that they might not enjoy the classes so much now that they were to be the subject of speculation.
“Rubbish! You great ninny. We’ll be fine, you’ll see. At that moment the gaggle waddled into view. Smiled politely, if a little sympathetically, and passed by to discuss the merits of Tesco versus Asda Cook-in sauces.

“See!” said Trisha.

[Azmakna]

put spaces between the paragraphs and i'll go through it my favourite font!

[rosenthalpiano]

It's good. You obviously have a somewhat sophisticated grasp of the language, and your metaphors and adjectives often make me laugh. However be careful not to get carried away with that; it could become tiresome after a while.

There are a few places here and there where I would have personally used a semicolon or even a comma instead of a full stop, but that's partially stylistic. And there's a place where you missed a closing quotation mark near the very end (after the word "see").

Your characters are introduced fairly well. I already have a sense of the sort of people they are, but I think you can do even more on that level.

My one major criticism is that I don't see where this is going, as a story. If you have the plot all planned out, props to you. But I really don't see how this can hold up for very long, since nothing very significant seems to happen in the first chapter. What sort of novel is this going to be? Is it a lesbian romance novel (in which case I personally would probably never read it) or something entirely different? I'd be interested to read the next chapter and see if there is a plot that keeps me reading.

I suspect that if you ever managed to market this as a story, your audience would be chiefly comprised of Brits, since a lot of the colloquialism is written in a very British style.

[fiona]

Thankyou Rosenthalpiano,
NOT A LESBIAN STORY - just a wee bit of character forming.
You're absolutely right about the pace becoming exhausting if i kept it up for too long. there's plenty more of the same, but i allow the reader to slow down and catch their breath once in a while.
Don't know where this is going either but i'm loving it. I'm not aware of how to write yet. just saying what i see, and hoping you can see it too. Don't understand discipline yet, but hopefully pick it up at class. Blaah!
I'll post some more.
So grateful for the feedback
Looking forward to reading you too
Fiona
Ps. Think i'm writing a sit-com He he

[Rob]

Hi Fiona,

Sure, there are some things here that could be worked on, but there's no reason why you should be quaking about reading this out in your creative writing course. I'm sure you'll find it beneficial. Good luck.

Cheers,
Rob

[fiona]

Thank you Azmakna. Just done it. Reads better for me too.
Gonna try and find a title now
All the best
Fiona