sylvia.cheers

I'm trying to write my first novel (230 pages and counting). It's a much bigger task than I imagined. I've been working on it for six months and still there seems to be so much work ahead of me!

Anyway, here is a little sample from the first chapter.
Any comments very welcome.
Thanks

Sylvia


As always, some junk emails had made it through the filter and were there, littering his inbox. “Earn $80000 from home, let me show you how”, and “This is real; it really works”, and “Marcus, you have been selected for a special prize.” How the hell the spammers managed to get hold of his name he didn’t know. But it was a fairly good trick, because he always felt a little nervous pressing the delete button on something that had his name on it. One day he would really win a prize, or get a real love letter, and never know.

Also annoying was the fact that some junk emails didn’t look like junk at all; occasionally they were even sent by people that he knew, who obviously had far too much time on their hands and should get immediate pay decreases. That day was such a day: Elena, a new girl who worked two desks away from him and with whom he had had a friendly initial meeting only two days before, had sent him one of those chain emails. His first impulse was to reply to her with a stern email warning her that it was against company policy to forward such emails, and enclose some chapter or other from the ‘Rules for Internet usage’. He was pretty sure there was a Pdf file somewhere. That would probably have been the right thing to do, seeing that Marcus was her boss and all. But he hated doing things like that. Of course, he would be forced to have a word if she persisted, but he wouldn’t’ enjoy it, not even an ounce, because it chipped at the image he liked to maintain of himself: as a groovy, youngish, fair and easy going boss that other people’s subordinates felt envious of.

He read the damned email. There was nothing much to do.

It was a stupid animated laughing Buddha, supposedly bestowing upon the lucky email receivers prosperity and luck. Well, he could do with that, he thought, touching his lump yet again. And then, of course, the animation continued, with the instructions to send it on to three or more people for a good surprise, to four to six people for a really good surprise, and to six people or more for an entire month of amazing luck. At the very end, there was also a vague warning to send it to at least one person, because something bad could befall a person who tried to keep the Buddha of luck all to himself.
Then he was angry. Normally he would have laughed something like this off, but with the lump looming ominously, it wasn’t that easy. He found his own uneasiness irritating, because he was on the whole, a rationalist, atheist man, logical as they come, and still, he had to admit that he had a slight weakness for superstition.
As a young teenager, he had gone through a particularly obsessive phase with this, spending dead hours reading the outcome of anything that worried him in the colour of cars that went down the street. As far as he was concerned, red cars were bad. They signalled a red pen, crossing and staining his exam papers, or spilled blood, his, his mother’s, or anyone else’s that he cared about. The more red cars, especially in a row, the more he worried and the more he felt inclined to check out more cars, sometimes walking for miles in the town. Once, incredibly, they were seven red cars in a row and he couldn’t sleep with worry, because he was certain there was going to be a terrible accident. Four days later, when he had let down his guard a little, his father fell down the stairs of a pub, and had to have his leg in a cast for months. Everyone kept saying that he had been lucky that he hadn’t broken his neck or hit his head, because those stairs at the pub were incredibly steep and in fact, were replaced soon afterwards.
Eventually, Marcus just stopped looking at cars. He couldn’t remember exactly when it had happened, or whether it had been a gradual or sudden thing. He had just grown out of it. But the memory of those seven cars, all lined up together, one after another, as if they had planned it for his benefit, still hung at the back of his mind, unresolved. It had been a coincidence, of course, he told himself, the cars and the accident. But coincidences, big ones, always seem more like coincidences when they happen to other people.


Marcus was not the kind of man to set off home on the dot of five o’clock, but neither was he a workaholic. Usually, he just watched the sky darken from his office window, while he typed away, brainstorming ideas, or sending out emails. And at some point his mood would change with the coming of the night, and he would feel a need to be cosier, in a less impersonal space. During the day, Marcus was an extrovert, a party man, the sort of man who could make jokes about people’s hair and they went down well. But in the dark he was an introvert. In the dark he just wanted to be home, and collect his thoughts. When that happened, he would finish what he was doing, shut down the computer, check the lights were off, and come through the automatic doors and into the London night.

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lilacstarflower

I would drop the 'and' between the first two quotes, just the comma would suffice there

I would change this. Talking about letters with e-mails? (though I knew what you meant). How about "or having a real secret admirer"?

I'm a little confused as to where the story was going. All I got from this was a character sketch, or introduction.

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starseed

Is this the very beginning of the novel?

I liked it, I found it fascinating. Especially the part about the watching cars and the last bit about it getting dark. I was really drawn in at those parts. I wonder what sort of story this is going to be...hmmm yes I'd keep reading if I just picked it up.

The only thing I can say is maybe break it up into smaller paragraphs. That's just my personal preference, I write with as many paragraph breaks as possible, because long paragraphs have always hurt my eyes and made reading a little more difficult for me. Like I said, that's just MY preference and I know others on this forum prefer the opposite, so it's up to you.

sylvia.cheers

Thank you so much for the comments. I hadn't even thought about a love letter not being technically a love letter if it's not in email format! It's really good getting a different perspective.

This is not the very beginning of the novel, though it is a sample from early on in the book, 5 pages in or so. I realise the sample has no hook per se- I just wasn't sure what to post, and decided for a random bit, to see if I could get any comments on the writing itself.

Thank you so much for your critiques.


Sylvia

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starStuff

i was gonna say that was clever the way you introduced the main character's name in the title of a junk email, but then i realized you said it wasn't the very beginning.

i liked your voice and was interested enough in marcus to keep reading. though, i would like to know where the story is going. there was nothing indicating what the plot was.

__________________
Please read and critique my Novella-in-Progress, tentatively titled:
The Gadon Stone
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Library

Chapter 2 is in the works. These are posted in the Critique and Advice forum here.

sylvia.cheers

Okay, it seems I was wrong to post a random part and that I need to give an idea of the overall plot. To this effect, I am posting the beginning of the novel, which sort of introduces what will be the main plot point of the story.


Here it is


It was at a corporate meeting that Marcus first found the lump on his neck. At his firm there were two types of meeting: the creative, which Marcus enjoyed, and the corporate. The former were small and informal, and took place in little cosy rooms, with colourful donuts from the shop next door and people standing up on chairs to mimic ideas and talk in silly voices. The corporate, on the other hand, were the kind of meetings where company policies were discussed, and big managers in casual wear talked endlessly about fluffy business ideas imported from America, or practical matters like the impending closure of designated smoking places. The trademark of the capitalist world: the meeting.

Even before he had found the lump, Marcus’ mind had already begun to wander. He couldn’t help it, though it would be a lie to say that he tried very hard. It was easy enough to listen to the long monologues of the speakers, looking in their general direction but immersed in one’s own thoughts. And it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling either: a warm room, a hot drink in front of him, and some time to just be. He would have liked to close his eyes and get lost in his thoughts altogether: dinner: pasta carbonara, perhaps, wine, and the upcoming trip to Vienna, which he and his wife had been planning and postponing for well over a year. It looked like it would finally happen: the tickets were safely tucked away in a bedside table drawer, alongside the German phrasebook, and, of course, a note with a handful of emergency telephone numbers.

At some point, someone passed him an attendance sheet, and Marcus signed in big, neat handwriting. His wife Dana often said his handwriting was like a child’s, perfect round a’s, and o’s, and every letter meticulously joined up to the next. Marcus himself didn’t see her point. He didn’t think letting handwriting slip was a sign of maturity, nor did he buy all that crap about intelligent people writing fast and therefore, badly.

He passed the attendance sheet to the girl to his left, Clara, otherwise known as green new girl. As he did, he accidentally touched her hand, and it was a second later, as he was running his fingers around his neck, more embarrassed than the situation really granted, that he noticed a protuberance, right at the base of the neck.

He thought nothing of it at first.

“So Marcus”, said his boss, who, by the looks of things, had been speaking. “I was wondering if you have anything to add regarding these issues in your own division.”

Marcus perked right up. With his right hand he touched the lump he had just found, pushing it with two fingers.

“Not at present.” He said, thinking quickly. He moved his hand only a short distance, pretending he had been straightening his tie. And miraculously, because Marcus never seemed get away with anything, miraculously, that was good enough. The big manager, Ted Ranson, a big, cow-boy type, did not ask any follow up questions: he just moved on to point 2 on the agenda, the cost of persistent absenteeism.

Marcus picked up biscuit from the wicket basket on the table and with certain relief, went back to his own thoughts. They were dry and boring biscuits, probably two pounds a kilo or something like that. As soon as he had tried one, he wished that he could discreetly spit it out: it was that type of biscuit that becomes a crumbly paste in the mouth and sticks to the roof. He tried to pick up his trail of his earlier thoughts, he knew Pasta Carbonara had figured in some way, and Vienna, as well. Would he leave his car at the airport or would it be safer, and cheaper, to leave it in its parking space? That would mean they would have to take a taxi, though, which was not as convenient as taking their own car.

For no particular reason, his fingers moved to find the lump again: it was tender, though not painful, springy like a bouncy ball. He had no idea what it could be: his medical knowledge was sketchy at best, picked up from medical magazines over the years, and from conversations he had overheard between his mother and her friends, all devout ailment experts.

But he did know one thing: his day had promised to be a lot better before
he found it.

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