Chapter 1

James sat down. It was 4:30 PM on Sunday in the UK and the summer clouds of England, gave the air a slight unease about them. He plugged his phone into the charger and sat on a chair next to it. It was round this time he often would have gone to meet Michael, but Michael had to go to have a roast dinner at his grandparents. They had agreed to meet up later in the afternoon.

Michael was in James’ class when they first joined the school. James had always liked him. But they were never close for the first three years. Michael was a rugby boy and was far more popular than James. The only way that James was ever able to get his feelings across was when he told a friend, and the rumour spread around the class. He got bullied a lot, he tried to brush it off, and on one hand he felt happy for the attention �" it helped him keep his sanity �" but it hurt. It was not until the end of that fourth year that Michael was able to tell James he felt the same way. And they kept their relationship secret from everyone, it was simpler that way.

It was lucky that James did feel the same way because Michael had a suicide note prepared just before. After reading it back just before he threw it away, he felt like an idiot. The writing almost felt corny as he read it, but he figured suicide notes didn’t really work. As a matter of fact, he forgot why he even wanted to kill himself, it was true that he hated how nobody could understand each other, and how he felt he had no choice who he was, even though his parents were wealthy enough and he was a so called ‘lucky one’, he felt sad, and he hated himself for that. However, he was never selfish enough to leave everyone else behind, and not remove his sorrow, but move it on to everyone else. He was that type of person who would not live for themselves but for others.

His mood changed after he became close to Michael. He would talk, he would laugh, and he would feel emotions. For a long time, he didn’t feel anything, only an emptiness he tried to fill in all sorts of ways, but the happiness was only ever temporary. But he began to feel real happiness when he was around Michael. At first, he could hardly recognise the feeling anymore, but then he remembered this was how blissful true happiness felt, to be happy.

Despite all this happiness they shared one common problem, which was the fact that their parents were strict Catholics. They both believed all people who weren’t straight Christians were sinners and should not be talked to. This is why neither had come out to their parents. On one hand, they believed their parents loved them but at the same time they figured their parents could easily hate them and their delicate lives would be torn apart. In short it was because they feared the unknown.

As James aimlessly scrolled through his For You Page and the rain began to come down, he heard his mum call from downstairs. She told him that because he was a good friend with Michael, that she had invited their family round for a lunch next Sunday. James was happy to see Michael, but he was nervous about what their parents would talk about and what backwards views they would have about the world. But he knew all would be well because he was seeing Michael at school tomorrow and they were going to meet afterwards.

He liked being around Michael. He didn’t care about sex or kisses much, there was something he cherished more than that. He just wanted to have fun. He was most glad to just have someone who he could laugh with, and smile with, and do crazy stuff with. Michael was a brother and a lover to James.  He didn’t care if they supported different teams or disliked different people, or had different tastes in arts, because they loved and respected each other enough not to argue about those types of things. But James couldn’t get over the fact that Michael was hidden from all his friends. James didn’t have too many friends but the ones he was close too he would tell them about him, but Michael never let him talk about them. It was clearly because Michael feared that his friends would bully him, and he would be lonely and then his parents would find out and that was his greatest fear. This was all perfectly logical to James, but it made him feel like Michael was embarrassed but he always tried to remember that Michael needed time to figure out what to do. Just like everyone.

Reviews

[JayG]

• James sat down.

As against sitting up? Why specify down? He sat, or took a seat. But...no matter how you word it, it's meaningless to the reader as it's read, because someone unknown is sitting in an unknown place, on an unknown object, for unstated reasons. So it's data not story.

The reader has not a clue of what's going on, because you give no context, so while it's words in a row, it has no meaning for the reader, but must, because no one reads words that meaningless and then continues reading.

Why make such a big deal about this? Because here, after the first sentence, is where a publisher, or a reader in a bookstore would reject this. Not good news, I know, but hang on, because I do have a solution.

There's a LOT to writing fiction that's not obvious. It is a profession, after all, and they offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction Writing, for good reasons. They've been refining the techniques of fiction for centuries, and we're given none of them in our school-days. There, we learn the kind of writing that employers need from us: the nonfiction skills needed to write reports, letters, and other such applications.

• It was 4:30 PM on Sunday in the UK and the summer clouds of England, gave the air a slight unease about them.

Did you edit this? If you did, you need to review comma usage. If not, you must always present only your "A" game.

That aside, I've been on Planet Earth for a good many decades. And I've literally been around the globe. And in that time, I have never breathed uneasy air.

My point? You're trying to embellish the writing in a literary way to make the telling interesting. Don't. Begin your story with story, not a weather report. Don't tell the reader that someone in the story felt uneasy. Make the reader feel that way.

Don't tell your reader a story. Do that and you've written a report. Make the reader LIVE that story, as the protagonist, and, in real-time.

We cannot transcribe ourselves telling the story to an audience, as you do here, because none of the emotion we hear in our own voice makes it to the page. And none of your visual performance—gesture, body-language, or facial expression—makes it to the page, either. So what the reader gets is a storyteller's script with no performance notes.

At no time in this are any characters on stage., Instead, someone who can neither be seen nor heard is giving a lecture. And that cannot work.

That doesn't have anything to do with your talent, or how well you write, though. The problem is that because no one reminds us that writing fiction requires the specialized skills of the profession, we naturally assume that writing-is-writing, and that we have that taken care of. If only...

In reality, to write fiction we need the skills of the fiction writer. We can't know of the decision-points where the author used "A" instead of "B", and we can't see the tools and techniques being used. But we see the result of those decisions and the tool use. And of more importance, we expect to see that when we read, as readers expect it in your writing. But not having learned those skills yet...

As I said, it's not a matter of talent, and you can learn them as easily (or with as much trouble, I suppose) as the skills you now own. So the solution is simple: dig into the skills the pros take for granted, and give your words wings.

Will that be easy? Of course not. It's a profession, so it takes study and practice to master. But that's true of any profession. And if you are meant to write, the learning will be fun. And the practice is writing stories. So what's not to love?

So, here's the deal; Given where you stand, today, download and read, Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It's an easy read, and one of the best books on writing I've found. Read it slowly, with time spent thinking about each point introduced, as to how it relates to your writing. And practice every point to make it yours, or you'll forget you read it a day later. A site where you can read or download it free is just below:
https://yes-pdf.com/book/1596

But before you dig into it, you might want to look at a few of my articles and videos, as a sort of overview of the differences between fiction writing, and the kind of writing we're given in school. And then, read the article I link to below. It's a condensation of two critical writing techniques you'll find in that book, to get you started.
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php

So...I know this was pretty far from what you hoped to hear. but since you'll not address any problem tyou don't see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

[Caspar Askew]

I understand your thoughts. But at the end of the day I don't care. Because this book is not about beautiful slow writing and complicated techniques. It's something different.

[JayG]

Different? Not really. It's the usual, book report style of of the beginner, who's not learned any of the skills necessary for writing a novel, because they didn't know there was another approach to writing.

Have you not noticed that no one else has commented?

That's because this isn't a story, it's a dissertation—a transcription of you talking—telling when you should be showing, with lengthy authorial interjections and explanations of things irrelevant to the action.

In this first chapter, nothing happens. Nothing. Instead, you, someone who cannot be seen or heard—and so, has no emotion in their voice—are giving a lecture on the past. In other words, history, not story. But fiction is about what happens, not what once happened. So you lose the reader's interest in the first paragraph and they're gone.

And if you lose the reader on page one, you wasted every second of the time it took to type the rest.

And if it's important enough to you to spend all that time, it's damn well important enough to learn-what-you're-doing, and how to communicate with the reader in a way that matters TO THEM.

If you have so little respect for your reader that you're not willing to learn how to make them WANT to read the story—too lazy to read even the article I suggested—you're writing to please yourself, then posting it in public. And you know what they say about those who please themselves in public. 😆

So put the sour grapes away and stop looking for a gold star for effort. If you want to write, take the time to become a writer. You have something meaningful to say, if you'd learn how to say it so others understand.