Chapter One: Radio

This is Radio's POV :)

Chapter 1 Radio's POV:

I just woke up to my phone alarm going off, “Radio can you shut it off? It’s the weekend! I swear to god if you don’t-” I cut Audio off

 “Well unlike you, I have a job and an actual life!” No, I don’t think I’m being too hard on them, they deserved it. 

“Radio! Audio! Can you two come down here for breakfast?” Ma hollered from upstairs, 

“Yeah, Ma! I’ll be down in a minute!” We both hollered down at the same time.

“You two boys seem so tired of each other. All. The. Time. Why?” I sigh, realizing what she's about to do. “You know when I was growing up I always wanted a sibling.” 

“Ma, can you cut the bull crap?!” Audio said the one thing I’ve always wanted to say, “We get it! You’ve always wanted a sibling! Now cut the bull crap!” Our mom just looked stunned. Audio had finally cracked. I tried so hard not to chuckle, I knew exactly what was going to happen next. “Audio Alexander Ball! What the hell! Watch your mouth young man!” Ma snapped back, “You little jerk I’ve raised by myself, and Radio too! What in the actual bloody hell?!” 

I looked at the time, “Well, look at the time. I’ve got to go to work.” I say I didn't want to be in the middle of their ongoing war of words.

“Radio, no! You're going to sit there and help Audio see that he needs to grow up! Like you have! You’ve grown into such an intelligent, smart, and handsome young boy!” 

“Gee, thanks Ma for making me realize that I’m not talented and special like Radio!” Audio snapped, “I know I’m not talented or special like Radio, no need to rub it in!”

“Well it’s not my fault you're just lazy and don't want to try!” I snapped back, “Now I really have to get to work before I get fired! Goodbye!” I slammed the door behind me. Man, I wish I was an only child.

Audio is such a pain in my a*s! They never leave me alone. At first, I understood because they had looked up to me, but now they just want to be a pain in the a*s due to the fact I actually take responsibility.”

“Ugh! My morning sucked a*s!” I said walking into work, “My mom and my brother started to fight and I got dragged into it.” I say walking to work with Charlie.

S**t! What if he didn’t want to hear about that? Someone, anyone take me out of here! I hate this!! I can’t figure this s**t out! Figuring out what people like to hear  about is so hard. 

“Oh I know, I heard you guys yelling. It’s like you forgot I'm your neighbor or something.”

 “I guess I’m just that bad of a boyfriend then I guess.” I say leaning in for a kiss.

“Radio,” Charlie said, “I know you think I don’t want to hear about this stuff, but I’m your boyfriend, of course I want to hear what’s happening in your life. I don’t want you to go through this stuff alone.” 

God, he’s so awesome. He deserves some medal or something for that.

“You sure you don’t mind?” I ask because I don’t want him to be super supportive if he doesn’t have to be.

“Yeah, I don’t want your mental health to get s****y again, and I love you.”

Oh my god! He said it! Finally, we’ve only been together for a year and a half!

“I love you, too.” And we kissed! 

OH. MY. GOD! It’s happened! Holy s**t! It’s about damn time he’s said it!

“How come we’ve never said it to each other before?” I finally ask.

“Because we’re both chicken s***s,” He says. 

“I’m going to have to agree. I’ve wanted to tell you for months, but never had the courage to say it.” God, my heart is pounding so damn fast that it feels like it’s leaping out of my chest. Yes!

“Aww…”

S**t! What?

“What? Do I have something in my hair? Is there something on my face?” I’m literally freaking out thinking that there is something on my face, ugh! I swear to god, if he’s just messing around with me-

“Your face is red. It’s so cute.”

“You gave me a f*****g heart attack!” I say, playfully punching his arm, “That’s not nice!”

“No, but it’s cute.”

“Shut up!” 

“Aww, is Radio a little flustered?” He says playfully, “Does he need a hug?”

“No, we need to get to work, we're almost there anyway.” I say. Finally! Yes! No matter what happens today, I will be happy with just this.

Author's Note

Let me know what you think of this. Until I get more Comments, reviews, etc. I wont post any more.

Reviews

[JayG]

• I just woke up to my phone alarm going off,

I really hate to do this with the first line, but here is where the problems begin, in a way that, unfortunately, is invisible to you. So, take a deep breath:

1. In this line, you have effect before cause. We learn that this unknown person wakes, and then why. But doesn’t cause come before effect in life? By reversing it you establish that this isn’t happening, it’s being talked about. And how real can that seem?
2. Think about what the word “just” contributes. If you remove it does the meaning change? No. So all it does is slow the reading of that line and dilute impact.
3. Why do we care if it was the phone alarm, a church bell, or a dog barking. So the word “phone” can be trimmed, too.
4. In the end, wouldn’t we learn the same thing if you began with: “Radio,” I shouted, my eyes not yet open. “Turn off that damn alarm!” We learn the same thing, but not as an explanation by someone not in the room. Having the narrator use personal pronouns as if the events happened to them in the past is NOT first-person viewpoint as writers see it. Instead of living the events, we’re being told of them, secondhand.

• “Radio can you shut it off?”

1. As they read this. Can the reader know that you’re being cute with names for cute’s sake? No. So this sounds as if he's talking to a "smart radio." in the way you'd call out to Siri or Alexa. And you cannot retroactively remove a reader's confusion.
2. Shut “it” off? Why would someone have THEIR alarm device next to someone else, and expect them to do the work? This makes no sense. Instead of dictating events, live them as the protagonist in your mind, with their personality and situation, to find out what THEY would be moved to do and say, instead of dictating it to them based on what you want to happen.

• I swear to god if you don’t-” I cut Audio off

Okay, I give up. "Radio" was ordered to do the job. But someone or some robotic device called Audio was speaking for unknown reasons. You first indicate that their speech was cut off with an em-dash, and then you TELL the reader that it happened, Choose one of those, not both.

Here you lose the reader, because the “Let me tell you a story” approach you’re using caused you to leave out information the reader needs. You know where we are in time and space. You know what’s going on and why. You know whose skin we wear. And because you do, it seems too obvious to mention, so you don’t. And as a result, it makes perfect sense to you, and none to the reader.

More than that, you’ve fallen into the most common trap in writing: Telling the reader the story by transcribing yourself as a storyteller. But, in all the world, does anyone but you know the emotion you expect the reader to place into the words? Nope. How about the changes in expression and the visual punctuation of gesture? No again. So in the end, aren’t you giving the reader a storyteller’s script, appointing them to the job of storyteller, and providing none of the stage directions and guidance they need to mimic your performance?

To better hear what I mean, have your computer read this to you. A better way would be to have a friend cold-read it to you. But you probably don’t want your friends to see you crying. 😂.

But...all of what I mentioned above has nothing to do with how well you write, or your talent. It’s that you’re writing exactly as you’ve been trained to write in school, and that approach doesn’t, and can’t work for fiction.

Kind of a large whoops, but it catches most of us when we turn to writing, so it's no big deal.

Think about the most common writing assignment you’ve had over the years. Wasn’t it for reports and essays? Both are meant to explain. And as such, are fact-based and author-centric, as is this story. You, alone on stage, report and explain what happens TO the reader. Informative? Yes. Entertaining? Nope. But readers come to fiction to be entertained. They don’t want to learn what happens. History books do that. And who reads them for fun?

Readers want you to make them feel like they’re LIVING the events in real-time, as-the-protagonist. As E. L. Doctorow puts it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” Nonfiction explains. Fiction involves.

But the purpose of public education is to ready us for adult lives that involve employment. And what kind of writing do employers need from us? Reports, letters, and other nonfiction applications.

See the problem? For fiction you need writing skills that are emotion-based and character-centric. If you read a romantic story, do you want to be told that the protagonist has fallen in love? Or, do you want to be made to fall in love with that person? The skills of fiction are what you need to do that.

As an illustration of another approach, look at the opening of Monkey Feet:
-------
The com-link muttered curses, as it always did when Mark Porter was doing battle with things mechanical. Cal Shaefer focused on his magazine, comforted by the grumbling, which signified that all was right with the universe. If it became too quiet, then he’d worry. Around him, the ship, too, muttered, as it went about its business of keeping him safe and warm.
Dropping his index finger, he tapped the screen for the next page, then reached for his coffee globe, to sip as he read.
-------
Look at what we learn, without a narrator explaining:

1. Someone named Mark Porter, who is not where we are, is working on some mechanical device, and it’s not going as well as it should.
2. Cal Shaefer is in the scene, reading a magazine, not worried by what he hears, as indicated by his reading a magazine.
3. Apparently, only if Mark is silent should we worry. Note that after reading this, if Cal would frown at the silent com unit, we wouldn’t have to be told there’s reason to worry.
4. We next learn that he’s on some sort of ship, and given that the ship is keeping him “safe and warm, the reader concludes that it’s in space.
5. He’s reading on some sort of monitor, and the fact that he’s drinking from something called a coffee globe, as against a cup, indicates that he’s in a zero gravity environment.

But...every bit of that information was learned in context, by observing the action, not by being told by an external observer who kills all sense of reality by intruding.

Make sense?

Bottom line: Your school-day training is invaluable. But the nonfiction approach doesn’t work for fiction, and needs to be replaced. And while that involves a lot of work, you’ll enjoy the learning. And the practice is writing stories.

For a general overview of the differences and the gotchas and traps, you might try a few of my articles and YouTube videos.

But in general to acquire the needs skills, I suggest you begin with, Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict:
https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/gmc-goal-motivation-and-conflict-9781611943184.html

It’s a warm easy read, which feels a lot like sitting with Deb as she talks about writing. Then, use what you’ve learned for a few months and then jump to Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It's the best I've found to date at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. https://dokumen.pub/techniques-of-the-selling-writer-0806111917.html

It’s an older book, but still, the best I’ve found at clarifying the hows and whys of writing fiction.

But of most importance, 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

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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

[V.M.]

Hey, thanks so much for your feedback man, I really appreciate it! I will rewrite it a bit so the reader can make more sense of the story.
Thank you so much! ~V

[JayG]

• I will rewrite it a bit so the reader can make more sense of the story.

Won't work. I mentioned one out of hundreds of things you can get wrong, and never notice you have.

We cannot use the writing approach we learn in school because they're training us for employment. And employers need us to use nonfiction skills. So, no matter how hard you work, using those skills, you are guaranteed a rejection.

Bottom line: When reading, we see the result of using the skills of the profession, but not the tools. Still, we expect to see them. And work that was not created with them will immediately be rejected by publishers and readers. So, to be a fiction writer we must first BECOME one. There is no way around that, and no shortcuts but to not look for one. So, read a book or two on the basics of the profession. I strongly recommend the one I linked to but there are many that can get you on the right path.