First bit of the book

Hartley, a small town where the gardens were lined with picket white fences, at least one tire swing on every street and everyone knows everyone's secrets, or so they thought. Then this one particular night Jackson street was lit up by blue and red lights, police and paramedic radios echoing down the street, yellow police tape wrapped around the once “perfect” picket white fence to isolate the entire street from the public. One house is where it all started, one small town forever haunted.

5 Years ago

Standing on the path on Jackson street Thomas was walking his dog Spike, a ridgeback with a blue harness and a matching collar with a dog tag with the word “Spike '' engraved onto it. Thomas lives in 259 Jackson street with his partner Ashley, Ashley was a tall handsome young man with short styled hair. Thomas and Ashley met a few years ago at the park when Spike ran off with Ashleys football when he was playing with his mates, they say it was love at first sight. Since that day they have been inseparable and so very happy. Across the street a new neighbour had just arrived in a large white moving van. Spike had his hackles up and started to growl at someone or something across the street, which was so very unlike him. Thomas was surprised at this reaction cause he never heard Spike growl before he loved everyone and everything, this wasn't a normal reaction at all from him. As Thomas stood there wondering what was happening across the street, the van door opened and quickly slammed the door shut. Thomas stood still, looking as pale as a ghost, his palms sweating as he grips onto Spike's lead harder. He anxiously awaits to see who comes around the other side of the van, at first he notices his thick heavy black boots they looked like something a mechanic would wear to prevent something heavy from potentially falling onto his foot. He wore these very worn out jeans that had what seemed like multiple different paint stains making them somewhat go from blue to what Thomas would describe as a “ child's used canvas”. Looking at his long baggy black t-shirt Thomas noticed a huge logo, one he had never seen before. This logo looked like a stop sign but it was black and white with a flaming skull in the middle and the skull was smoking with the smoke going up out of the stop sign. He noticed some sort of huge tattoo around his neck. Thomas couldn't tell exactly what it was at first but it resembled a bit of barbed wire and possibly a rose on the back of his neck. He had a scruffy beard just like he just woken up and forgot to shave for the past 2 weeks, Thomas can't help but notice a big scar on his forehead that runs down to his cheek. He wondered how exactly this mysterious man managed to get that scar on his face. Thomas finally got to see his eyes as this man turned towards him, Thomas thought they were black for a moment like whatever this man had seen or done was pure evil, it was like looking into the devil's eyes, he could only wonder what this man had been through in the past. Distracted by his thoughts Thomas didn't notice this man was approaching him crossing the street. As he got nearer Spike started to cower behind Thomas and started to whine like he was in pain. Thomas was brought out of his thoughts by Spikes whining to notice this man was getting closer to him, he stood up straight and prepared himself for this introduction of his new neighbour.

Author's Note

Please leave feedback

Reviews

[JayG]

You’re going to hate me. But you did ask for feedback, and you’ll not address the problem you don’t see as being one, so I thought you should know. And since you asked for feedback, you can blame yourself for this. 😆

The problem that hit me in the first paragraph is that you’re writing exactly the way that you were taught to write. And were this a report you’d be right on target. But you’re facing two problems that hit us all when we turn to writing fiction:

First, all the writing techniques we were given were intended to help us on the job, by providing skills that employers need from us, like how to write a letter or a report. That makes perfect sense, because professions, like that of Fiction-Writer, are learned in addition to our school-day skills. Problem is, we pretty much all forget that, and leave school believing we know how to write, when all we know is nonfiction technique.

And that brings us to problem #2, which is that we learned only nonfiction, whose goal is to inform the reader, clearly. To accomplish that, we place a narrator on stage, alone, one who provides all the necessary data via overview and summation. That works because the reader expects the narrator’s “voice” to be that of a dispassionate external observer. Where the problem begins is when—because no one reminded us that Fiction Writing is a profession—we use those nonfiction skills for fiction, and end up writing what reads like a report. And when we read our own work we have things the reader can’t know, like our intent for how a given line is to be taken, the backstory of every character, context for everything that happens, and more. The thing we’re missing is the goal of fiction. As E. L. Doctorow put 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.”

At the moment you’re thinking in terms of plot and event, and as that external observer, you're reporting and explaining. But the reader wants you to place them into the protagonist’s “now,” in a way that will make that reader know the situation exactly as the protagonist does—in other words, calibrate the reader’s understanding to that of the protagonist, so, when they read of an event, they will react AS the protagonist, and feel that time is passing for them a the same rate it does for the protagonist. Done properly, if someone in the story hits our protagonist the reader says "ouch."

Think of the times when you were reading a story and had to stop reading for a moment to "catch your breath" because the action was so intense. And how many times have you been made to stop to say, “Oh Lord…what do we do now?” A reader whose made to do that is a happy reader. Unfortunately, in school, we didn’t learn that we should be doing that, and were taught nothing about how to do it. And that’s what you need to address.

To show how much we miss, let me take a few lines from the opening and show how an agent would react. Just bear in mind that it’s not your fault. And, you have a LOT of company: pretty much everyone who turns to writing fiction:

• Hartley, a small town where the gardens were lined with picket white fences, at least one tire swing on every street and everyone knows everyone's secrets, or so they thought.

Is there really any small town where everyone believes they know every other person in the town that well? If true there can be no crime, because everyone would know who did it. In short, you’re generalizing.

You’re making a group of people behave as one person. Every garden had a picket fence? Not one street had only swing sets with a seat? Makes no sense. But more to the point, who cares? What did those thirty words give the reader that, “Hartley was a typical small town” doesn’t? Every unnecessary word that can be removed speeds the reading and increases the impact of the story.

• 5 Years ago

So you began in the present with general information. The reader is ion an unknown street on a night when something unspecified is happening. And you then abandon the present and jump to a time before the story began. Why? If it matters, begin the story where the story begins.

• Standing on the path on Jackson street Thomas was walking his dog Spike, a ridgeback with a blue harness and a matching collar with a dog tag with the word “Spike '' engraved onto it.

This is a report, not a story. What conceivable reason is there for the reader to know that a dog wears a collar with their name engraved on it? Would the story change were the name not there? If not, there's no reason to include it, because it's detail, not story.

And, how can the man be STANDING on the path, while at the same time be “WALKING his dog? Did you even edit this? Why do we care what kind of a dog it is? Would the story change in the slightest were the dog a mutt? No. Every single line in a story must move the plot, meaningfully set the scene, or, develop character. The only visual description that’s needed is that which is one of those three. Our medium does NOT support vision, so telling the reader about the dog’s species and collar type serves only to slow the read and bore the reader.

Your reader wants to know what’s happening, not what happened. So all the words on how long the man had the dog and how he felt about it had nothing to do with what's happening in the scene. Readers want raw meat. They want you to make the feel and care, not nod and say, "Uh-huh."

The short version: You need to dig it the specialized knowledge of the profession and make it yours. And given where you stand, today, my suggestion is to grab a copy of Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It’s a warm easy read, like sitting with Deb as she talks about writing. Just read it slowly, practicing each point as she brings it up, or you’ll forget you read about it three days later.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Thelostgirl22]

Thankyou so much for the feedback like you said it's needed to improve on the writing I appreciate the honesty.