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Wed 21 Nov, 2007 01:14 am
This is a very small passage from the first chapter of the book I have been writing for quite some time. I get quite frustrated with it because I sometimes cannot find the words I am looking for to describe an emotion or give a description. Let me know what you think and if you want to I can give you more of the chapter.
Chapter One
I had awoken from my dreamless and ceaselessly restive sleep rather early that sunrise to assume my morning promenade a great deal earlier than the days before it. Outside of my bedroom window I could see that the sun had barely breached the horizon. Much of nature had already come alive for I could hear the faint resonance of birds singing in the distance followed by a simple barn rooster calling out to announce a brand new day. Neither sound could have been held accountable for rousing me for I was not near sleep. I uncomfortably, and quite awkwardly, sat myself upright in my bed and slowly departed from underneath the sheets barely still clinging to the mattress. The room was quite cool having not yet been warmed by the rays of the sun. The house was deathly quiet with the exception of the sound of the floor boards creaking as I headed across the room towards the wardrobe.
The date was April the tenth in the year Nineteen-Hundred and Twelve. I will remember this day for the rest of my life for I would never return to this room the same way I had admitted it every summer for the past seventeen years of my life. My child-like innocence will have come and passed by the time I returned to find myself crossing the threshold of this bare chamber, if ever again.
Most of my personal things had already been prepared into their proper trunk and were now waiting to be loaded onto the cars once they were to arrive later this morning. As this was merely our summer estate, there was very little to prepare. I had traveled back and fourth from our home in America to our estate in London so often it seems that each time we are to return we had accumulated twice as many useless things than we had begun with. I found it utterly amazing that owning as many fine things that money could acquisition was most essential when it was absolutely necessary to define who you are and where you came from. If another form of activity would have given me equal or greater temporary relief of the absoluteness of my status in life I would have welcomed it some time ago.
The morning strolls I embodied every day were tragically the only link to my happiness. If I thought about it long enough, they could be considered the sole reason I even got out of bed each morning. As of late I had been enduring them to escape the path my somewhat meaningless existence had consumed lately and to divert any loathsome thoughts off of my so-called "delicate" condition. The term "delicate condition" is most commonly associated with those who are considerably overjoyed with the news that they are with child, but not I. There was nothing "delicate" about the unfortunate abomination that was growing inside of me. The other girls my age, having already been married off, paraded their pregnancies around to all of the Royals expecting congratulations. But I wanted nothing more than to hide myself under as many items of material as I could to escape their view with little suspicion for I hadn't, as of yet, informed them of my pregnancy, and with due reason of course.
I was seventeen and engaged. The entirety of my life had been set before me as if I had already lived it. Most of my time alone was spent praying for a way out. The short walks allowed me remote passage outside of our private London country estate, which we often occupied during the early summer as a retreat, and away from the constant lecturing of my mother. Now that I had been welcomed as the most recent addition to our social assemblage as a newly mature debutante, I could never escape the certainty of my mother's strict and downright predictable admonishments. She maintained the certainty that it was of the utmost importance to keep this small family of ours afloat during our great time of need; an obligation that would seemingly claim it's self to be the greatest cause of my apprehension.
In your sample chapter there are 629 words, no misspellings or egregious grammatical errors. That's the upside.
Your sentences may be grammatically correct, but they are far too complex and lengthy. A good guide for modern writing is an average of around 14 words per sentence. Break some of those long rambling sentences into two or more shorter ones that are more tightly focused on the thought. I thought the focus in the sample was fuzzy, but that might be fixed just by tightening the sentences. Make it easy for your reader to move quickly along, building up in their minds the picture/story you want to create. In fiction, when the reader slows down to figure out what the point of the sentence is, you begin to lose them.
You've already noted your problem with word choice, and there are several instances in the sample where better word choice would certainly help. It isn't necessary to impress the reader with your vocabulary, though having a large sophisticated tool-kit of words is important to most writers. Churchill's advice was to never use a foreign term or phrase, or a "fancy" word when there is a widely used and simple Anglo-Saxon word available. That's good advice, because unfortunately most readers don't have large vocabularies, and what they don't understand they tend not to like. You might want to take another look at how Hemingway and Steinbecks manage their prose. It is deceptively simple, but startlingly clear and as you read them a rhythm begins to assert itself that draws you along almost in spite of yourself.
The first sentence and paragraph are extremely important in capturing the further interest of your reader. In this sample nothing much happens for twenty some odd words beyond the protagonist waking up. That will put many readers to sleep. We first become interested when we are coyly informed that the protagonist is a 17 year-old upper-strata English girl who has gotten pregnant out of wedlock in 1912. That's an interesting premise and the reader wants to know more. How did such a thing happen given the social strictures of the time? Who is this girl really? What is the family like behind closed doors, and in their social world? Can you recreate the lost world of the early 20th century after its destruction in the trenches of the Great War? The protagonist will live through that time, so how will that play out?
There are a lot of possibilities here for something akin to Thackeray's Vanity Fair set a couple of generations later. To be successful, I think you shouldn't try to write like Jane Austin or other 19th century novelists of manners. Clean up your prose, sharpen it and you may have something. In this sort of a novel you should have some idea of how the plot is going to develop.
A space between paragraphs would help me even want to read this.
(I'd like to, as I may on occasion disagree with asherman about long sentences.)
Asherman wrote:In your sample chapter there are 629 words, no misspellings or egregious grammatical errors. That's the upside.
Your sentences may be grammatically correct, but they are far too complex and lengthy. A good guide for modern writing is an average of around 14 words per sentence. Break some of those long rambling sentences into two or more shorter ones that are more tightly focused on the thought. I thought the focus in the sample was fuzzy, but that might be fixed just by tightening the sentences. Make it easy for your reader to move quickly along, building up in their minds the picture/story you want to create. In fiction, when the reader slows down to figure out what the point of the sentence is, you begin to lose them.
You've already noted your problem with word choice, and there are several instances in the sample where better word choice would certainly help. It isn't necessary to impress the reader with your vocabulary, though having a large sophisticated tool-kit of words is important to most writers. Churchill's advice was to never use a foreign term or phrase, or a "fancy" word when there is a widely used and simple Anglo-Saxon word available. That's good advice, because unfortunately most readers don't have large vocabularies, and what they don't understand they tend not to like. You might want to take another look at how Hemingway and Steinbecks manage their prose. It is deceptively simple, but startlingly clear and as you read them a rhythm begins to assert itself that draws you along almost in spite of yourself.
The first sentence and paragraph are extremely important in capturing the further interest of your reader. In this sample nothing much happens for twenty some odd words beyond the protagonist waking up. That will put many readers to sleep. We first become interested when we are coyly informed that the protagonist is a 17 year-old upper-strata English girl who has gotten pregnant out of wedlock in 1912. That's an interesting premise and the reader wants to know more. How did such a thing happen given the social strictures of the time? Who is this girl really? What is the family like behind closed doors, and in their social world? Can you recreate the lost world of the early 20th century after its destruction in the trenches of the Great War? The protagonist will live through that time, so how will that play out?
There are a lot of possibilities here for something akin to Thackeray's Vanity Fair set a couple of generations later. To be successful, I think you shouldn't try to write like Jane Austin or other 19th century novelists of manners. Clean up your prose, sharpen it and you may have something. In this sort of a novel you should have some idea of how the plot is going to develop.
I think the reason for my lengthy sentences are not because either I do not know how to end it or I am putting too much thought into it, but I do it because I write pretty rhythmically. When I go back and read what I have written, the words to me flow together. I don't like a lot of sharp sentence breaks or a pause in thought, but I do see how the reader would have to slow down to take it all in. I don't like writing to where the reader gets right to the point. I like to use a lot of words for them to fully take in what is really going on in the story. I do, however, see your point about the possibility of breaking down at least a few sentences to better move the story along. I do really appriciate your advice and I will most definately check out the writers you have mentioned.
Re: Chapter One
Try one sentence, one thought. In this sentence....
kitkat_bar wrote: I had awoken from my dreamless and ceaselessly restive sleep rather early that sunrise to assume my morning promenade a great deal earlier than the days before it.
You have at least 3 separates thoughts.
You were restless & dreamless
You woke at sunrise
You went for a walk (earlier than usual)
You could turn each one of those those into a longer sentence.
You could describe the sunrise, how it felt to be restless and dreamless all night, what the moring was like.
What do you mean "assume" your morning walk? A simple "taking" your morning walk would suite better.
Okay, I'll break it up myself:
I had awoken from my dreamless and ceaselessly restive sleep rather early that sunrise to assume my morning promenade a great deal earlier than the days before it. Outside of my bedroom window I could see that the sun had barely breached the horizon. Much of nature had already come alive for I could hear the faint resonance of birds singing in the distance followed by a simple barn rooster calling out to announce a brand new day. Neither sound could have been held accountable for rousing me for I was not near sleep. I uncomfortably, and quite awkwardly, sat myself upright in my bed and slowly departed from underneath the sheets barely still clinging to the mattress. The room was quite cool having not yet been warmed by the rays of the sun. The house was deathly quiet with the exception of the sound of the floor boards creaking as I headed across the room towards the wardrobe.
The date was April the tenth in the year Nineteen-Hundred and Twelve. I will remember this day for the rest of my life for I would never return to this room the same way I had admitted it every summer for the past seventeen years of my life. My child-like innocence will have come and passed by the time I returned to find myself crossing the threshold of this bare chamber, if ever again.
Most of my personal things had already been prepared into their proper trunk and were now waiting to be loaded onto the cars once they were to arrive later this morning. As this was merely our summer estate, there was very little to prepare. I had traveled back and fourth from our home in America to our estate in London so often it seems that each time we are to return we had accumulated twice as many useless things than we had begun with. I found it utterly amazing that owning as many fine things that money could acquisition was most essential when it was absolutely necessary to define who you are and where you came from. If another form of activity would have given me equal or greater temporary relief of the absoluteness of my status in life I would have welcomed it some time ago.
The morning strolls I embodied every day were tragically the only link to my happiness. If I thought about it long enough, they could be considered the sole reason I even got out of bed each morning. As of late I had been enduring them to escape the path my somewhat meaningless existence had consumed lately and to divert any loathsome thoughts off of my so-called "delicate" condition. The term "delicate condition" is most commonly associated with those who are considerably overjoyed with the news that they are with child, but not I. There was nothing "delicate" about the unfortunate abomination that was growing inside of me. The other girls my age, having already been married off, paraded their pregnancies around to all of the Royals expecting congratulations. But I wanted nothing more than to hide myself under as many items of material as I could to escape their view with little suspicion for I hadn't, as of yet, informed them of my pregnancy, and with due reason of course.
I was seventeen and engaged. The entirety of my life had been set before me as if I had already lived it. Most of my time alone was spent praying for a way out. The short walks allowed me remote passage outside of our private London country estate, which we often occupied during the early summer as a retreat, and away from the constant lecturing of my mother. Now that I had been welcomed as the most recent addition to our social assemblage as a newly mature debutante, I could never escape the certainty of my mother's strict and downright predictable admonishments. She maintained the certainty that it was of the utmost importance to keep this small family of ours afloat during our great time of need; an obligation that would seemingly claim it's self to be the greatest cause of my apprehension.
Back later.
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