Hi all, so this is the first section of a (currently) 27,000 word novel-in-progress. This is the seventh time I've written the beginning. Can you please tell me if it hooks you? And if so, where? Thanks :)
(I would have separated all the lines but each time I tried, the submission crashed and reset EVERYTHING. Ugh)
CHAPTER ONE
A Missing Friend
The sound of clinking glasses, busy chatter, and music rocking from an old portable stereo filled the enclosed patio. A quarter-full tray of birthday cake sat on a small metal table with sunken ‘2’ and ‘1’ candles in it. Alongside were a myriad of used glasses and a torn plastic bag of paper plates. People had gathered in groups of three or more and talked animatedly, catching up on latest family or work-related news. A particularly wobbly-legged girl was playing with the stereo, ignoring the complaints that were fired her way.
In the midst of it all, with a mobile phone in one hand and a half-full glass in the other, sat a young adult with a worried look on her face. She leant forward and placed the glass on the table beside all the others, and examined the screen on her phone.
“Jess,” said one of her friends, Vanessa, thirty years old and of Argentinian descent, “I don’t think he’s coming.”
Jessica merely sighed and checked the time on the screen once again. Quarter-past eleven.
“He’s two hours late,” Vanessa reminded her, but Jessica didn’t move. “Whatever, do what you want. Markus is here.”
“What?” Jessica let out, and Vanessa gestured towards the house. The screen door squeaked open and a tall, wide, hulky black man stepped out. He wore a gym singlet, board shorts and thongs. His bald round head looked thick enough to break walls – and probably could.
“Hey baby,” he called as he walked straight past Vanessa and dropped a plastic bag into Jessica’s lap. “Happy birthday.” Then, he leant over and kissed her very unceremoniously. Jessica was not surprised.
“You’re late,” Vanessa said scornfully.
“There was a match on,” Markus spoke with a hint of aggression. Vanessa made no reply.
Jessica lifted her present from the bag. It was an unwrapped cord of some sort in plastic shelf casing. She eyed the price tag on the back.
Ha, she thought cynically, he actually put some money towards me this year.
“What is it?” Jessica asked Markus.
“It’s a cord for your phone, so you can play music in my car,” he said proudly. “Good, hey?”
“Yeah,” she turned it over, uninterested, and put it on the table. “Great. Thank you.”
“Aw,” Markus made an enthusiastic noise as he spotted the cake, and proceeded to help himself to a large chunk of it.
“Jess-ca!” a warbling, girly voice sounded. Jessica looked over and noticed Miriam, her sister, walking towards her as best she could without falling into people. Nobody would believe they were sisters, and rightly so, for the two of them were not natural sisters. Jessica often wondered who her real parents were.
“Jess-ca!” she sang as she fell into Jessica’s lap, and nearly toppled off the back of the chair. “Are you having a nice party?”
“Yeah,” Jessica smiled.
“What?” Miriam yelled at her face.
“Yes!” Jessica replied more definitely. Miriam paused for a moment, rocking back and forth. She was dressed head-to-toe in an array of striped black clothes. She had blue stripes on her hair-tie, red stripes on her t-shirt and purple stripes on her stockings. Her skirt was the shortest thing in town and looked like a wild tangle of black, torn feathers. As she rocked on Jessica’s lap she kicked her knee-high red-lace converse boots back and forth and began to giggle, then threw both arms up in the air.
“PARTY!” she cried and fell backwards. Tim, a young man standing just nearby, rushed forward to catch her.
“Wow,” he said to Jessica with a knowing look. “Too close.”
“Thanks Tim,” Jessica replied.
“Tim-tim!” Miriam threw her head back and smiled at him. “You’re my favourite guy! And I don’t care if you’re—”
Jessica cusped Miriam’s mouth as Markus returned with a can in one hand and a slab of cake in the other. Tim nervously shook his left arm, an odd habit of his, causing his bracelets to jangle.
“Tim, didn’t see ya,” Markus spoke.
“Hey,” said Tim, and he turned and headed inside.
“Where’s he gone?” Miriam asked.
“Hop off,” Jess said as she gave Miriam a gentle push. The girl jumped off and Jessica stood up. “Back in a moment,” she smiled and followed Tim inside.
As Jessica stepped into the hallway, a warm wave of muggy air enveloped her. During summer, the hallway of the old townhouse would heat up to unbearable levels with nil but a creaky fan above the stairwell to stir the air. She rented the house with four others, each with their own bedroom – two upstairs, two downstairs and a shared kitchen and bathroom. The living conditions weren’t great, but she was adamant to build her future without the support of her parents.
“Can’t stand that guy,” said Tim. “Sorry Jess.”
“I should say something,” Jessica replied. “But…”
“It’s okay,” he said.
Vanessa entered the hallway at a brisk pace. “Hey, what time are we heading to the city?”
“I’m still waiting for Kyle,” Jessica replied somewhat sheepishly.
“Well I sure hope he’s a damn lot better than that boyfriend of yours,” Vanessa began. “You leave, two seconds later, ‘Hey Vanessa, got kids yet?’”
“He didn’t!” Jessica gasped.
“He did! Girl, where is that islander inside you? Go and put him in his place.”
“I—” regardless of her Maori heritage, Jessica could not find the strength in herself to stand up to Markus. “I’ll speak to him later about it, when he’s ready to listen.”
Vanessa shook her head. “Okay, you do what you want. Where is Kyle?”
“No idea, haven’t heard from him,” Jessica explained. “It’s got me worried though, he should be here.”
“Where’s he staying?” Vanessa asked.
“In an apartment in the Little Royale. You know, that little cinema on the corner down the road? He works the projectors in return for cheaper rent.”
“That’s unusual,” Vanessa commented. “Even so, it’s not unheard of for guys to ditch their friends,” said Vanessa.
“I’m his only friend,” Jessica replied. “Well, in Melbourne, I mean. He only moved here a couple of weeks ago.”
“He only has one friend?” Vanessa raised an eyebrow. “Where’s he from?”
“Inland New South Wales.”
“How do you know him?”
“Grew up with him,” said Jessica, shrugging her shoulders. “Knew him for six or seven years then my family moved here, and he’s only just come down so it’s not like he has anywhere else to be. Besides, he promised he would be here.”
“Probably asleep,” said Vanessa. “Come on, Jess, get your bag and let’s go!”
Jessica exhaled, and took a moment to mull it over, then nodded. She climbed the creaky stairs to fetch her bag from her room, but couldn’t put rest to a sense of unease niggling at the back of her mind. She knew it wasn’t right for Kyle to not show up, and to not be answering his phone. She paused for a moment, realising the tram they would be taking into the city would go by the Little Royale. She considered the possibility of quickly checking in on him.
Or am I being ridiculous? she wondered.
She found her bag on her paper-strewn sofa and returned, locked her door, and descended the stairs. Vanessa had gone to explain to the other guests that the in-house party was over. The stereo stopped and the newfound silence was soon full of ‘thanks’ and ‘good byes’ as, one by one, Jessica’s guests made their way through the stuffy hallway and out onto the street. Only a few remained for the trip into the city – amongst them were Vanessa, Tim, Markus and the giggling Miriam.
--- That's all for now :) ---
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Before I review this I would first like to share my thoughts on an appealing beginning to a story. I often feel that the most effective way to engage the reader and begin at a fast pace is through the use of a prologue. I feel that a prologue gives the reader a quick insight into what to expect in the story. You can leave the reader with so many unanswered questions in the prologue that hooks them and encourages them to read on. But of course this has to be your decision, and if you feel it wouldn’t fit with your idea then that is completely understandable.
However, I enjoy your beginning. I like your descriptions of the scene, and the way you include both visual and sound descriptions. As they so often say describing something with all the senses is the way to go and it is certainly effective in this case.
“A particularly wobbly-legged girl was playing with the stereo, ignoring the complaints that were fired her way.”
I like this description very much. A good description of the girl, followed up with the action of complaints "Fired" her way. All this keeps the pace of the story moving whilst ensuring the reader still has a strong visual image.
Nice dialogue that is always moving and going somewhere, none of it is unnecessary and dull. Also I like how you combine action and dialogue.
Strong descriptions of characters, I can honestly say that the way in which you describe characters enables me to define a clear image of them in my head, I personally see this as not only one of the hardest things to manage, but for the reader in particular perhaps the most important.
As mentioned previously the beginning has to engage the reader, you have to leave it at a place where the reader feels a strong urge to turn pages and carry on reading. You leave enough unanswered questions, for me personally to want to do that.
In conclusion I would certainly say that this is an interesting start. You are clearly a very accomplished writer. Your writing style, voice and wide use of words are evidence of that.
I'm not the type of reviewer to highlight your grammatical errors so I’ve just tried to give you an overview on my feelings for the story. I hope that I’ve done that and this helps, but my advice is to carry on with this I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more.
Ben
Hi there.
First of all I liked the way you wrote it out.
In this chapter, I wasn't really hooked to it. Well maybe just a bit but thats because I know they're all waiting for people to arrive so that they can go. Even that, I think is not so strong a hook. You want to maybe, for example, give us small hints of something big happening if they are planning to run away or something. Thats just an example. I as the reader felt nothing. I mean, what ever was going on really didn't move me. Do you know those novels you read, the ones when your in a tense moment, you, as the reader felt something? Thats the feeling thats missing here. If you created suspence I think it would help. Or maybe if you got something that would relate to most people, or something that pulls on peoples hearts strings.
That was hopefully a good enough example for suspence. Something like that would get me hooked. It shows that somethings not right.
I combined the other two options. There may be other options but I could only come up with these.
Now another thing, this is suppose to be a fantasy. I see no hints of anything fantasy like.
I think it would be good to at least let readers know from the begining that there is fantasy by dropping hints.
This is your first chapter, I usually choose a book by it's first paragraph. That is important. Your first paragraph should be intriguing enough to first set the hook in people. As they read along it should sink in if it's really hooking untill you get readers to hunger for more.
I got to say, that character Miriam really brightened up the story a bit. Good job there.
And the gift that dude gave to vanessa. It says alot without you having to waste words. Well I'm just a bit curious about why vanessa is with him. I'm just thinking that maybe she needs him for something...
You're going to have to start speeches on their own lines. I know you did that for the most part but not all. And also I think you lack discriptions of the place. I really can't picture where they are as you intended. So you might want to give that a look.
I hope this review has helped.
-Zo
Some things you should take notice of:
Argentinian to Argentinean
I think you might want to say "Whatever. Do as you wish. Markus is here." instead of “Whatever, do what you want. Markus is here.”
"Then, he leaned over and kissed her very unceremoniously." You can make it more elegant by saying "Then, he unceremoniously leaned over and kissed her."
“Too close” can be something like "Close shave" Or "A close one."
If Tim doesn't like Markus and wants to avoid him maybe something like “Hey,” Tim muttered before he turned and headed inside.
“You leave, not two seconds later, he actually said ‘Hey Vanessa, got kids yet?’” (I couldn't understand who said that until I read it quite a few times sorry.)
"Okay, you do what you want." Is this something you would relate to Vanessa? Something like a trademark? Maybe shortening it to, "Okay, whatever." Would be better.
"She knew it wasn’t right for Kyle to not show up, (and not) answering his phone."
"quickly checking in" Checking in, is something quick so quickly might be excessive.
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I can't really correct grammar so I am going according to how I feel about it.
The chapter is quite good, it is crammed like you said it was but maybe double spacing would be good. There are some points where I don't know who is speaking. Like when Vanessa was telling Jessica about Markus's comment.
I can't say if I am particularly hooked by it, but I wouldn't mind waiting for the next chapter. It also makes me curious about Kyle, who seems really close to Jessica. However the chapter title doesn't really tell me anything about the missing friend who I suppose is Kyle, himself from Jessica's birthday party so I am assuming there is more to this first chapter.
I can't wait for more.