Fuck it! Here's a sneak preview of the mystery/suspense novel I've been working on

[retrowire]

A novel inspired by the Twilight Zone, my own childhood and various young adult literature, I give you...

The first 3 chapters of the tentatively titled, Serling High School.

I'm doing this because well, I need the motivation. I need feedback. I haven't worked on this in months and that's bad. It has over 8 chapters at this point but, I'm only letting out the first 3 today so I can see where this is going.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wl1DOwD3bq1vKvZck-f2wsm9fht4-2997cLQvaKYL4o/edit?usp=drivesdk

Take a break from the twilight zone of politics for a moment and see if my writing takes you anywhere you like.

Thanks for reading. OH GOD IM NERVOUS

[emulatorloo]

1. Don't be nervous!

Thanks for taking a chance and posting. Will get it read as soon as I can!

Kick and Rec

[retrowire]

2. Thank you so much. Nt

[bravenak]

3. I actually think it's pretty good as a starting point

Perhaps on your rewrites you can try to work on starting sentences in other ways. 'He approached', or 'he' this or that begins a few too many passages, but the story seems solid as long as you know where you are going with it.
I always have to reread my work to make sure I dont start too many sentences or open passages up the same way too often. You are decent writer, you should finish it. I think the YA market needs more authors who care about the storytelling process.

[Jim__]

4. A couple of thoughts

It was hard for me to get into the story. It started to get suspenseful at the ending. You might try beginning at that point - then you can go back and tell the reader where he is and why the “Encore” shocked him.

Also, most of your paragraphs are only a line or two. You could add some longer paragraphs that contain a lot of details - detailed description of the art classroom, detailed description of the auditorium - paint a picture of where he is so the reader can be there with him. When he plays the piano, you could talk more about what he’s playing, the rhythm, how it sounds, enough of a description that we can feel the music.

Of course, my criticism may be completely off base. You know where you’re going, so you know how the story has to be told. But, if I were you, I would really punch up the opening of the story.

[retrowire]

5. THIS is the kind of feedback I needed.

First, thank you!

Here's the problem with me as a story creator... I come from a background in writing films short stories for visual mediums, thus I often forget I need to paint broader pictures with my words in this format. So thats why you're seeing paragraphs that are well, anemic. It's just what I'm used to. Honestly, I need to read more books so I can get that method more ingrained in my skull.

Regarding your suggestion about where to start, I'll think about it! Problem is, rearranging things makes me SO nervous. But I should try it, it can't hurt and I'm being too neurotic.

Question, you said you found it hard to get into the story, was that because of the thin paragraphs and light detail?

You said it started to get suspenseful in the end, were you starting to enjoy it at all?

Again, thanks so much for reading it and giving REAL CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK for me to work with.

[Jim__]

6. I found it a little hard to get into your story because I knew after reading the first few lines

… that he was going to spend the night at the school. I also knew that there was more to it. But, I didn’t know what that more was until the “Encore” on page 14. A lot of what occurred in between those first few lines and the “Encore” was not moving me to the point of that understanding.

Yes,the “Encore” did get pique my interest.

Again, this is not meant as a criticism, it’s only a description of how it affected me.

[retrowire]

7. Criticism or not, it's still valuable feedback.

See, without your feedback, I honestly had no idea that it was that easy to assume the protagonist was spending the night in the school. And now I see the importance behind your suggestion that I start the story later on.

I am encouraged that your interest was piqued at all though. Thank you!

[Lilyhoney]

8. I will give it a chance.

I'm under the weather at the moment so i'm not feeling up to it right this second. I will get back to you later.


Also, this is a great resource theeditorsblog.net

Make sure to read the archived articles. I learned so much from her.


Keep Going.

[copperearth]

9. Good beginning but

You have a good beginning here. Lots of atmosphere, the mood is good and you find yourself hurrying to find out more. The young man needs to question in his mind, why the usual afternoon routine of the teacher returning to the class room to tie up loose ends or why a custodial staff never came to empty the trashcan or clean-why didn't anyone wake him up? No one is going to be left sitting alone in a class room all night so he needs to question why this happened to him? The story is at a point where the next event has to happen. Great at the end of this part. It raises the hackles on the back of your neck but it's time to move forward.


By the way, there is a grammatical error here-
The sound of it’s metal door, should read -The sound of its metal door, with no apostrophe.

[retrowire]

16. Hello!

First, everything you suggested the protagonist be thinking about does happen. It happens immediately following chapter 3. But perhaps I should cram a little more thought into the protags head in the hallways.

Secondly, are you sure about the it's thing? The apostrophe suggests a possessive word doesn't it? So if it's the school's door shouldn't the apostrophe be there?

Thank you for the feedback.

[LisaM]

19. Not with "it". It's like "theirs".

In fact, I noticed lots of places where you used "it's" wrong.

Use this trick: say "it is" every time you use it. If it should be "it is", keep it, otherwise drop the apostrophe.

Example: "It's time to go out!" "It is time to go out".

"The milk is past its expiration date". "The milk is past it is expiration date" (obviously, wrong).

[retrowire]

20. Thank you.

Looks like I have some editing to do!

[Angry Dragon]

10. I listened to an author talk about writing

she said first thing she did in the morning was to write at least 2 pages
didn't have to be good but to write at least two pages

[retrowire]

13. Just a bump for another chance at another perspective nt

[retrowire]

18. A conversation happened regarding my nettiquette

Then the user got removed...

So now it's as if the conversation never happened!

However, it was only about me being called out for not giving equal attention to one user that gave feedback over another.

If anyone was offended by this, I am sorry and while I would assume people know that I'm grateful for their feedback whether or not I reply, I suppose that's too presumptuous. So I will make more effort to give equal respect to all feedback.

[PatrickforO]

21. Not bad - just a couple thoughts.

Other people commented on it's vs its, so I won't.

But there was one thing I just couldn't get past. Here's a modern kid, waking up in darkness at his desk in an art classroom. Where is his cell phone? I'm 58 years old and I never go anywhere without it. Is there no signal? Did he forget it? Was it confiscated?

Then, he tries the multiline phone on the teacher's desk and gets nothing but faint static - I can see that, but isn't there a student phone somewhere, like in the office? Or is that locked? Or a regular phone in the teacher lounge? But maybe that was locked as well. He kind of decided to stay up all night in the school too easily.

The football part was a bit choppy, though bullies like Gerald are best put in their place.

Choppy as that was, it is good, though, this theme. A modern high schooler, a kid filled with angst around an alcoholic father, yet a healthy kid who has a band, and now here he is alone. Alone in a huge, whispering building, with the main hallways dark. Alone with his thoughts. This is a good theme, but maybe you could work the vignettes up just a bit. They seem very basic. Also, it may be that something in one of the vignettes, some action taken or not taken, has led to this entrapment alone in the school. Have you thought of that? Or what that might be?

When he finally gets to the piano, he plays, beginning with a C sharp and then his favorite chords. Then he plays. I like that. I can remember when my daughter was young and lived at home, how I would sit in the living room and just listen to her play. You could get lost in it. Beautiful. Music is a whole other language, a language of the soul. Ancients believed that to make music was to connect one to the gods and the spirit world.

He then gets up, that note sounds again, and a voice says, "Encore." That is chilling. A very good segue into something twilight-zonish, perhaps involving the stage lights and the piano. Maybe a demon out of time, or perhaps a langolier. Or maybe a scenario like the song 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia.' Hey, let's have a little contest! You win and you go about your life. I win and you serve me in hell for eternity.

Oh, and one last thought - I don't know how you might achieve it, but you didn't do the terror of the pitch-black stair justice. It was just too easy. You need to somehow capture that sense of rising panic, unreasoning horror as the amygdala takes over and it's fight or flight time...

So...good luck with your story. It needs a bit of work, but don't give it up. If you've read Jung's essay on poetry and the collective unconscious, you'll know that as an artist, you MUST bring that out into the light - art reflects that which we repress, which is why it boils up from the great divine river of consciousness. Let go. The words will come. They are you, but not all you.

[retrowire]

22. Thank you immensely for the feedback

The constructive criticisms help guide me and the praise let's me know that I'm doing something right and this is worth sharing.

Regarding your concern for the cell phone issue, I tried covering that in the first chapter here:

"

Suddenly, Michael felt another hit of anxiety in his chest. His parents. They must be worried out of their minds. Any parent's worst nightmare would be their child not coming home from school. He immediately felt guilt for not being responsible, but then on the other hand, he felt a sense of arrogant righteousness as he remembered all the times they refused to get him that cell phone he wanted. That could have prevented this after all.

Basically his parents caused that.

And regarding the student phone thing and all that. When I went to high school (03-07), all the phones in the building were advanced telenet phones. In order to dial out of the building you had to hit a specific combination of numbers first, then the dial tone would happen and voila you could call home.

Michael is in that situation, not everyone knows the code to dial out and he's one of them.

I totally agree with you regarding how choppy some of it is, I'll work on that. Plus, the pitch black staircase, I should definitely get more creative with that.

I am immensely happy that you're enjoying it at all though so I'm going to get back to work on this soon. Thank you!