My first Novel

Hi,

I've written a first draft of a book and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to look it over. I wouldn't exactly classify it as a comedy but I do think it's funny so hopefully you guys won't mind helping me out. Any comments at all appreciated.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RNDd2WgBgDMrCzUFR8lJsQPUSW06NDpe1fJ65Je3XPQ/edit

I wasn't really sure how to do this so I've just put the whole thing on Google share. Obviously you can read as little or as much you want and if it's easier I'll hapilly post a chapter or two in the comment space.

Thanks in advance

First thoughts: I couldn't get beyond the first two paragraphs.

Why? The use of the word 'Adam' jangled every time I read it.

You start with or use Adam in every sentence. I didn't count them but it was a lot so the reading didn't flow - in fact it became annoying very quickly.

Hi John

I know it's tempting to share a first draft but don't. People are just going to say what it is - not finished. I read the first 3 or 4 pages and it has some nice bits or at least glimmers of bits but it's very clunky and like Stephen said, you use the word Adam ridiculously often. On the same point you also over use other words and phrases and too closely together - like in this example from your first page:

'Adam had been walking home as he always did after work and as he would do again today. He had cut through the alleyway as he always did, but would not do again today.

You can probably see this yourself, so rewrite it a few times and get it as good as you can yourself before you start asking for feedback. When you think you've finished please come back and show us.

Quote: Mikey88 @ 16th November 2014, 6:14 PM GMT

'Adam had been walking home as he always did after work and as he would do again today. He had cut through the alleyway as he always did, but would not do again today.

View original

To be honest, I think he's done that on purpose - it's a device he uses a few times.
I get the feeling the constant use of the word Adam is a stylistic choice as well.

I'm not sure it's the right one - but I think it's deliberate

Perhaps the OP can enlighten us.

Oi! Less of the old!

First off I was just about to head to bed before coming across your material. After reading a bit I felt compelled to write up a reply.

With the Adam, yeah maybe a little annoying at the start but just the character portrayal was beautiful and engaging enough for me to look past this as deliberate stylistic choice perhaps.

" Yesterday Adam had been mugged, and he deserved it. He thought most people probably did. " What an absurd statement, how can you not continue reading further to see how this Adam makes sense of his world?

And throughout the first few paragraphs I read there are loads of comedic potential and insightfulness such as " He wasn't smart but he was clever." Paradoxical yet at the same time has an element of truthfulness as how he is later painted as someone who was robbed of his "conscience" from climbing the corporate ladder. Very subtle use of language and an appropriate distinction to describe someone who didn't have noteworthy intellectualism but decent soft skills to manoeuvre the office.

So here's this guy a little jaded, flits from "self flagellating" thoughts because his will to work at an perhaps morally unsatisfactory job, to if "he had any chilli left over." This is so good, it resonated well with me and probably humans in general because our thoughts are every where. We can can probably say sorry for the passing away of a friend's relative and have the next thought being about if one can bone cute Mary from work.

"Don't you want my phone?"
Adam was proud of that. Where most people would have rightfully viewed it as the foolish action of someone in shock, Adam viewed it as an assertion of a nobler side. A side that struggled to help those in need, and forgave them for their wrongs."

This paragraph was funny, insightful, truthful, plausible everything is working there in that paragraph. Wow. Humans are fascinating in how they respond and think and reason about their world.

I like that there a lot of inherent irony in only the first and second page that I've read, how Adam has the world view that being in the possession of anything is inherently evil yet he's a corporate slave and the lady mugger being so apparently ravished yet needs to steal to find a high of life that she can't get from her material possessions.

Now that's all I've read so far as I need to sleep. I'm not sure whether you can keep this up. This is meant to be a heads up for the good ideas in the novel, I'm not sure whether you can write that better in terms of diction syntax etc.. as this is just my impression as a reader.

Firstly, thanks everyone for your feedback.
The use of Adam is a deliberate choice. The aim was to set up the narrator as an active character and give them some personality. I probably should have mentioned that it is quite stylised and I envisioned it as, for want of a better term, an "anti-book"; it takes one day in the life of a character and rather than enlightening readers as to how that life came to be declares the life pointless.
Mikey and Lazzard that is indeed deliberate; I thought it was funny but perhaps it's just a little annoying.
Mikey I posted the first draft because I'm reasonably happy with it and although I think it could, without doubt, be improved I'm not entirely sure where or how.
Halfway Gangster, thank you very much for the kind words. I hope you can find some more time to read some more and I can only hope that the rest doesn' let you down

Re the Adam thing John. It is a fine balance and I think you have got it wrong. It is the literary equivalent of a large pizza eating gentlemen sitting next to you on the tube and digging a fat and greasy finger into your midriff every other second as you are trying to engage with the characters and narrative in a book you were looking forward to reading.

As you know the day in the life books/genre/form have been done to great artistic success, Ivan, the Dublin man etc. but I do think you are setting yourself up for a fall if you throw the baby out with the water. You say you are writing an anti book. 99.9999 recurring etc people who buy or seek to engage with a book.... Want a book!!

If what you are doing is an intellectual exercise with an artistic imperative/ambition. Go for it. If it is a whimsical conceit then you are whistling in the shower for your own amusement, and inviting others to witness it may not be a pleasant thing for them. So Art or whimsy - best thing is to be clear and not vacillate here and there throughout the execution. I don't know what your intentions are for this, I am not sure what the 'this' is... As I seriously couldn't get past the 'Adams'. I would always tell the pizza eater to f**k off! (Sometimes in my mind only, dependent on his size of course)

Good luck with the project - you say you are happy with how it is... So please file my negative take on the 'Adams' in the ignorant idiot who doesn't get it file!

This is why I think it's so useful to get critique at an early stage. Had I just gone back and re-written it myself without any feedback I would have never have got rid of the excess Adams but now I can see that it is something that needs to be adressed. If anyone can get past them, and no worries if you can't, I would appreciate any other feedback you might have

I think you need an anti-editor.

The sort of editor that would try to make The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy get to the point quicker, insist that the events unfolding in Alice and Wonderland should follow some sort of logical chain of cause and effect, and force James Joyce to only write whilst sober.

Seriously, I can see what you're trying to do here. The mugging description is nicely realised. The characterisation works. You can obviously write.

But because you're trying so hard to write anti-prose, with an anti-storyline, you basically need someone to go through it line by line, figure out which aside is quite amusing and which one is quite clumsy, and which bits are unintentionally clumsy, insist that short historical asides should stay in the past perfect tense, and ensure dialogue is structured differently from the rest of the text. And also identify the places where you've not emphasised the changes in background music enough.

You might be the best anti-editor for this draft though.