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missodell November 16 2015, 19:37:40 UTC
No head hopping in this chapter anywhere. None. Very well written. Excellent use of point of view. Really close POV to Ringo which was very enjoyable. If you think, not a huge amount of action happens in that first chapter - the Beatles are on a plane and it lands - but because of the way you've written it, it's actually quite gripping, the banter is easy and it flows really well, a pleasure to read.

I feel Charlie's POV is not quite as close, but I think this is down to Charlie not being totally honest with herself. If I was writing a 'reading' on it, that's what I would say - Ringo is honest and true to himself (which is how he is as a person) so 'we, the reader' are close to him too. Charlie is more upset with herself, but deflecting her frustrations onto others - so as she holds herself at a distance, we the reader are held back slightly too, wondering what it is that makes her this way. It's something Charlie's not 'discussing' with herself. That's deep, that is. And that's why this piece of writing is some of your best. I'm not just saying that.

I think I would say Paul was middle class - at least lower middle class - as his mother was a nurse and his dad worked in cotton trading, but did he teach music at some point or have I just made that up? Forthlin Road looks like it might have been a council house, but I don't think it was when the McCartney's lived there. George was working class. Arnold Grove was a very working class house (really, not that different from Ringo's, but a nice area of town) and Upton Green was also a council house, but a lot nicer. Ringo's was quite poor, all the Dingle was - is, actually. John, for the sake of completion, was definitely middle class, possibly upper middle class. I believe the Stanley family were reasonably well off. (English = obsession with class, lol).

I think its a bit unclear exactly what Ringo and Maureen's relationship was in the early Beatlemania days. I think (but not sure) that they were together and then kinda not so much, until Ringo had his tonsils out and the others went to Australia. That's when I think she came back into his life in a big way. But anyhow, it works how you're writing it. And yes, please lets get rid of that stereotype of Ringo - it's only really arrived in recent years.

Beatles parts totally Beatley too. That is the point of what we do, anyway, isn't it? To recreate the Beatles in a fictional space. I'll shut up now, I write too much.

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jonesingjay November 16 2015, 22:01:45 UTC
I think I would say Paul was middle class - at least lower middle class - as his mother was a nurse and his dad worked in cotton trading, but did he teach music at some point or have I just made that up?

I know that Jim had a band. The Jim Mac Band but I can't recall whether or not if he also taught music at one point in time.

I think for chapter two that'll really be a test of whose perspective I'll choose to write Charlie and Ringo's combined scenes from but I think they both deserve their thoughts to be revealed in shared scenes. Also, I want readers to know what the two of them think of each other in that precise moment right along with the leads of this story.

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