Smitten: My Botched Attempt at a Novel

[gilee7]

During the summer of 2006 (holy shit, has it really been that long ago?), I decided to write a novel. Unfortunately, I was only experienced with short stories, and I underestimated how much planning and pre-writing goes into the process. A couple of months into the novel I realized that I was already approaching a dead end. The story had no focus

Comments

[lukertin]

I saw the fp.net email alert the other day and had a 'holy crap' moment. I was excited to see that you had posted a new story, but that excitement was tempered when I saw that it was a high-school romance. The chapter standing alone didn't exactly grab my attention, but having read this entry I am really interested in seeing how it turns out. If anyone can subvert a genre, it's you. I'm counting on you, Forrest, don't let me down.

Anyway, for some feedback, I feel like your characterizations of people in the story so far are exaggerated, sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek representations of people. It is like they are cartoonish, not real people. I haven't read enough to say whether that's just a function of the main character's POV, but if it is, perhaps consider applying bias. Use more than just dialogue to convey the main char's thoughts and feelings.

The narration kind of jumps around, as well. The pov starts off as kind of 3rd person limited and jarringly jumps to 3rd person omniscient for paragraphs at a time before sling-shoting back to 3rd person limited. An example would be where you describe the girl--there's a paragraph describing what she looks like and then immediately center's onto Chad's observation of her eyes. The narration jumps from one form to the other (which is fine when you have breaks noting changes, but the line breaks don't exactly coincide with narration changes)

[2ndhandsunshine]

You're alive!?!

[lukertin]

Nah.

[2ndhandsunshine]

Law school finished you off?

[lukertin]

Yup that's one way to put it, dear.

[2ndhandsunshine]

...is this a euphemism for you getting a girlfriend/getting laid?

I went to visit this past November and left you a message on Facebook (I think), but you never returned it and you seemed to have dropped off the face of the Internet (or at least the corners I frequent), so I figured you probably died. It's good to know that's mostly not true. Unless this is really your ghost or something.

[lukertin]

O_o facebook, I haven't logged into that pos in almost a year O_o

I like how your directly went to assuming that I had died. Very classy (:

[2ndhandsunshine]

Assuming people are dead keeps things simple.

I kind of wish I could delete my facebook, but my mom got an account and if exchanging messages with her there keeps me from having to pick up the phone for an actual conversation, well... I'll suck it up, I guess.

Whatcha doing over the summer? Staying in STL or heading back to Boston? (Is it Boston?)