Tell me what you think!

 Chapter 1 ( The Beginning )

 In the beginning, born into a world of shallow thinking and debased minds; there was a child very frail in stature. He wasn't breathing when the doctor yelled out " It's a boy". Maybe that was a sign that this creature wasn't supposed to be born and maybe the doctors should have slain his dead body just to make sure it would never take a breathe. But the doctors began resuscitating the 2 pound 3 ounce baby trying to give this little boy a chance to experience the pain and suffering that awaits him. By chance, by will or just pure luck the child survived. But there were two inside the womb, yes two; A little girl was in the mist of all this excitement yet turmoil of an event. Now, In this world not alone; But united with another spirit to lean on and gain comfort with. Was this a blessing from God? Should the child feel better about his birth? Or still look at his mother with a question mark stamped on his forehead! The question wasn't for the child but for the world because within this child was a spirit so strong that his purpose had already been chosen! As the world fought over the flesh and which direction it should go, the young boy struggled for independence within himself. He was true in heart and in spirit but something troubled him. There was something in the midst separating the child from the world making him different. So different that the world would never be able to except this retched of a child.

 ( And then it Begins)

I can remember my friends in my parents backyard that I relied on for my comfort and validity from the indignation caused by the days events. I was scorned by some of the kids in the neighborhood because of the way I walked and my high pitched voice. My friends helped me to realize the way the world and we as humans should really be. A fine tuned machine with all parts working together for one common goal. The survival of the machine! But of course that seemed impossible with the many different spirits claiming souls, changing personalities and redirecting peoples paths to ultimately destroy any self claimed happiness a person may have. The spirit that latched on to my soul was putting up a hell of a fight. It wanted to consume me to the point of rearranging my entire metabolic structure. Forming me into a creature so hideous to where no one would want to be seen with me unless having the same nature within. Confused and lonely most of the time; I just sat in the backyard farthest to the end of the gate watching my friends build their empire! I had my ideas and reservations of the perfect empire but it was totally different from the average mondane thoughts running through adolescent minds at the time. But the one thing that stands out in my mind as I sit in this jail cell is my first love Brian Taylor. It's still funny to me but yet sad how we met and fell in love! I could never forget that cold winter morning when our destined paths intertwined creating a renoun turn of events in both our futures! As I walked rapidely through the path desperately trying to catch the awaiting school bus, I could feel the presense of something or someone watching and lurking ready to pounce at the perfect moment. My intuition was correct because as soon as I took a couple of more steps I was jumped by four boys looking to have fun! What kind of fun was beyond my recognition seeing as though my idea of fun was sitting in my backyard talking to my pet spider! They wanted to use my body as a relieving mechanism for their sexual pleasures and hidden fantasies!

I really wish there was a more gentle way of telling you this, so let me begin with a disclaimer: Nothing I have to say is a reflection on your talent or fitness to be a writer. It has to do with areas of craft that virtually every new writer is hit with. And it flows from a misunderstanding we all share when we turn to writing our stories. We think we learned to write in school. And since the name of the profession is Writing, it stands to reason that we're prepared to begin the recording part of telling a story.

Unfortunately, what we were taught is a general skill, of use to most adults, in a multiplicity of trades and professions. We weren't given the specific training needed to practice any profession. And because we're given the skills necessary to qualify us to learn a trade or profession, the skills themselves are suited to the needs of commerce and industry. In other words, designed to clearly and concisely communicate information.

In practical terms, all our writing skills are fact-based, author-centric, and meant to inform. And this story is written that way. You telling your story by passing on information about it. Interesting, possibly, and your English teacher would give you a good mark. Problem is, readers come to us to be entertained, and facts only inform. So from a reader's point of view someone whose voice they can't hear, and whose expression and gestures are invisible, is telling us about a story in a monotone.

But do we read horror to learn the details of what frightened the protagonist? Or do they want the writer to terrorize them?

Readers want an emotional experience as a form of entertainment. History books can't provide that because there's no uncertainty. Just the flow of dispassionate facts. Reports and chronicles are no different. But a reader is seeking writing that's emotion-based and character-centric as-an-entertainment. And nothing we learned about writing technique in school-even a CW course as an undergrad, prepared us for that. We left high school exactly as well trained to write fiction as to embalm a cadaver. And that's what you need to address if you're to place your reader on the scene with your protagonist as a participant.

A reader doesn't care if your protagonist falls in love, or hates a given person. That reader wants you to make them fall in love, and to have personal reason to hate the person the protagonist does. After all, if I give you a list of people, along with a list of why I dislike them, will that make you dislike them, of would you want to make up your own mind? Readers are no different.

In this, at all times the invisible narrator is talking to the reader. Instead, you need to place the reader into the viewpoint of the protagonist in real-time. Forget the opening section. That's backstory. Start your story where the story begins. And throw away all those bangs. You get about five for a full-length novel, because you don't make a sentence more exciting by typing a bang at the end.

What this all means is that you need a better idea of how a scene and a story is structured—the elements that make it up. You need to understand the nuance of POV, because it's your most powerful tool. You need to understand why a scene on the page is unlike one on the stage and screen, and why that must be. As Mark Twain observed, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

And you need to know how to place your reader into the story. As E. L. Doctorow said, "Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it's raining, but the feeling of being rained upon."

In other words, to write like a pro you need to know what the pro knows. The good news is that help is as close as your local library, or bookseller.

In the library's fiction writing section seek out Dwight Swain, Jack Bickham, or Debra Dixon's name. Swain's is best, bu you're most likely to find Bickham's book there. Any one of them has the power to change your world and have you saying, "Why didn't I think of that for myself?"

For a preview of what you'll find there, take a look at this article. It's based on one of the techniques in Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php

You might also browse a few articles in the writing section of my blog, they're based on what you'll find in those books.

Sorry for the bad news. Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Vintage,

First, welcome to Book Country.

At first, I thought your writing sample was fiction, but I'm not so sure.

Is this an Autobiography?

Hey Vintage! Welcome to Book Country!

Have you started drafting your autobiography yet?

Reviewing memoirs by fellow Book Country members will also be helpful to you.