# First chapter/intro to novel. Thoughts?



## AdrianBraysy (Dec 26, 2017)

Doctor William Burn felt a sense of both dread and relief walking over to his dead patient. Relief that whatever pain and suffering was torturing this young boy had finally disappeared. Dread, over the fact that he would have to be the bringer of bad news to the parents waiting outside the operating room. Back when he was still in medical school, they told him empathy was something he would develop over time. As reality would have it, he ended up going in the opposite direction, becoming more and more desensitised year after year. Telling a mother and father that their nine year old son had just passed away from blood loss, was almost routine at this point. After all, the gods of death didn’t discriminate based on age as much as people thought.
   After a memorable confrontation, where the mother proceeded to beat on William’s chest in tears while her husband did his best to pull her away, William continued his dutiful job as head surgeon. The other doctors and nurses complained about his lack of ‘feelings’, whatever that meant. William found it preposterous that his emotional state would come into question, when practice showed him to be one of the most dedicated doctors.
   Besides, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t experience things like love, hate and attraction. He just wasn’t good at expressing them. Nurse Hailey James, for example, was one of those people he felt tremendous attraction for, yet the closest he ever got to telling her that was with the words “Miss James, hand me that scalpel”. The other ones didn’t make much of it, but to William it was a huge deal. Normally, he would just show his glove covered palm, and “scalpel”. That was the one time he called a nurse by her name.
   At home, William would spend the rest of his day watching movies, with his favorite genre being fantasy. While he also enjoyed science fiction to some extent, it was the vastness and possibilities of the fantasy worlds that appealed to him. It provided him with an escape from the mundane chores of everyday life. 
   Back when he was in elementary school, things were different. Fantasy novels did not merely serve the purpose of entertainment, but opened up a new world to the poor boy, where heroes prevailed over the bullies, where the alcoholic negligent fathers turned into good parents, and where the only mother he had never died from cancer. In a fantasy world, anything could happen. Perhaps it was this obsession with books that caused the bullying to begin with. Perhaps if little William had only spent his lunch breaks smoking cigarettes in secret like all the other boys, he would have earned their acceptance. This was the real world, where promises from otherworldly hopes either came from the local church or, if one was an atheist, simply weren’t there.
   One day in seventh grade, William walked home from school, daydreaming of grand adventures causing him to stray from the path. In his dream, he would walk around the kingdom of the elves. The queen of elves had given him a quest to investigate the nearby woods (which was actually just a single oak tree), to see what evil spirits lurked around the darkness of the forest. It didn’t take long until William stood eye to eye with the most horrible beasts. They took hold of his arms as one of them proceeded to punch him in the gut and face until blood came out of his nose.
   “Fucking dork!” the bullies said to William before giving him one final kick to the side. Who was he kidding? They were no beast and he was no hero. Just a bullied loser in seventh grade.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 27, 2017)

Alright. Here's what jumped out at me.

Formatting. Online it's easier to read when there's a blank line between paragraphs.

Content. Doctors are typically cold, so the part about empathy doesn't ring true for me. I have two siblings who are doctors. They worked in a hospital doing blood draws in the summers when they were going to college to get their undergrad degrees. They both learned to NOT empathize, and said it was part of the job.

The mother beating the doctor's chest doesn't exactly seem right either. I would think she would have turned to her husband for support.

I think you meant the doctor was walking away from the patient, since he had clearly been operating.

Writing style. Good. You have a nice, homey, sort of style. Conversational. It works well.


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## AdrianBraysy (Dec 27, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> Alright. Here's what jumped out at me.
> 
> Formatting. Online it's easier to read when there's a blank line between paragraphs.
> 
> ...



Thanks for your comments! You're so right about the doctor part actually. My gf is a nurse, and a hospiral setting can sure make you cold over time.

I noticed the paragraph formatting after I posted. It looked different in my word processor for some reason, where it had proper indentations. I'll use blank lines when posting here from now on. Good point.

Style-wise, I find writing without following an outline, aka 'pantsing' makes my writing feel smoother and less choppy if you know what I mean.

Again, thank you for comments. Your advice rings true to me


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## Phil Istine (Dec 27, 2017)

AdrianBraysy said:


> Doctor William Burn felt a sense of both dread and relief walking over to his dead patient. Relief that whatever pain and suffering was torturing this young boy had finally disappeared. Dread, over the fact that he would have to be the bringer of bad news to the parents waiting outside the operating room. Back when he was still in medical school, they told him empathy was something he would develop over time. As reality would have it, he ended up going in the opposite direction, becoming more and more desensitised year after year. Telling a mother and father that their nine year old son had just passed away from blood loss, was almost routine at this point. After all, the gods of death didn’t discriminate based on age as much as people thought.
> After a memorable confrontation, where the mother proceeded to beat on William’s chest in tears while her husband did his best to pull her away, William continued his dutiful job as head surgeon. The other doctors and nurses complained about his lack of ‘feelings’, whatever that meant. William found it preposterous that his emotional state would come into question, when practice showed him to be one of the most dedicated doctors.
> Besides, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t experience things like love, hate and attraction. He just wasn’t good at expressing them. Nurse Hailey James, for example, was one of those people he felt tremendous attraction for, yet the closest he ever got to telling her that was with the words “Miss James, hand me that scalpel”. The other ones didn’t make much of it, but to William it was a huge deal. Normally, he would just show his glove covered palm, and “scalpel”. That was the one time he called a nurse by her name.
> At home, William would spend the rest of his day watching movies, with his favorite genre being fantasy. While he also enjoyed science fiction to some extent, it was the vastness and possibilities of the fantasy worlds that appealed to him. It provided him with an escape from the mundane chores of everyday life.
> ...



Yes, formatting is often an issue when pasting from other software.  Using the "GO ADVANCED" button is advisable followed by the "PREVIEW  POST" button which then appears. This shows how the text will look when  you post it.  It's also a good idea to use this if you enter one of the  writing challenges on here - due to there being a ten minute time limit  to alter a piece (you can alter it as much as you wish in PREVIEW POST  mode without the clock running).

To what you have written:  It feels like you have made a reasonable basic introduction to set the scene for the story. The spelling and grammar are fine; it's surprising how often drafts are lacking in this regard.

The general style is very readable, but I feel that there is scope to reduce the word count and tighten it up.  It's difficult to say really.  You could go in the direction of "show more", which makes word count reduction trickier, or you could keep it as it is.

For instance, if I may take the liberty of dissecting (how appropriate!) the very first sentences:

"_Doctor William Burn felt a sense of both dread and relief walking over  to his dead patient. Relief that whatever pain and suffering was  torturing this young boy had finally disappeared_."

or maybe?

"Doctor William Burn gazed upon his (dead) patient and sighed. _They always look so peaceful when the pain has gone."_

This way, "dead_" _is optional, and it may be more powerful to omit it because it rapidly becomes clear that the patient has died.  Also, the piece goes on to say how the doctor struggled to feel empathy, so maybe only the dread (of facing the parents) is valid and the relief can be omitted_. _Doing this could help to show that he is short on empathy, rather than tell that he's short on empathy followed by an empathetic feeling of relief for the patient.  If you want to show relief, maybe lead the reader into believing that it is relief that he can take a break from work soon - or something equally self-centred.

The general outline feels like a good idea for an interesting story.  The acid test is that I wish to know how it continues, and that is always a plus.


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## bdcharles (Dec 27, 2017)

Hi

I don't see too many spelling or grammar issues other than putting the full-stop / period outside the speech marks (may be different for reported speech, I don't know). The thing I noticed most was that the story doesn't seem to want to start where it does. You take us to a scene where Dr. Burn is walking over to a deceased patient and then suddenly we are whipped back to Dr. Burn's earlier life. Why not start the story with him as a youth if we need to know it then. Though if you do, you might look at showing versus telling - as it is, you tell us his young life rather than make us live it. Again, that is fine if you are simply reporting it, but then you throw the narrative flow right off from the very get-go and make us sit through a bunch of stuff that was of interest long ago, all of which amounts to "Dr. Burn was such-and-such sort of person, doing exactly the sort of such-and-such things that such-and-such people do." See if you can work that backstory in among events happening in the doctor's current moment; and don't tell us what happens - make it happen!  Good luck.


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## Yours Truly (Dec 27, 2017)

I like where this is headed, it seems like a good starting point. My only real criticism is there seem to be some sentences that could be simplified, it's very wordy when it doesn't need to be. Just a few thought from me, take it as food for thought.




AdrianBraysy said:


> Doctor William Burn felt a sense of both dread and relief walking over to his dead patient. Relief that whatever pain and suffering was torturing this young boy had finally disappeared. Dread, over the fact that he would have to be the bringer of bad news to the parents waiting outside the operating room. Back when he was still in medical school, they told him empathy was something he would develop over time. As reality would have it, he ended up going in the opposite direction, becoming more and more desensitised year after year. Telling a mother and father that their nine year old son had just passed away from blood loss, was almost routine at this point. After all, the gods of death didn’t discriminate based on age as much as people thought.
> 
> After a memorable confrontation, where the mother proceeded to beat on William’s chest in tears while her husband did his best to pull her away, William continued his dutiful job as head surgeon. *The other doctors and nurses complained about his lack of ‘feelings’, whatever that meant.* This sentence seems unnecessary since you were already discussing his emotional state. William found it preposterous that his emotional state would come into question, when practice showed him to be one of the most dedicated doctors.
> 
> ...



Overall, I like it. Keep at it, let us know when you get more done. :thumbl:


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 28, 2017)

AdrianBraysy said:


> Thanks for your comments! You're so right about the doctor part actually. My gf is a nurse, and a hospiral setting can sure make you cold over time.
> 
> I noticed the paragraph formatting after I posted. It looked different in my word processor for some reason, where it had proper indentations. I'll use blank lines when posting here from now on. Good point.
> 
> ...



I'd like to see the rewrite when you get to it. Keep in mind that posts here are visible to guests and count as published.


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## Jay Greenstein (Feb 9, 2018)

What jumped out at me is that from start to end is that this reads like a report, presented by a dispassionate external observer. It's told in overview and summation. You, the author, are _explaining_ a series of events.





> Doctor William Burn felt a sense of both dread and relief walking over to his dead patient


To a reader who doesn't yet know where we are in time and space, this doctor could be on a space craft, in a hospital, or in the middle ages during the plague. So while we have data it's meaningless data at-this-point. But shouldn't your reader have context _as they read the words?_ We also don't know what's going on. So the word "patient" tells us nothing meaningful. And we don't know _who_ we are. So is he an MD? A DO? Is he a surgeon or a GP? Without knowing who he is, where we are, and what's going on, we lack context to make the words meaningful.

Before anything else, the reader must be made to care. Without that, an unknown doctor, in an unknown place, felt emotion for unknown reason, as he walked toward an unknown corpse, for unknown reasons. And while you may say, "It's only the first line, read on and you'll learn, you just blew your first impression, and you can't retroactively fix that.

When you read this it makes perfect sense, and works, because while you read what amounts to the words a storyteller would speak at a "live" presentation of the story, each line references images, memories, and more in your mind. And as a result, the voice you hear in your head is filled with emotion. But unlike you, the reader doesn't know what a line _will_ say. So they don't learn of what kind of emotion it should be read with till _after_ they read it. And because they can take only the meaning the words suggest, based on _their_ experience and background, for them, each line references images, memories, and more in *your* mind. See the problem?

It's not matter of how well you're writing, or talent, it's that you, like most new writers, are missing the tricks of the trade that the successful writers take for granted. And like most of us, you believe we learn to write in our school days. We do, but not as a publisher of fiction sees that act, because in our schooling we're being trained in skills employers find useful. And employers need us to have nonfiction skills, like the ability to write a report, letter, or essay. And there, the goal _is_ to focus on informing the reader. But fiction readers aren't looking for what happened, they want to know the protagonist's reaction to the events, their hopes, and what's driving them. They want to focus on living the story in real time, with the protagonist as their avatar. They're seeking an emotional, not an informational experience. When you read fiction, aren't you hoping to be entertained?

What you're missing is learned as easily as you learned the writing skills we're given in our school days (or with as much difficulty, I suppose). Check out the articles on writing on this site. You'll find books on the subject of fiction writing technique in the local library. And there are lots of articles online, some of them mine. So there's of resources available, in lots of places. And the time spent digging through them can make a _huge_ difference in the writing, from a reader's viewpoint.


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 10, 2018)

I had to throw the text into Word so it was properly legible...I hate how the forum de-formats stories, makes it hard to read.

I though it was a promising start, you have some inkling of how to introduce a character and develop them (which is actually a really big deal in modern writing.)
On the downside I didn't like your opening sentence. Dead & dread made it sorta sing-songy.
You also had a few overly long sentences (there's a current thread on this very topic.)  
You were writing in a formal voice but used a conjunction (didn't).  Not that you cannot use conjunctions in formal writing, but they are a move of last resort because they break the formal tone. (but in *dialog *you can use all the didn'ts you want)


But these critiques are all easily fixed during editing.  Keep working at it, you have potential.


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## jk1973 (Feb 11, 2018)

This is an interesting start. I would like to know more about the doctor in present day before you jumped back to his childhood. Also I find that doctors are incredibly confident, analytical and science based although I'm somewhat jaded having a stepfather who was a physician I could never imagine him being a fan of anything fantasy. Maybe describing your doctor as being overly confident to compensate for his insecurities would ring truer. Again that could be based on personal opinion. Can't wait to see your edits and the continuation of the story.


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## Introvertrme (Feb 11, 2018)

Reminds me a bit of the character Dexter on tv, easy to read and concise!

Sent from my Redmi 4X using Tapatalk


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## _Koriko_ (Mar 12, 2018)

Nice! 

Two problems: I lost myself around the third paragraph, and I had to go reread the second paragraph to figure out what was going on. Maybe that's just me. William, the doctor, seemed a little too cold, even for a doctor.

Otherwise, great!


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