# Talia of the Window- DRAFT of Chapter 1



## Monster (Sep 17, 2017)

Hi guys.
It's been a very long time since I posted here and I have been working on a new novel. I wanted to share what I came up with in chapter 1. I posted on another forum, but it was a different version of chapter 1. Thanks to critiques, I slowed the pace down and covered less ground in chapter 1. This is what I have now. Please let me know what you all think of it. Constructive criticism very welcome.

Genre: Family drama
Adult
Fiction
Setting: 2010, Rosewater (a fictional town near Las Vegas, NV)


Any questions I will try to answer. Thank you for your time.

_W__hen I was sixteen years old, I was bestowed with what has been colorfully named the “Carrillo Curse” and though its existence has been debated from person to person to this day, the notion of the curse is the only thing that belongs to the entire family. _

Still, sometimes it was like I hadn’t learned by now that the world was not bright and trustworthy, even when my outlook on life was fresh and positive. The can-do attitude that I tried to carry with me on October 14[SUP]th[/SUP], 2010 wouldn’t last. It was all for naught to keep my fingers crossed, but it was worth a try. 

I stepped out of the front door that morning, waving goodbye to my children as they walked toward the school bus stop three houses down the road. My husband left for work an hour ago, and as I lowered myself into the driver’s seat of the family car, I gave myself a little pep talk.

_“Today is going to be better.”_

 I checked for kids walking in the street before pulling out of the driveway. Taking the left fork at the end of the street would be a longer trip to work, but the extra cost in miles was made up for with less traffic. I’d arrive at the Little Rabbits daycare center on time like any other day.

Only this day was special. The company was going through changes and there was word of a merger in the works for several weeks. The daycare struggled financially since the day I started working there, and the manager was confident that if the merger was signed, nothing but good come of it and the company would be saved. 

The owner met with the Stepping Stones group several times in the past couple of months to iron out the details and officially bring Little Rabbits in as part of their network of facilities. Once it was finalized, the company would receive more financial backing, employees would have better pay, and there’d finally be an option for affordable health insurance for each staff member. 

            Pulling my car into the usual parking space in front of the building, I locked the doors and headed inside, pulling my coat around tight for added warmth in the blustery autumn weather. It looked like rain was coming all week, but as of yet, the weather remained gray and windy. The wind wasn’t yet bone-chillingly cold, but it was enough to dry and blister faces with too much exposure.

            Parents were still dropping small children off in the entry way when I made it through the front doors. I offered a quick good morning to a group of several talking mothers before passing through to hang up my coat at the end of the back hall, where the offices and staff break room were located. 

            It was a dingy old place, having been used for a small outlet store in the past, then an office supply company, a bakery, and finally a main office to a motorcycle shop. It was vacant for a time before it became a daycare center and the years of wear stuck to the structure like stretchmarks. It wasn’t dilapidated or at risk of being condemned. There weren’t any cracks in the foundation or giant roach infestations. It just was not a particularly nice building.

            The parents knew this, but the services were affordable enough to where they were often willing to look the other way regarding the ugly tile flooring in the playroom and the paint on the entry wall chipped away through years of people opening the front door too roughly. Despite the building lacking the best condition, the fees were reasonable. Still, the company continued to struggle in the lower-income neighborhood where it stood.

            As the other staff made their way into work, the morning got started in much the same fashion as it always did. Toddlers played wildly, always having way too much energy for the wee hours of the morning. The staff that weren’t charged with seeing to care of the infants would monitor the children at play and intervene when two or more little ones wanted the same toy. 

            Until about 10:30, I remained in good spirits, and even avoiding being spit up on when my boss and her big, bulky shadow darkened the doorway of the three-year-old classroom. Her voice cut through the gentle din, feminine yet grinding like the worn out stick-shift of an old truck.

“Talia, can I see you in my office?” She requested, waiting for a polite nod from me before turning back down the long hallway toward the little room her desk sat in.

            With a confident smile, I followed Stacia down the hall, light on my feet until I reached the inside of the office space, where I sat down in the available chair facing the desk. 

Stacia eased herself down behind her computer, adjusting her position in the leather computer chair before reaching for her mouse. She moved it about and stared at something on her computer screen. She glanced at me and managed a weak “good morning” before reverting back at her screen, long enough to where it wasn’t apparent that she was going to say anything more.

The tension in the room became more and more palpable as the seconds ticked by. This certainly didn’t seem like it was going the way that good news was supposed to go, and according to Stacia, this merger was supposed to be the best thing that ever happened to the company. It was supposed to right everything that was wrong and she sat with a smile on her face while the other employees discussed it excitedly for weeks.  

“Is everything okay?” I asked, after waiting as long as I could for any sort of response. 

Everything really did feel fine up until a moment ago. What changed? Why was Stacia being so awkward? It was uncomfortable sitting with her while she kept her eyes glued to her computer screen like it was the only thing she could do to keep from making eye contact with me.

“That depends,” She answered, folding her hands on her desk, “on where you’re coming from. Everything is okay with the company, but unfortunately not so much with the staff.”

Her eyes left her screen and rested on my face. Being looked at by Stacia always felt like being watched by a bird. Her eyes were deep-set and beady, darting around like a hen’s and the way she breathed with her thin lips slightly parted just added to the comparison. 

Stacia had a reputation for answering questions cryptically, or just plain slow. Sometimes it took 20 minutes to get even the most basic information from her, regarding which kid was going to be late that morning and why. She had a habit of taking unnecessary pauses in her statements, then resuming by making a clicking noise with her lips.

“The merger was signed last week, so Little Rabbits is now officially a part of the Stepping Stones Group. However, when the owners signed the merger, they didn’t include any of the staff’s accommodations. There was no agreement regarding our positions, so Stepping Stones is sending some of their staff to work the new location…here.”

I felt the tightness in my forehead as my eyebrows pinched together and I pushed my slipping glasses back to their correct place at the bridge of my nose. My fingers trembled and in an effort to hide it, I placed both hands in my lap, sitting myself up as straight as I could.

“What does this mean?” I asked. What was going on here?

            Stacia clicked, and her left hand reached into her drawer to withdraw a thin stack of type-written paperwork. She placed it on the desk in front of where I sat.

“Since their staff is already trained the way that the new management wants, they will be replacing our staff. I’ve been demoted from manager to shift supervisor,” she whined, as if this were the depressing punchline of this story, “and as for the rest of you…”

            She slid the stack of paperwork forward on the desk, to where I could see the words _‘layoff’ and_ _‘termination’_ in the heading.

Great. They were “temporarily” laying off four of the former Little Rabbits employees and I was one of them. By the end of the day, I lost my job along with my friend Summer and two other women. The owner didn’t care about her employees enough to ensure that we’d still have jobs after the merger. She wanted to finish it and wash her hands with fresh dollar bills.

A mixture of fear and anger poured over my consciousness. Heat built up in my face and the palms of my hands while blood rushed in my head. My throat tightened and dried out to quell the developing storm in my stomach.

Three years I spent at Little Rabbits, and it was gone with no warning. When one of my co-workers asked if the merger would result in losses, Stacia assured the staff that they had nothing to worry about. Knowing next to nothing of the business world, I believed her and remained blissfully ignorant like the rest of them until the rug was yanked away and I was tumbling blind into unemployment.

_How could I have been so goddamn stupid_, I thought. It wasn’t the first time that life changed up in the blink of an eye and it wouldn’t be the last. 

            I kept a vice-grip on my emotions, preserving my calm demeanor as I signed the termination papers, took down the contact information for the unemployment office, and returned to my car. I took a slow, deep breath before starting the engine and pulling out of the driveway. 

            This car carried me from place to place for the past four years, and having a car-savvy husband kept it on the road despite the wear and tear. I was planning for weeks to trade it in for a newer used model but never committed to it, never became comfortable with the decision. I dodged a bullet and for a moment, I was grateful that my faithful old car was paid off. 

            The trip home couldn’t have taken longer unless there’d been a cataclysmic event that wiped away every road in the city. It was after 11:00 now and the lunch rush was in full-swing. Hitting every red light and having a mini heart attack every time a hurried driver attempted to merge with no room wasn’t helping the bad day blues go away.

            By the time I pulled into the garage attached to townhouse I called home, my reserves were gone and the world was finally allowed to be hopeless. Tears pricked at the inner corners of my eyes and rolled unchecked down my cheeks. Nobody was around. It was okay to be upset for a while. It was okay that the redness of my eyes and cheeks offset the deep brown of my irises and made them look black. I looked awful when I cried.

            Though the layoff had nothing to do with my work performance, the familiar feelings of shame and worthlessness crept in, and there was nothing for it but to distract myself in the same way I’d done for years, cleaning. I went inside, took my shoes off at the door, and got to it. I started laundry, loaded the dishwasher, swept, mopped, and wrapped the afternoon up with vacuuming. 

            Satisfied for a moment, I sat down at the family computer and began my application for unemployment benefits. It had to be done, even though I didn’t want to do it. Finding a new job was the first task on my list for tomorrow, and I hoped to be employed again before my benefits dried up. Hope and encourage myself as I did, I was upset again. 

            When the application was submitted, I made myself busy putting dishes away when my children came home from school. I didn’t want them to notice that anything was off, and the cocktail of meaningless busy-work and a fake smile plastered on my face would have to work. I asked them the usual: “how was school” and “what did you learn” and “do you have homework?”

            If the pair were aware of anything being amiss, they didn’t let on. I was confident that Edwin wouldn’t have detected abnormality if there’d been a literal elephant in the room rather than a figurative one. He was six years old, and his attention was usually focused on how long he’d be permitted to go outside and play if he finished his homework as fast as he could. Today was no different.

            China, however, was ten and while I wouldn’t say that she was wise beyond her years or any of that doting parent crap, she was quite responsible and aware for a ten-year-old. She was a kind, sensitive child and when someone was upset, she wanted to know what was wrong so that she could find a way to make it right. 

            I was in luck today, though. Her class was assigned reports on Native Americans of the west, and by the luck of the draw, her tribe to report on was the Paiute. My younger brother’s fiancé and her mother were part of this tribe and offered to help her get a good grade by providing her with information that she couldn’t find on her own.

“I’m going to go upstairs and call Aunt Deni.” She announced, and without waiting for my answer, she headed to her room. 

            By 6:00, the fake smile was starting to crack around the corners and by the time my husband came home, I was ready to tell someone about what happened that day. I watched him take his shoes off at the front door and waited for him to approach the kitchen where I stood.

“Hey, hey, Hermosa.” He said with a smile, kissing my cheek as he passed by to get a glass-bottled soda out of the fridge.

He popped the lid off the bottle with the can opener, raised the bottle to his mouth and then paused, lowering his drink and looking over the counter at me.

“You okay?”

I shook my head.
“Can I talk to you about something?” I started.

His eyebrows furrowed as a worried expression crossed his face. I shouldn’t have started the conversation that way. The whole “we need to talk” introduction always put Angel ill at ease. He always assumed the worst, that I was going to ask for a divorce, no matter how well we were doing as a couple.

“Are you mad at me or something?” He asked, finally taking a drink of his soda while he waited for me to respond.

“No, it’s not that.” I answered, awaiting his relaxed expression before I lowered my voice so that the kids couldn’t hear me in the living room.

“I got laid off today.”

His expression softened and his mouth dropped open ever so slightly, like he wanted to say something but stopped to show his sympathy for a moment.

“That merger, the one that Stacia said was going to be so good for the company, ended up being a bullet in the damn foot for me and three other staff.”

I sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, and he pulled up a chair beside me, taking my manicured hand into his oil-stained one once he sat his drink down on a placemat.

“I’m sorry, baby. I told you that the big wigs weren’t team players. They wanted to bring in their own employees, huh?” 

I nodded. Angel might not have been the smartest man around, but he called it weeks ago. When I mentioned the merger, he said that he hoped it went well, but was concerned for the company because corporations always had dollar signs in their eyes. He always had a mistrust for business people. Not people who owned businesses, mind you, _business people._

His deep, black eyes scanned my face, and as if he could anticipate my oncoming crying fit, he got up, scooped a clean Power Rangers cup off the shelf, and filled it with the box of wine I kept on the shelf under the coffee maker. Gently, he placed the cup in my hand as he took his seat again.

“You’ve had a pretty damn hard day, honey. Go ahead and take a load off. We are gonna be okay, I promise. How about you go take a bath and I’ll make a pizza or something.” He smiled his concerned smile, the one where his mouth was smiling but his eyes worried.

“I’ll take a few extra shifts at work. Martin is pretty sure we are going to get some fixer-upper cars for the Christmas season, and Javier said he’d pay me to help him remodel that new place he bought. Don’t worry about a thing.” 

He patted my back and got to work bustling around the kitchen as I headed for the stairs. I knew he was going to make a mess, but I certainly valued the effort he made to keep me happy.

Sitting in the bathtub helped the tension in my upper back melt away in the hot water, aided in part by the Power Rangers cup full of wine that I tried to enjoy. It was a cold night, so I skipped washing my hair and it sat in a thick black bun atop my head while I washed the makeup from my face. Most of what was around my eyes washed away with all the crying I did.

Though I was doing my damnedest to relax, the pressure regarding the oncoming holidays crept in. Angel and I were never the sort that had obscene amounts of money to spend on lavish holiday parties or luxurious presents for our family, but now the purse strings had to be even tighter. I didn’t know how we were going to get through it, with the holidays being stressful at the best of times.

Even after stewing in the bath, my mind was still whirling. I skipped dinner and if a mess was made in my absence, it was gone by the time I returned to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Having had enough wine, I figured that hot chamomile would help me turn in for the night without the wino hangover the following morning. 

As I sat in the living room, holding the warm ceramic cup in my hands, I spent the evening watching game shows on what my daughter called the “old people network”. Jeopardy was always fun, and on occasion I would get a handful of the questions right or just learn a new bit of information to throw out at a friendly gathering. If anything, it was a welcome distraction away from how the day had gone. 

When 8:00 came, I was already exhausted and thought about turning in to bed early until the tune of my phone’s ringtone sounded. The vibration sent the device dancing across the surface of the coffee table and the name “SUMMER” displayed on the screen. Angel looked up from the crossword puzzle he was doing in his recliner as I picked up my phone and sent the call to voicemail.

“Who was that?” He asked casually.

“Summer, from work.” I answered.

“You might wanna give her a call back tomorrow, when you’re up for it. Maybe she has some information for you.” He suggested before going back to the crossword. 

            He was probably right. Summer was both my friend and my co-worker and I enjoyed speaking with her. I just didn’t have the energy for the back and forth that would be involved. Summer loved to talk and even what was supposed to be a brief conversation could easily morph into an hour-long discussion about something that had nothing to do with the initial topic. She was a considerate woman, and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of probability if she was calling to let me know that she spent the last hour looking for job resources for me. 

“I will.” I replied. 


By the time 9:00 came about and the kids were sent to bed, I was ready to go upstairs for the night. As I stood brushing my teeth in front of the mirror that my husband steamed up during his shower, Angel quickly threw on a pair of sweatpants and opened the curtains covering our window. 

“Come watch the lightning with me.” He suggested, climbing into bed and patting the spot beside him.

            The sky rumbled occasionally for the past hour, and gradually the sound of thunder grew closer and closer to our section of the city. Being in the third floor of our narrow home made the view of the night sky a bit easier to see over the tops of other houses. Though the city lights took away from the solid darkness, the approaching flashes of light were pleasantly visible in the distance.

            I scrambled up into my side of the bed and made myself comfortable, nestled into the warmth of both my husband’s tattooed arms and our old quilt. After laying my glasses on the bedside table, I lowered my head onto my stack of pillows and watched the rage of the storm build up as the minutes ticked by. 

            The wind howled against the side of the house, making the trees dance in ways that illuminated oddly pointed shadows into the bedroom. The clouds held their water for as long as they could and rain finally pitter pattered on the window panes while the flashes of lightning were accompanied by rolling thunder. 

            At long last, relief started to push away the anxiety that had me in its claws all day long. I was warm, and I was safe for now. I’d finally gotten to the point where I worried myself calm, and just didn’t have the energy to freak out over the lay-off anymore. What was working myself into a panic attack going to do for anybody? 

“Tomorrow’s another day. Maybe all of this is gonna end up being a blessing in disguise.” Angel uttered close to my ear before kissing my cheek.

            I found that hard to believe, but maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong, but at the time it didn’t matter. He was doing the best he could to cheer me up and it meant the world to me to have his support. Like he said, tomorrow was another day and the world was going to keep turning whether I worked at Little Rabbits or not. I’d find something to do with myself. Being unemployed wasn’t going to last forever. I just wished that word of this new situation didn’t reach my family. I was not looking forward to them knowing anything about what was happening in my life financially. 

            I was one of seven siblings and we all lived in the same city. We were a tight-knit family and when something happened in one household, it wasn’t long before every single one of our brothers, sisters, and in-laws knew about it. Such was life in a large family. Boundaries were sometimes an issue, especially when my siblings “worried” about each other. Often, worry was just another excuse to lecture and irritate the hell out of each other all under the guise of concern. 

            I could only hope that all of the commotion taking place in their own lives kept them busy enough not to be bothered with mine. A lot was happening. A lot was _always_ happening and for once, I didn’t wish upon a shining star that it would stop. For once I was thankful that the family curse didn’t discriminate and we were all thrown into it equally. It’d been an unwelcome and constant companion for the past seven years.


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## Jack of all trades (Sep 17, 2017)

I'd sort of like to see the earlier draft. This meandered too much for me.

Technically, numbers are supposed to be written as words. And I wonder if it's important to know the year.

I think I need to understand more about the curse for this to make sense. When did it start and why? What kind of things does it make happen? 

The daycare stuff didn't exactly ring true for me. The staff would have had to be there in order for the parents to drop off their kids. Dads and moms would be dropping off. The MC couldn't just go with the supervisor. Someone had to take over her duties. Ditto for after she's let go. And that would have alerted the rest of the staff. More likely they would have been told at the end of the day. Then the replacements would start the next day.

Think about letting the reader into the MC's personal world a little more. Help us be her, not just read about her.

I didn't see any glaring SPaG issues. And I am curious about the curse.

Keep in mind this section is visible to guests. The prose workshop, which hasn't had anything new posted lately, is protected.


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## Monster (Sep 18, 2017)

That's interesting. My last critiques said that I was covering too much ground and moving too fast in the last draft. I mentioned a little about the curse, but that's explained more in other chapters (a little more in Ch 2, and then more as the story goes on). I had stuff happen with the family in the last draft and they said it was too much, to have one thing happen per chapter. 


I should have written it better with the parents dropping off. Some of the staff was there, the rest of the (slightly late) staff showed up afterward. I went with moms dropping their kids off from personal experience. When I used to drop my kid off at preschool, there was this annoying "in-crowd" of gossipy moms that would hang around by the door and chat for a while. 

Should I have an aide watch over the class, or just move the meeting part until around 3pm rather than 10am?

The year I posted because it's part of a timeline. The whole series works on a line between 2010 and 2018. After that series is over, another one takes place, in the same universe but not on the same timeline or with the same themes.


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## Jack of all trades (Sep 18, 2017)

Monster said:


> That's interesting. My last critiques said that I was covering too much ground and moving too fast in the last draft. I mentioned a little about the curse, but that's explained more in other chapters (a little more in Ch 2, and then more as the story goes on). I had stuff happen with the family in the last draft and they said it was too much, to have one thing happen per chapter.
> 
> 
> I should have written it better with the parents dropping off. Some of the staff was there, the rest of the (slightly late) staff showed up afterward. I went with moms dropping their kids off from personal experience. When I used to drop my kid off at preschool, there was this annoying "in-crowd" of gossipy moms that would hang around by the door and chat for a while.
> ...



I just came back to say I was wrong about nothing new having been posted in the workshop area recently and found your response.

Alright. The timeline being eight years is fine. But is it important that it starts in 2010? Would something crucial go wrong if it was 2009? Can the year be conveyed differently, perhaps by mentioning a specific event? The death of a celebrity, or some political thing? It just felt artificial to see the year. But that's probably minor.

The moms versus moms and dads at drop off might be cultural or location specific. No need to change that except to avoid stereotypes.

The timing bothered me the most. Again, that might be location specific. And it wasn't clear if this was daycare or preschool. You mentioned a class. That sounds more like preschool. And preschool fits with the MC being able to be home with her kids after their school day was over. 

Somehow, though, I had the impression it was daycare. So I was envisioning hurried dropoffs by parents anxious to get to work, long days with parents picking their kids back up around six in the evening. I was also envisioning babies in one room and toddlers in another. Not sure where I got those ideas from.


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## Monster (Sep 18, 2017)

In the area I'm from, preschools and daycares are completely different, however, daycares a lot of the time still have "classrooms". They aren't really classrooms but they're called that, basically they're activity rooms that are suitable for different age groups. Picture the daycare in Toy Story 3, how they had several different rooms for babies, toddlers, and younger kids. It's a regional thing, but I didn't know it was until now. Maybe I should change the word "classroom" to "activity room" just to be clear. 

I should add (I did add it in my notes but not in this first draft) that the Manager was letting people go in order of importance. Talia and the other women were not as educated or experienced as some of the other staff. She was letting people go one at a time and Talia was the first one to be called into the office. By the end of the day four women lose their jobs, but it isn't all at once. I can probably scoot the timeline down though, to where she's missing less of the day. Maybe they lay her off between noon and 2pm. 

As for the people anxious to get their kids to daycare before they hit work, there should definitely be some of them. Some of those "in-crowd" moms have a little more time on their hands, maybe starting work soon, but with enough time to spare to catch up on a gab session.


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## Jack of all trades (Sep 18, 2017)

What about the parents who work until five or six? And it still doesn't make sense to me to let workers in a daycare center go in the middle of the day. Where I live, daycare centers have too many children for each worker as it is. To let four go in the middle of the day! 

It's your story. What you do with it is up to you.


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## Jay Greenstein (Sep 18, 2017)

You're over-explaining details that matter not at all to a reader, because you're thinking cinematically, and talking about what the reader would see, were it a film:

But, does a reader care that she checked for kids and other dangers before pulling out? If she hits no one won't we assume she drove safely? Do we care that her husband left for work, and when that happened? No, because it's detail, not story. 

How about the drive to work. Since we don't yet know who she is, where she is, or what's going on, how does knowing if she turns left or right to drive to work, and if it was fast or slow? Of course not.

Such such things continue, primarily because you're not showing the story happening, you're talking about it. You, the narrator—someone who's voice the reader can't hear, and whose gesture and performance can't be seen, is talking to the reader and explaining the situation. Informative? Sure. Entertaining? No. But it must be entertaining, from start to finish, because the only reason people read fiction is to be entertained. This article is meant for television, but it shows the problem when a talking head explains, as against making the story live. 

Forget telling the story. our medium doesn't support that. Daydream the story. _Become_ the protagonist and make the reader know what's happening as _she_ views it, so they have context for how she responds, why, and what's going on. Forget what can be seen and focus on what matters to her in the moment she calls now, and how she responds. Her struggle to control her environment, and respond to the disasters we toss at her is what makes a story. We, bastards that we are, keep tossing things at our protagonist that make life hell for them. No sooner than do they think they have things under control we do it again, keeping them off balance and worrying. And that worry—the uncertainty of if our poor protagonist will succeed—moment by moment—is what readers feed on.

It's not how we learned to write in our schooldays, of course. There, we were being made valuable to future employers, with skills needed on the job—skills like nonfiction writing that's fact-based and author-centric, designed to inform a reader.

Fiction, though, has the goal of entertaining the reader, and that takes writing skills that are character-centric and emotion-based—skills that must be learned as part of our professional knowledge, after we leave our schooldays.

So it's not a matter of doing something wrong, talent, or the quality of the writing. It matters not at all how well the work is written if it's written with skills not supported by the medium. So some time spent digging out the tricks of the trade will be time well spent.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.


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## Bayview (Sep 18, 2017)

You aren't using past-perfect, as far as I can tell, and I found that jarring... and then when I started looking at how many places seemed like they needed past-perfect, it suggested that there might be a larger issue than just the grammar.

I feel like we aren't present enough in the story. There's no sense of immediacy. Like, grammatically, I'd like it if "My husband left for work an hour ago" was "My husband had left for work an hour ago" but stylistically, I'd prefer it that the narrative wasn't telling me stuff like that. Stuff I don't need to know, stuff that takes up space without catching my interest.

I'm a big fan of the "start your story where your story starts" approach, so I'd cut out everything up to the point when she gets laid off (assuming that's the start of the main story, here? Her being laid off is part of the curse? If not, I'd start the story even later, when the curse starts). And then I'd really try to get readers invested in the character. Being laid off sucks, sure, but not enough for me to want to read a whole book about it. Why do I care about _this_ character and _this _job issue? What makes your character's situation special?


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## Monster (Sep 18, 2017)

To answer your question, nothing makes my characters special. Absolutely nothing. Especially since I'm in Chapter 1. It's a starting point, and like I mentioned in other posts, my past critiques said I was including too much in Chapter 1, which is why this particular draft doesn't cover much. Not a lot actually happens in the chapter, because last time I had too much happening and finding a medium is not working.

As for the curse, it started seven years before this story started. I get into it more in ch 2 and later chapters. The main character explains why it happened and when, just not in ch 1. Chapter 1 is actually starting a bit earlier than I wanted to jump in, so going back 7 years and starting seems like it would be too much. The entire novel covers about a 4 year period. I'm just not sure how to fill in 7 more years. There are flashbacks in later chapters that reflect on certain times during those three years, but nothing in ch 1.


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## Sebald (Sep 18, 2017)

Take heart, Monster. The writing is good, and  the premise of a family curse is strong. And I really like paragraph one.

As others have said, you've just started it in the wrong place. I'm afraid I skipped forward through it when I realised it was all going to be about getting laid-off. You've naturally assumed that going chronologically is the way to unfold the story. But, in a novel like this, it's really not.

The TV show 'Medium' is being rerun in the UK, and it has similarities to your set-up. Might be worth studying the structure. Or just copying it. Basically, we join the story with the main character already working as a psychic for the District Attorney. We see her sitting in on a case, having dreams about a crime and slowly realise what she is.

There's no establishing information. We're just plonked there in the middle of all the stuff. Later, bits of information come through, but they're very brief.

The reason for that is, watching this ordinary woman trying to cope with the shattering effects of having a special power (being inside murderers' heads, solving crimes etc) is a hundred times more interesting than watching her younger self gradually realising she has the power.

Hope that makes sense.  Good luck with it.


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## Jack of all trades (Sep 18, 2017)

Monster said:


> To answer your question, nothing makes my characters special. Absolutely nothing. Especially since I'm in Chapter 1. It's a starting point, and like I mentioned in other posts, my past critiques said I was including too much in Chapter 1, which is why this particular draft doesn't cover much. Not a lot actually happens in the chapter, because last time I had too much happening and finding a medium is not working.
> 
> As for the curse, it started seven years before this story started. I get into it more in ch 2 and later chapters. The main character explains why it happened and when, just not in ch 1. Chapter 1 is actually starting a bit earlier than I wanted to jump in, so going back 7 years and starting seems like it would be too much. The entire novel covers about a 4 year period. I'm just not sure how to fill in 7 more years. There are flashbacks in later chapters that reflect on certain times during those three years, but nothing in ch 1.



I think a big part of the problem is you wrote something that pleased you, then altered it to please a group of writers. Now you're showing that to a different group of writers, who suggest different changes. And some of those newly suggested changes seem to contradict the first group's suggestions. Right?

That's why I suggest going back to the original version -- the one that pleased you. Start from there.

Now look at the various writings here. Who writes what you like to read? That person has more chance of helping write something you will like.

A group of writers will probably never agree on changes to a piece. We each have our own style. And you need to develope yours. That may take a bit of time, but that time will pass anyway. You might as well be closer to your goal at the end of it.


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## Monster (Sep 18, 2017)

Sebald said:


> Take heart, Monster. The writing is good, and  the premise of a family curse is strong. And I really like paragraph one.
> 
> As others have said, you've just started it in the wrong place. I'm afraid I skipped forward through it when I realised it was all going to be about getting laid-off. You've naturally assumed that going chronologically is the way to unfold the story. But, in a novel like this, it's really not.
> 
> ...



Thank you for the compliment. So the writing is good and story is okay? I definitely admit that it's a work in progress and I'm not satisfied with it. I posted for criticisms on what I need to fix so your input was incredibly helpful.

I have seen an episode or so of Medium. I like how they kind of "Tarantino" the story around, to where everything doesn't happen in a straight timeline. I do have a lot of flashbacks written down. I guess I could start the story either farther back or farther forward, when something interesting is happening. For example, right after the protagonist's wedding, she and her family are questioned by police about her former friend's disappearance. This is the same friend responsible for the family curse, and she was last seen after trying to disrupt the wedding.

Or I can start a little more forward, closer to the protagonist's sister's wedding, when a lot of things go down. I just don't want to skip past the section I started too much, because the following day (after the layoff) her mother dies. It's a jumping off point. I can play with the timeline a bit though, and just scoot the layoff chapter around. 


Also @Jack-of-all-Trades, I probably should move the hours down, to where Talia has a later layoff hour (about 2:00). My friend worked at a daycare that had pretty wide hours. Her shift was about 6.5 to 7 hours, and there were two shifts of employees, morning and evening (it was ages ago, but I think it was 8-2 and 2-8). I guess they did it that way so that if everyone worked under 8 hours, they wouldn't have to provide medical benefits or something. It would have her laid off close to the end of her shift, and I would need to have the protagonist's children already home when she arrives (or picked up at the family sitter's house). It would get her a more realistic day in and still give her time to get home and be miserable before sundown. I'll play around with it a little.

Also, I'll add in about leaving the kids with another staff member rather than just walking out of the room for the meeting.


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## Sebald (Sep 18, 2017)

Yeah, you can definitely write. So, relax and keep trying things out until it clicks.

I'd definitely open with a major incident of some kind. A place where a considerable amount of crap is hitting the fan. Readers are impatient creatures, so don't give them any chance to jump ship.


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## Jack of all trades (Sep 18, 2017)

Monster said:


> Also @Jack-of-all-Trades, I probably should move the hours down, to where Talia has a later layoff hour (about 2:00). My friend worked at a daycare that had pretty wide hours. Her shift was about 6.5 to 7 hours, and there were two shifts of employees, morning and evening (it was ages ago, but I think it was 8-2 and 2-8). I guess they did it that way so that if everyone worked under 8 hours, they wouldn't have to provide medical benefits or something. It would have her laid off close to the end of her shift, and I would need to have the protagonist's children already home when she arrives (or picked up at the family sitter's house). It would get her a more realistic day in and still give her time to get home and be miserable before sundown. I'll play around with it a little.
> 
> Also, I'll add in about leaving the kids with another staff member rather than just walking out of the room for the meeting.



Having another staff member take over would be an improvement.

The hours don't match what I'm used to. 8-2 would be dream hours for most moms! Around here, parents drop off sometimes as early as 6am. And a 6am start time would have prevented her from seeing her kids off to school. (Shrug) Maybe daycare centers are different where you are. 

I wish you well with this. I am curious about the curse, so you have something there.


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## Jay Greenstein (Sep 18, 2017)

> To answer your question, nothing makes my characters special. Absolutely nothing. Especially since I'm in Chapter 1.


But it _must._ Readers come to you to be entertained, not informed. They arrive with mild curiosity that soon fades. That curiosity _must_ be replaced with active interest, and quickly. Studies have shown that a reader makes a read/put it back, decision before the end of page three. And in that time if you lecture them, bore them, or confuse them for one line they leave and your audition is over.  As Sol Stein put it: “A novel is like a car—it won’t go anywhere until you turn on the engine. The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better.”

The problem you face is one that the vast majority of hopeful writers do when they begin recording their stories, based on the mistaken impression that writing is writing, and we were taught to write in our school days. But in reality, we are precisely as well prepared to perform an appendectomy as to write fiction when we graduate high school. We've learned to write reports and essays. Period. Yes, we were told to write occasional stories, but they were graded by someone who learned to write in those same classrooms, who, themselves, believe that success in writing is a matter of inherent talent—a knack for words—a good story idea, some luck, and good grades in English class.

If only.

In reality, we learned a set of fact-based and author-centric skills meant to inform clearly and concisely. In other words, nonfiction—a chronicle of events presented as a report. And as such, as entertaining as the average history book.

But people read fiction to be entertained—to be placed within the persona of the protagonist in real-time, to live the story emotionally. The sig line on my posts says it all. 

Problem is, none of the presentation techniques we learned in our school days is useful in fiction, which should be character-centric and emotion, not fact-based. It's not what happens that matters, it's the protagonist's dilemma and response that matters. It's involving the reader in "Oh shit!" moments to the point where they stop reading to think over what they might to next. Your reader _feeds_ on uncertainty and worry. But a report has no uncertainty. The events described are immutable, and roll by one after another.

But...place the reader into the tiny slice of time the protagonist calls now and the future becomes unknowable, and therefore, interesting. Make the reader know the situation and resources as the protagonist does and you've just calibrated their responses to that of the protagonist. Make the reader know what options there are, and why the character has chosen one over the other, and the reader—who might have favored another option—will both understand why the character chose that and want to know if it works. 

Do that and they have a reason to _want_ to turn the pages. Fail to do that and they stop reading.

It's not about talent, it's owning the necessary tools. Acquiring them is simple enough. There are articles on this site and all over the Internet. I'm vain enough to believe that my own are pretty helpful. But in the end, I favor going with the pros, because we start out knowing that their view, and the tricks they recommend work for them. My personal suggestion is to look for Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer, Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure, or Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.

Hope this clarifies.


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## Monster (Sep 18, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> Having another staff member take over would be an improvement.
> 
> The hours don't match what I'm used to. 8-2 would be dream hours for most moms! Around here, parents drop off sometimes as early as 6am. And a 6am start time would have prevented her from seeing her kids off to school. (Shrug) Maybe daycare centers are different where you are.
> 
> I wish you well with this. I am curious about the curse, so you have something there.



I could definitely still play around with the hours. It's an easy fix and something I can work with. Seeing the kids off to the bus stop can end up being a reflection or something she thinks about later. It's not super important that she saw them leave. Even if I start her at her workday earlier and ended it later, I can definitely find a way to work in different elements of the day.

There are more daycares in the city near where I live, and those have a myriad of different hours. The one in the rural area closest to my house had more limited hours I guess. I can widen it out, though.

@Jay, thank you for your advice, too. I just finished Stephen King on Writing, and I will definitely check out some of the pieces you recommended, and your articles. I want to make my story more interesting, because I get how we owe our readers a good story. As a reader, I'm also quick to drop a story if I don't care. I've read so many that I was just like, "wth is this?". I don't want to put something into the world that sucks. It's kind of why I'm really self-conscious about what I'm writing. I don't want to draft the whole book making these mistakes. I figure if I can start ch 1 on the right track, I can pave the way for the rest of the book. I just need to get on the right narrative path, and keep things happening to where there are relaxed moments, but not dull moments. 

I keep all of the chapter drafts I do (I have completed three of this chapter alone), and I have a lot of scenes. I just need to shift around and figure out the best start to where it SHOWS more than tells about the life this woman and her family are living.


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## Bayview (Sep 19, 2017)

Monster said:


> I keep all of the chapter drafts I do (I have completed three of this chapter alone), and I have a lot of scenes. I just need to shift around and figure out the best start to where it SHOWS more than tells about the life this woman and her family are living.



But there's not really anything unusual about the life this woman and her family are living. So why do you need to show it?

As a general rule, "show" the important stuff, "tell" the unimportant stuff that helps you get from place to place. You could "tell" everything that happened in this chapter in one paragraph, and then get to the good stuff.



> _Laid off. Unemployed. Incomeless. Destitute.
> 
> _Well, not the last one, I mused as I sipped red wine from my plastic juice glass. I used my toes to add a little more hot water to the bath. Angel still worked, and damn, that man worked _hard_. My income from the daycare would be missed, but as long as he stayed busy at the garage, we'd get by. Barely.



Or whatever. And then something exciting happens to her in the bath, and the story begins.

Right now, there just isn't enough of a crisis. She lost her job. Sucks, but her husband works, she hasn't even _tried_ looking for new work yet, etc. If this was a friend I was having drinks with, I'd be full of sympathy. But for a character in a book? She needs to have a bigger crisis before I care.

If the curse starts later on, start the book later on.



> It's a truth universally acknowledged that a married woman in possession of no job must be in want of a drink. And I could have one, I promised myself, after I called the last two daycares on my list and asked if they were hiring. The kids had gone to friends' houses after school, but Angel would be home from the garage soon and maybe there'd be time for the two of us to relax with a couple glasses of wine before I had to get dinner started.
> 
> I had the phone in my hand, ready to dial, when....[the curse started]



Obviously these are just rough and not in your style, but the idea is that there's nothing wrong with "telling" background information, helping us hurry through until we get to the good stuff (which should probably be "shown").


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## Monster (Sep 19, 2017)

Those are each lovely narratives. Maybe I should push the layoff to another chapter and start with the week after Talia's wedding when she's being questioned by the police in connection to "curse girl" going missing the same night of the wedding, right after busting in during the "I object" part and causing a scene. It's about a year and a half after the onset of the curse, but it's where things start to get serious. Little misfortunes happen during the 18 months, but they're able to be waved off as sad coincidences. Right around then (I can't remember if it was before or after, I don't have my timetable with me), Talia's older sister is honorably discharged from the military due to an injury to her head and has developed seizures from it. 

There are a lot of incidents and pieces of information in this story, I just need to figure out what to put in when. All (most) of it is going in at some point, but letting it unroll steadily is one of my many issues with this piece. That line between not showing enough and being an info dump is a thin one sometimes.


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## Jack of all trades (Sep 19, 2017)

Monster said:


> Those are each lovely narratives. Maybe I should push the layoff to another chapter and start with the week after Talia's wedding when she's being questioned by the police in connection to "curse girl" going missing the same night of the wedding, right after busting in during the "I object" part and causing a scene. It's about a year and a half after the onset of the curse, but it's where things start to get serious. Little misfortunes happen during the 18 months, but they're able to be waved off as sad coincidences. Right around then (I can't remember if it was before or after, I don't have my timetable with me), Talia's older sister is honorably discharged from the military due to an injury to her head and has developed seizures from it.
> 
> There are a lot of incidents and pieces of information in this story, I just need to figure out what to put in when. All (most) of it is going in at some point, but letting it unroll steadily is one of my many issues with this piece. That line between not showing enough and being an info dump is a thin one sometimes.



Now you're getting somewhere!

Layoffs happen to nearly everyone. But having someone burst into a wedding and object? That's unusual! If that person is a stranger, it gets even more curious. Then when that person goes missing that same night? Now there's a mystery to solve. (Alright. I'm partial to mysteries.) 

The thing is, when you, as the author, think there's nothing special or interesting about a character or plot, the reader will feel similarly.

Start with why this story and this character appeal to you. Why do you feel compelled to write this particular story.

I tend to write without an outline, but you might benefit from writing down the important points to the story. What is going to keep the reader wondering -- and reading.

I suggest starting with how happy the main character is as a bride. How beautiful the wedding turned out. How utterly dumbfounded she is when the girl runs in and tries to stop the wedding! Just a couple paragraphs to set the stage, then action.


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## Sebald (Sep 19, 2017)

Great suggestions from Bayview and Jack. Monster, with your brilliant attitude, I'm really starting to feel excited about it.


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