The Condition

WoW!!!! Great story!!!! I'm blown away. You had me absorbed into the story the minute I started reading. Loved the end of the first chapter-did not see that coming. If I had to critique anything, the only thing I could think of is you get verbose in some areas. Loved your story and characters. Well written and 6 stars from me.
Dina of Halo of the Damned and 33

You have a very strong opening; your descriptive writing is exciting and it was very easy to be caught up and drawn into the story I thought your strength is in your development of characters, displaying their insecurities, hopes, and dreams.
Great storytelling
Best wishes
Scott
The Esrevinu Chronicles/Secrets of the Elephant Rocks

Hi Paul--

Good work. Tension builds and catches at an inexorable pace-- rich, dense prose full of melancholy and impending doom... I'll return to read on, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter. Shelved.

Ruth/Base Spirits

Hi Paul

I've had you WLed for ages, and finally got round to reading some of your work today. Chp 1 I think is way too long and over written - you have repeated stuff and you go into minute detail that just slows the pace down. This work could benefit from major cutting without sacrificing any of the story. I felt for your character who knew that his wife was no longer in love with him, and his suicide was shocking, but I felt it could all have been tightened up. I've scanned through Chp 2 and again I feel that you are over writing - going into minute detail where you just don't need to, and this makes me want to skip and get to the good stuff. Your pitch is very interesting, with loads of promise, but for me the promise has to start delivering sooner. I'd be happy to look at this again if you upload an edited version. Best of luck in any event.
Maria (The Akashic Records)

I've read two chapters and I'm already aware that I'm not going to have any good commentary for you - the style is way outside of what I can read, although I can tell from your comments you have a lot of fans of it. :) I definitely did prefer the first person section to the third person beginning, however, if that's any help.

I noticed a great deal of repetition and the use of dead words - that, etc - which aren't necessary and kill your flow. You also use almost and seemingly and other *nearly* words a great deal and absolutely none of them should be there, as far as I can tell. I do note that a lot of people have said that you could cut a lot of this and it wouldn't change anything - I'd agree, I think a good cut of everything that doesn't need to be there would really liven the story up.

Sorry I can't be of more help on the critiquing front. :(

I admire your writing style, but felt myself getting a little bored as I continued through the first chapter. Thankfully I got the pay off at the end, and realised just how important this first chapter was. Some great writing. Shelved.
Ed (Mutant Toe)

Hi Paul,

Before I start I just want to say that I am not sure I am qualified to comment as I feel a bit of an amateur.

Anyway, I found your first paragragh quite hard to read. Very discriptive but long sentences that didn't engage me as much as the rest did.

You mentioned about Paul's wife having emerald eyes and then when she applies make-up they were 'Jet black eyes he was hardly given a chance to look in to' I imagined her with peircing emerald eyes enhanced/defined by kohl/black eye liner/mascara, the black eyes diverted my limited attention wondering why her emerald eyes had changed?

Also (think you can tell I am bothered by the silly things) I am no Nigella Lawson, if I was I would write cook books!, but I think if you drop eggs in boiling water, the shells crack? Again, I am probably wrong. May have to try as an experiment today!

Saying that, I hope this is constructive and I do think you have a great style and a great idea.

Paul

I've just read the first chapter, and I was quietly impressed. You've got a rich writing style, your prose flows beautifully across the page, and your use of language is distinctive. The third paragraph ('even a stranger could see this man...') stood out as a particularly fine example of these qualities.

However I do have a couple of nit picks. Firstly, I found the same paragraph raised questions; how could a stranger 'know' this man had experienced 'a diminishment of his dreams'? It came across as a very well written section, but didn't actually aid the characterization; the details that came out later in the chapter tell you all you need to know about his diminished dreams. Secondly, I found that the opening section, whilst excellently written, didn't draw me in; perhaps opening with his suicide and then revealing his failing marriage would have a stronger effect.

All in all this is a great premise, and you clearly have the ability to write fantastic prose; as someone has already commented, you have captured the desperation of James brilliantly. If you are thinking of re-jigging the opening section, perhaps doing some judicious cutting, I'd be interested to re-read.

All the best

Stanny (The BIbble)

Very powerful, a beginning to remember. I'm very curious now how it will play out in the end. Shelved and wishing you the best, Eric

What is this about?
How does James fit into it? Does he merit all the attention?
Is Louise going to appear later in the novel? Is she the woman seeking physical perfection? If so, start in her head, not James'. Better yet, start with James/Loiuse phone call and then his suicide.
Severely pare the first chapter. Avoid 'almost'. 'these simple goals', what are they? 'black eyes' thought Louise had emerald green eyes. Tighten suicide. 'striking precisely in the area he had been meaning to aim for', what about 'strikes the glass'?
Chapters 2 and 3 are interesting, but again you need to really pare.
This has potential. Please let me know if you update.

Hi Paul
I liked this - especially the phone call which works brilliantly. I'm not that familiar with the horror genre but I wonder if you're in slight danger of making this too character-driven instead of concentrating on pacing. Saying that, the characterisation is excellent so it's very possible I'm talking rubbish!
On my shelf
Sheila x

Paul,

You capture the desperation of a man about to lose everything very well. I sympathized with James and I appreciated his commitment to a marriage that has obviously been over for a long time.

I did think the writing was a bit dense and it bogged down the story at little. I knew in the opening paragraphs that his wife was having an affair, and apparently he did too. Why did the confirmation of it cause him to take such drastic steps? Anyway, that may have some significance to the whole of your story.

I think some cutting (as hard as I know it is to do) would improve the pacing and allow it to move along at a smoother rate.

Hope this helps,

ML

I shelved your book. I found it well-written and interesting. I do enjoy first person novels because of the introspection that can be revealed to the reader. That said, I would like to see more dialogue in this story as it progresses. Great work so far!
- Eve Paludan

Hi Paul

As promised came to read this before making my mind up about 'Pink Room'. You definitely have a flair, although -again - the subject matter is not exactly to my taste. BUT. We are here to comment on writing! While I think you could tighten this quite a bit, your voice emerges here and in the other ms.
Shelving this and the other based on that.
Good luck!
Elaina

Hey there!
I really wanted to care more about James, his sad state, his death... but I needed his thoughts to be less of a description, and more of a dialogue. You write well, it's smooth and pulls you along... but is weighed down by too many restatements of what is happening.

Hope you didn't find this too harsh but I think you could cut about 1/3 of it and still keep the feeling/action/story wholly intact.
Aloha,
T
Hawaiian Orchid
(PS WL for now... let me know if you want me to take a further look)

Hi there,

As requested, I've had a bit of a read here.

So, characterisation is excellent, as is dialogue. James learning about his wife's infidelity... that's so evocative and awkward. Excellently handled. Lots of phrases that are nicely written as well. You're clearly have a great grasp of language, which is nice to see.

I do think that you have a tendency to labour on the language somewhat, to overwrite. Just taking an example from Chapter 1 - 'The tense face belonged to a man' is unnecessary because two lines later you tell us it's James Cartwright reading the paper. Even if you had needed to keep in this line, I think you could trivially re-write this to make it less worthy.

The shift from Chapter 1 to 2 is a big shift, you might want to consider how to keep a reader from balking at the change.

However, that said, with some tightening and editing, you'll have a strong piece here.

Good luck,
Justin/Eldias
The Heart of Nightmares

Hi Paul,

Horror is not a genre I normally read so I'm not at all qualified to comment on points of style etc. But with that in mind, here's what I felt:

I found it a little slow to begin with, but not in a way that would put me off. I was still compelled to read on. It was the underlying tension in the writing that pulled me forward. It was like I knew something was going to happen but I had no idea what or when. By the time I got to the drama at the end of the chapter, I was on the edge of my seat (and for once it had nothing to do with my caffeine intake.)

The beginning of the second chapter almost felt like I was starting a different story. Then, as I got into it the switch from third person to first person narrative, it made the first chapter seem more like a prologue and I soon got back into the swing of the story.

I think it would benefit from a little tightening up here and there but I see other people have given you much better input on that than I ever could. (I have a tendency towards verbosity myself and I'm currently doing some brutal editing on Sanchin.)

I think you have a good story here and I would like to read more. I'm going to give it a run on my shelf.

Good luck with it.

Karen

Hi Paul.
On an emotional level I thought your story worked extremely well. You got so cleverly and completely into James's head that the end was quite painful. Feelings of rage against Louise were uppermost in my mind.
On that level, it was masterful.
Even the dry style worked, evoking the consummate businessman.
I did, however, think that much of the narrative was overwritten. I noticed a tendency towards repetition and also a wordiness in places which pulled me away from the action. I have noted some of the specifics below:
'The morning light that poured..' pouring?
'bright light that struck it..' cut 'that struck it.'
'almost with a blinding ferocity..' just 'with blinding ferocity.'
'shuffled slightly in the chair he occupied, so as to turn his back to face the window...' shuffled round in his chair, turning his back to the window?
'caused for something to fold...' cut 'for'.
'Turning away from him, James watched...' These two phrases relate to each other, twisting the meaning of the sentence. 'She turned away and James watched...?
'Everything had grown stagnant...' James's entire life had stagnated?
'bronze-tinted window'....slightly tinted glass...' another repetition.
'continue to live and breath...typo here, 'breathe'.
'dialling a number he had not done so...' had not called?
Paul, these may only be little things but I found they interrupted the flow and pulled me out of the book. Otherwise, it was very good and I can only hope Louise gets her come-uppance!
All the best,
Cas.

Dear Paul,


I have read your pitch, synopsis, first two chapters and have placed The Condition on my bookshelf.

Your synopsis is really insufficient. Editors require a no-nonsense summary including how the novel ends.

From my experience, you should thin this considerably. Also, editors are demanding character-driven story telling. I have suffered this myself and last year spent four hundred hours converting half my narrative to character dialogue and direct action. There are a lot of notes below on this. Not a difficult job once one gets going.

Over the past five months I have spent three hundred hours providing page-long critiques but can no longer keep up with the volume. Also, three in ten writers whom I critique, resent me suggesting any kind of rewrite and punish me by not reciprocating the swap-read.

So I’m trying another way of passing on information.

I will attempt to do better than critique your work by indicating how you might judge it yourself. Rather along the lines of give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, feed him for life. You may or may not agree with everything and I admit I do not always stick to these thoughts either.

What I have set out below are guide-lines based on what I myself have learnt from being published.

The pitch is critically important as among the book-lists which editors scan, your pitch stands alone with no support from the synopsis. I write the synopsis first, because a key sentence there is usually appropriate for the pitch.

A synopsis is not a dust-jacket advertisement. Aimed at a professional editor, it is a no-nonsense summary of what happens in the novel, including how the novel ends. Don’t leave the editor dangling and don’t ask her questions. Tell her.

Somerset Maugham said, ‘There are three rules for writing a successful novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’

Correct. There are no rules for creativity. Think of Richard Bach’s Jonathon Livingstone Seagull. So way out, so creative it was rejected over a hundred times. Then it became a best seller.

There is one criterion though……. entertainment. Our writing must entertain from the very first sentence. There is no other reason for story-telling whether around a camp fire or in print..

I have struggled nine years to write three novels. Each written three times. One published, one lying fallow, Fig Tree currently in the process of being rewritten for the fifth time. Two literary agents requested the full manuscript but threw it back at me for narrative story telling. So I am rewriting, converting narrative to dialogue.

Based on what has happened to me, these are my thoughts on what editors want from us…………….


Plunge directly into the story. Do not set the scene or back-story first. When we go to a play and the curtain rises, we don’t see stage hands putting the props in place. The stage is already set. Likewise our opening paragraphs to the reader, the actors should immediately get on with it.

I have found that our opening chapter isn’t necessarily the first one we write. It might only occur to us when the novel is completed.

Let our characters drive the story-telling via dialogue, interplay and direct action. It’s stupid (although I am guilty of this) to have a stage set and silent characters frozen, while an off-stage narrator bores the audience with what is supposed to be happening on the stage.

Write minimal words because research shows that our readers’ brains race ahead of our words, visualizing the scene themselves, anticipating how our sentences end…… four times faster than they are reading. They become bored and frustrated by our overwriting, over description, unnecessary information. (I have been hauled over the coals for this.)

Write tight, sparse, lean, stark, bare bones. Adjectives and adverbs are for people who need a crutch to support their unimaginative nouns and verbs. As far as possible, always seek the appropriate noun and verb.

(Read John Steinbeck’s field notes Journal of a Novel which he jotted down while he was writing East of Eden. He edited out as many adjectives and adverbs as possible, finding the appropriate noun or verb instead.)

And yet, in my rewrite I am horrified to find superfluous words, adjectives, adverbs and general waffling which I am getting rid of. I am embarrassed at my own work.

My vocabulary is poor, so I use Roget’s Thesaurus which is a treasure. A real work-horse and a delight to use. It’s a companion that provides thousands of alternative words. Appropriate nouns and verbs are there for the picking.

Don’t write your scenes. Live them. Experience them. Meditate. Daydream yourself into them Watch what is happening. Listen to what the characters are saying. Smell the sweat or the aroma or whatever. Touch what the characters are touching. What do you feel? Taste the bile, the coffee, or the skin of the lover.

All communication is made through our five senses. I wear earmuffs when I write, to help me leave this world, experience the emotions and the senses and disappear into another universe which is the scene I’m trying to paint.

Are we stirring the emotions of the reader? Feeling is critically important. This can be achieved through good dialogue. Speak your dialogue aloud to hear what it sounds like. Is it natural? Do people really speak like that? Is it too formal? In the real world, we often don’t speak complete sentences. So dialogue can be truncated too to make it more natural.

In my opinion a novel must generate its own momentum, so readers experience it rather than read it. This can be achieved by dreaming it, experiencing it, living it, rather than writing it.

To avoid clumsiness I edit out the past participle ‘had’. I change ‘he had done it’ to ‘he did it’ It seems to make the action more immediate and more relevant.

I also dump words ending in ‘-ly’……. seemingly, clearly, obviously. actually, strangely, finally, eventually………. and all the others. Somehow they weaken our writing and make it vague.

And I am finding that much of the dialogue reads better if the ‘he said, she said’ is deleted.

Taking words out of our sentences and taking sentences out of long narrative paragraphs, in my opinion, is the secret to better writing. I can easily cut my stuff between 20% and 50%.

I learnt this when a literary agent demanded I delete 40,000 words from my first novel of 120,000 words. I was shocked but I cut it back to 80,000 words and the novel was published.

Fig Tree has already shed 16,000 words and I am currently rewriting it for the fifth time, changing the dialogue, cutting the narrative and tightening the writing as much as possible. I might dump another 6,000 words.

You may be interested in The Video Inside Our Heads, which is part of a confession I made about my idiocies in attempting to write. See, ‘How I Wrote and Sold My First Novel’ in Forum’s Writing section. It’s quite insane and you’ll probably laugh at me but it did work and I suppose that’s what matters..

I trust this is better than a critique and provides a bit of food for thought..


Kind regards,



Pierre.

wow,
You are a good writer. I love your plot and the way you tell it ;)

Straight on my shelf :d
Kimmy

Hi Paul. Your "to the point" prose made me laugh at your using man's typical mood and reactions to develop a story. Very clever and entertaining. Silly as it may sound, I liked the sizes of your paragraphs. They felt composed and contained. Rhythmic. Your Voice is so matter of fact, it has a cheerful tone, which I love. An engaging protagonist. Shelved. Good luck. Janet Marie

I will shelve this because you are making me. The story draws you in and creates a desire for more. That is the trick is it not?
Looking good.
Rick Gammons
(Touching Bottom)

You write well and have the ability to draw the reader into the character's situation at an emotional level. The three chapters you've uploaded are all good, but there are some awkward sentences, especially in chapter one, that need editing such as:

"Instantaneously, the simple sound of her voice caused for something to fold physically..."

Also, he refers to his wife's eye color as green at one point. In a later paragraph, they are dark. A metaphor?

All in all, a good story and finds a place on my shelf. :)

Each of these three chapters is so good, I want more to read. The first chapter - more like a short story than a chapter in a book - affected me most on an emotional level in that it made me feel rather sad. Don't know how I feel about the next two chapters... Felt peeved at the selfish doctor in a way. But all of it is well written.

You know I think I actually prefer this to the Pink Room. It's understated but universal horror. In many ways the horror of that phone call where he hears his wife with another is more horrific than any bogeyman could ever be. And likewise when she realises it is her husband on the phone too.
Yes, this is the understated horror of the human condition laid bare.

Hi Paul,
This is going on my shelf because you are clearly creating a very good story. And the way you built up to the 'jump'was brilliant. At first, I thought some of your sentences were rather long but suddenly they got shorter and I think better. I don't usually 'nit pick' preferring to be a reader, but as a woman I can't resist this! At first Louise had emerald-green eyes then they became jet black, perhaps you meant the effect of eyeliner or maybe they darkened for some reason. It's just something that stuck out to me. But I think you write well and I'm sure there is much good to follow. Best wishes, Margaret. (Candles in the Garden)

I like the style and the way in which the stories intertwine. Raises some good question that I hope the rest of it will answer.

Well, Paul, you certainly know how to keep those pages turning for the reader! Nobody could stop at the end of chapter one, so that is great. The story is intriguing... and at the end of chp 2 I'm wnating more. Shaping up really well. Nicky.

Hi Paul. Out of the two books you have on the site, this is by far my favourite, but i think that it a matter of personal taste. I love chapter one and the build up to the jump. I also love your use of descriptive writing. Looking forward to reading more.
Claire

Paul--Very good, deftly written. Only minor mistakes in grammar with the crowd scene: they listened to their iPod(s) checking their face(s) and horror was on their face(s), and there at the beginning "girl(')s upper lip and at the end "No, I didn't, I'm afraid." A good editor will smooth out those bits. I wondered at the shift from third to first person, but as I went on I found I liked the doctor best. I hope the whole novel continues in... I guess it is HIS voice. (He) has a briefcase and a jacket, so I think it is a man, but he could be a woman surgeon. I thought the narrator was a woman all the way to "wristwatch" before I worried I was wrong. If it is a man, perhaps mentioning he shaves or something near the start or if a woman have her pick up her purse or some other female item....that might help orient the reader. I was trying to get a mental image of who was speaking. It is on my shelf. Annmarie

Paul,
I think if someone likes your writing, they will like both your novels. Very distinctive voice, and I was left wanting more.
Ruth

Hey Paul,

Great cover and first initial chapter. You're keeping just the right side of descriptive. After such a good start, the change to first person seemed unnecessary. Have you thought of rewriting chapter two in third person POV to see if it is an improvement? You could include some dialog from the meeting as well. The story itself is sound, reminicent of many films I've seen with characters that intersect. Interesting to see how this develops.

Cheers,

Dan

I loved the realisation that the doctor was witnessing the aftermath of James' leap and possess a desire to read on to be treated with other such twists and revelations. The best and most distrinctive passage was right at the beginning when the narrative voice was describing James' feelings for his wife by describing her as a pair of malicious hands. His cathartic end made me feel like he achieved the release he needed. I'm not sure where this is going with the doctor but think his unease will escalate to something truly horrific. More please!

This is clearly a story about some seriously messed up individuals! It will be interesting to see how the different stories of the characters intertwine, and to explore their backgrounds and motivations. I love the little profiles of people in the second chapter, and the 'jump' is described very vividly, you can really get a strong mental picture of what it's like. Finish it asap :-)