Sample of Chapter One of a book I’m writing. Feedback appreciated!

I looked over the dry sand that stretched out for miles. I was resting on a small cluster of rocks, which seemed somewhat out of place. The sand looked to host a velvet texture except for when it moved in the breeze then it shook and slid over itself as though it were a snake brushing over the top layer. The sun seemed bigger than normal as if someone has pulled it closer. I was sweating under its un-relentless wave upon wave of heat rays that illuminated my surroundings blessing my eyes with the true beauty of what I was witnessing that despite the heat was truly astounding. I raised a smile, as I knew he was watching me. I suppose I know now that he was always watching me but for that one moment I had assumed I was alone admiring his creation.
"Do you like it?" He asked with a voice that rocked the distant mountains and swept back the waves of the mighty oceans.
"It is truly great" I said with only the deepest honesty. Humbled by the lack of arrogance in his voice.
Although I never saw him I could feel him sat besides me on the rocks, the rocks that he had created but I had placed. A gift from him so that I could look over one spot that I favoured most and forever be enthralled by its simplistic wonder. Between the ripples of the heat waves I saw a lone cactus emerge. The stern green stem cast a dark shadow across the desert sands. I laughed out loud and he joined in.
"You and your plants!" I joked. I could hear him sigh, not a sigh of boredom but a pleasant sigh, a rewarding tired sigh.
"Adam…" He began but trailed off his speech to a stern silence. "Adam I." He stopped again, agitated, irritated that he couldn’t command the words he needed.
"I know father." I said. He was dying. She had told me already despite him asking her not to as he wanted to break the news to me himself. I could feel his arm rest upon my shoulder, the weight of the world. I could feel my tear ducts contract and relax releasing a tear down my face. Before it rolled down my cheek it was gone his finger caught it. Although I couldn’t see him I could feel him staring at me always smiling, always catching my tears as they painted a reflective glimmer down my face.
"Don’t be sad" I could sense him stand and turn to walk away. "This is yours now." And he was gone.
I stared out across the empty sands. I stared out to the lone cactus. I saw myself stood out there in the vast world alone. Would I stand so bold? I asked myself. I climbed down off my rock and headed homewards. I thought I could hear a bird’s chirp drift along the wind to my ears. I thought I could hear a steam train just beyond the horizon line. I though I could hear her calling for me. "This is yours now." His words echoed around my mind. This was mine, all mine. I could hear a bird’s chirp drift along the wind. I could hear a steam train just beyond the horizon line. I could hear her calling me. I began to run…

That’s all for now folks. I hope you enjoyed that sample of chapter one. Feedback appreciated! Peace.

Not bad man, not bad. You should read my fanfic in buddy fanfic.

not bad at all.

You have some issues with punctuation (mostly a lack of commas) and repetitive sentences. There’s also a few instances of run-on sentences. I also feel that many of your descriptions are either unnecessary or too simplistic or generic.

Hey hmmm well although I appreciate the feedback I would like to comment on some of it. The repetition is on purpose. It is a skill. I am willing to concede it might not be used effectively but you should be able to tell it is on purpose. And you think the descrition is simplistic? Hmm I will look into that. Any chance you could either post or pm me some material where you think the description isn’t too simplistic to get a better grasp of what you mean? This is my second attempt at writing a book. I couldn’t get my first published so I am keen to brush up where I can. Who better to get information from than the target audience. Thanks.

Even though you say the repetition is intentional, it still hampers readability. The only instances I’ve seen of it working are in more comedic or sarcastic books. Outside of that genre, it seems like the author has no flexibility. By the way, I wasn’t referring to the repetition in the last few sentences. I got the point to those, although I feel it wasn’t a particularly strong one.

As for your descriptions, that something you’ll have to work out. However, I can tell you that you need to work on sentence structure. Here’s an example of a bad one:

I was sweating under its un-relentless wave upon wave of heat rays that illuminated my surroundings blessing my eyes with the true beauty of what I was witnessing that despite the heat was truly astounding.

I think un-relentess is the opposite of what you meant. Wave upon wave of heat rays sounds pretty amateurish, especially when you say that it illuminated the surroundings. Heat doesn’t illuminate. Light does. Next, you should have put a comma after surroundings.

The final part of the sentence seemed to imply that the heat was having an adverse effect, but it was still beautiful under the light. That would have been best conveyed as an entirely separate sentence.

That’s what I’m talking about…I will get on to it. Thanks a lot man…much appreciated! Keep rocking!

No problem. I’m always glad to help.

I know how useless blindly positive replies are since I’m working on a book myself. I posted a couple of short stories elsewhere to get feedback on my writing style and couldn’t get any criticism at all. 🙁

ok prak, here is what you want. "Prak, you suck arse at writing and should rot in hell for that pathetic excuse of a story." Happy?

Shut up and die, moron. Thanks.

you know i love you Prak. And i take back half of my criticism.

:love:

Prak, I stopped visiting this forum frequently because of the excess of drivel in it, so I never realized you had posted anything. I’ll go look for them, and if they’re too old for me to post commentary in the thread, I’d be happy to PM it to you.

EDIT: Can’t find the thread. You should re-post them.

Neo: I agree with what Prak said, the main thing you need to work on is putting commas in the right places (One quick tip I could offer is that you should remember to put one in after somebody says something. For example: "Hello," said Bob. Rather than, "Hello" said Bob. A good general rule is that any time you would pause if you were speaking out loud, a comma should go there.)

The other advice I can give is that you should try to "compact" your style. To take one of Prak’s examples, where you wrote "wave upon wave," it would probably be more effective to just says "waves" and leave it at that. 99% of the time, saying the same thing in less words is the best way to go about it. One of the best things you can do for your stories is after you’ve written your first draft, go through and try to make every statement as short as you can, cutting out everything that doesn’t really need to be there. Often it’s tempting to try to make something sound professionally written by using a lot of extra words, but ultimately it just slows the reader down unnecessarily.

That said, you’ve got some pretty cool subject matter. You skillfully introduced the setting slowly as you went on; it kept my interest because new bits of information kept popping up (first the character being "Adam," then him referring to what we assume is God as "Father," etc.) It’s clearly based on the book of Genesis so far, but seems to be twisted to a different point of view, and you went about revealing that pretty well.

I’d be interested to see more if and when you have it. It’s nice to see that there are people posting in here who actually put some serious thought into what they write.

EDIT: Can’t find the thread. You should re-post them.

That’s because he posted them elsewhere.

Like, not here.

IDIOT.

Thanks once again. It is hard to take criticism on the chin. What I posted was a first draft sample of part of the first chapter. I hope to modify it and take on board peoples advice as I do. The most difficult thing is trying to find a unique style to your writing as to not copy another writer but not lose what you are trying to say. Funny when you are told at college never to do certain things. I was once told not to ever change from 1st to 3rd person view point in the same chapter. Angela Carter (very famous writer for the ignorant) does it in Nights At The Circus and is praised for it. Anyways any other bits of feedback welcomed. I hope to begin re-drafting chapter one applying some of these theories to the rest of it in a couple of weeks. Peace.

Yeah, I never posted anything here. I’ll think about it, but it’s kind of a pain changing the spacing because the forum doesn’t support indentation.

Oooooooh, very spiritual and deep. I loved it. They way you described the sand, the cactus, the place the voice, the scene, it all bleneded into one another. Some punctuation is needed here and there, and a few words need changing, but other than that it is very impressive. By any chance, is this anything to do with Adam and Eve? It reminded me of the story. Beautiful, and very graphic, I loved it!

Love Blaise
XXX O:]

That’s because he posted them elsewhere.

Like, not here.

IDIOT.

Haha, you’re right. Boy do I feel foolish!

Yeah, I never posted anything here. I’ll think about it, but it’s kind of a pain changing the spacing because the forum doesn’t support indentation.

My recommendation: Get <a href=http://www.download.com/PDF-ReDirect/3000-6675_4-10255376.html?tag=lst-0-1>PDF ReDirect</a> so you can export the Word files as PDF documents, and post ’em that way. I do that with all my work now so as to avoid doing all the messy editing.

I’ll look into that, but it may not do me any good since I do most of my posting from work and I can’t be downloading stuff onto this computer.

yea its ok