Hi, I'm feeling a little masochistic today so have posted the opening scene of my novel City of Dreams for your entertainment. I have chosen the "go on I can take it" option and am wearing my flak jacket.

I'm interested in all your comments, both rough and smooth. Here's the link:
http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/8863.asp

Thanks in anticipation for reading,

Adele.

Thanks to everyone who has commented so far. I've rewritten the first paragraph as it was clear that the picture in my mind hadn't quite reached the page! If anyone else would like to comment, please dive in - don't worry if your points have been made before, more voices can reinforce a point. The novel is finished in one sense, but as you all know, it ain't over 'til the fat printing press sings, so I'll keep tweaking away.

Also, I'm really interested in your thoughts as to where there's a market for a novel about a sex descrimination trial with a City background. I would have thought so, but I'm getting mixed messages at the moment.

Adele.

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I'm meant whether there's a market - I must preview my comments in future!

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discrimination - I do know how to spell this word, honestly!

Adele, I'm still catching up but will read later. I'm curious to see how CofD has changed since the first draft. I admire you for your perseverance in getting published.

As for a market, I would have thought there would be one. It is a story of injustice and sex discrimination, which I'm sure still goes on in the City - plus an insight into a world that most of us are aware of but do not know.

However, I would imagine you'd have to be prepared to drag up your own personal experience, in order to market the book, which might be less fun for you.

Elspeth

Hi Elspeth, thanks for your comments. Writing this book has been very far from fun given the memories it has stirred up. However, if no one talks about these issues then they'll just carry on happening to other women. So, if I have the right backing, I'm now prepared to stick my head above the parapet.

Adele.

What was I thinking of? Of course this book isn't finished. That would be far too easy. Limbering up for another rewrite (groan). No pain, no gain etc etc

Adele.

Hi Adele

As you've probably guessed I'm into page-turners and I think this could shape up to be a real page-turner. Also, as you said on the archive page, it's good to have a story that works on two levels, which it sounds like to are striving to achieve with this.

But your questions about the potential market and Elspeth's comments about yout own experiences does raise a question in my mind.

From the very short piece I have seen at the moment City of Dreams reads like straight-ahead fiction, all be it something probably written from first hand experience. The dialogue crackles, the characters are large and the action is fast - it doesn't read like the true-life story of somebody that really went through it.

So for an audience to buy into the story and want to read it, I think you have to be clear which approach you are taking. If you're wanting to produce a cracking read where everyone is rooting for the good guys and booing the bad guys then, from what I have read, this is on the right track.

However, I'm not sure people are going to walk away from the book spitting feathers at how sexist the City is. It might not come as much of a surprise to them and I wonder if they would really care that much?

If you do want readers to be angry and perhaps think about how sexism is dealt with in their own lives or work, then I think it needs to be clearer that this is 'real'. If that were the case you'd have to tone down the characters and de-tune the more extreme characteristics.

I'm sure these people are probably quite accurately depicted, but if you want the reader to believe they are real I think you would have to make them more subtle than they are in real life. Introduce them to be ordinary people and then slowly turn up the heat to reveal how corrupt the whole place is.

These are just my thoughts as an innocent bystander rather than an expert in publishing or writing. However, from a journalistic point of view I do know that cold hard facts can be just as powerful as elaborate fiction.

I don't want to second guess the book, your intentions for it or under estimate the personal experiences that have driven it, I have taken it very much, as I say, as a page-turner rather than a serious expose of sexism in the City.

And as such I really like it so far. I guess you just need to be clear about what you want and are trying to achieve.

Beadle

Thanks for those thoughts, Beadle. As I mentioned, the second half of the book is an employment tribunal. My number one trusted reader thinks this is by far the best bit and so I think the rewrite will expand that and cut a lot of what comes before, or at least make those parts more dependent on the trial.

You are right about a potential lack of sympathy, and that has worried me from day one, which is why I continue striving to make the book transcend its City setting. My test readers tell me I've done that in the trial. Now I have to do it for the rest. How I do it, though, is the big question. I rather hoped the answer might come to me in a dream - we'll see!

Adele.

Hi Adele

If your story hangs on the tribunal and this is where all the tension lies, then perhaps you need to be very clear-eyed and straightforward in how you portray the events that lead up to the trial

Don't be overly technical or even emotional. Create the character of the victim (if I can call her that) so that she is believable and sympathetic, introduce the other characters in the same clear-eyed way and don't try to force the reader into thinking they're scum bags or sexist.

Then layout the facts to show what has happened to her and revealing the true colours and sexism of the city - all the while keeping up the tension.

Piece of piss.

As you say, if we believe in the characters and can understand their situations - especially if we identify with them from our own experiences - we won't be too bothered if it is based in the city or Tesco.

Beadle

Thanks for the pointers, Beadle. Not being too technical is easy, but not being emotional much harder! As for it being 'a piece of piss' - I wish! But I guess you're being ironic

Adele.

More like gallows humour!

Hello again Beadle,

I have taken it very much, as I say, as a page-turner rather than a serious expose of sexism in the City.

Why can't it be both? That's my aim. Perhaps I'm deluded, but I was under the impression that fiction can reach the parts that other books don't reach.

I know of someone who has recently sold her non-fiction sex discrimination story (as yet unwritten, I believe) for large amounts of money. But since I also know that this person comes from a very privileged background and indeed ran into problems only after many years at a bank where her father was a senior employee, I find it hard to believe that her book will resonate with the women of Walmart. I think that my book will.

Adele.


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PS - the person I mention above lost her case at the employment tribunal but is appealing. I once settle a case out of court...

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Settled - past tense, thank God.

Hi Adele

I've only just seen this post. There's no reason why it can't be both - I think my description of a page-turner means entertainment first rather than serious intent.

But you said you wanted your book to work on both levels, so I'm sure it will.

I think my point is - and I tried to express it in my previous comment - that if it's entertaining fiction first, then the seriousness of the message might not come across as strongly as say a first-hand expose of sexism in the city.

But hey, I'm just an amateur.

As you've said before, you must write the book you want to write the way you want to write it.

I think the whole 'look who got a deal' thing is quite demoralising, especially if you're working hard at something like you are.

Screw 'em all Adele and stick to your guns. You've got positive feedback on your stuff (as in well-liked and useful suggestions) so I reckon you're on the right track.

Personally I'm losing faith in my ability to write anything of any note - I keep getting caught up in the 'should I write it this way, is it any good' navel gazing shite.

GFI Virgil.

Beadle

Hi Beadle, I've been writing novels for a while now, and even though none of them has been published, I still want to do that rather writing non-fiction. Also, if I wrote a non-fiction book about sexism, I can't imagine that any of the guys I used to work with would read it. They're much more likely to pick up a novel, and then, who knows, they may finally see the error of their ways (that's from the fiction genre known as wishful thinking!).

As for the look-who-got-a-deal stuff, that wasn't meant to sound as whingeing as it probably does. It shows there is a market for this kind of story. All I have to do now is remodel my book to please my highly demanding agent so he will offer out my book (which he hasn't done yet) - he says jump; I say how high?


Anyway, I know precisely what you mean about navel-gazing. That's the time to switch off your computer and go for a walk, ski down a mountain, or whatever else it is you enjoy that doesn't involve much thinking.

Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement, and good look with your endeavours. Oh, and before I forget, please ask Q if he'll send me some new toys - an invisible Aston Martin would be good

Adele.

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good look is useful, but good luck would be better in this case!

we have an invisible Trabbant? Well, the holes where the rust was are see through - any use?

Hmm, thanks for the kind offer. I think I might stick to Shank's Pony...