So, hard to say from the first chapter, but I kind of liked it from “Nice Shirt Red…”. The work prior, I am sure it will circle back to along with the connection to the Marley song, but I wasn’t pulled in by it. Regardless, I am excited to continue to watch the progress and the process.
So a few nitpicky grammatical things before I get to the main meat:
There is a sentence in here that is confusing to read, particularly because it is nearly a run-on: "The second accounting class he took convinced him he’d chosen the wrong path so he dropped out and bounced around from job to job for a while, convinced by the romantic notions of literature and youth that this was how he would find his calling: truck driver, sous chef, telemarketing, selling real estate". This could be easily fixed with a comma or a hyphen in whichever way you feel is necessary, but for a pair of fresh eyes it took me a minute to take it in. It's a longer sentence heavy with information-so I think it would be best to parcel it up a bit. The ending of the sentence, "...more than he could remember sometimes" is also a little confusing. More than he could remember....what? I'm assuming you meant his varying array of potential career choices, but it wasn't clear at first. I would recommend changing it to something more like "more jobs than he could remember sometimes" or something along the lines of that to clear things up.
Next up, there is a paragraph where Nica is spelled Nika, and I'm sure that was just a typo, but pointing it out!
Last, you mentioned Nica is a full foot shorter than Jeremy, but then go on to say at the music festival that their eyes were less than three inches apart. Unless I missed something and Jeremy was squatting, this is not possible. There also can't be a narrow distance between their faces.
So the nitpicking aside, I guess my main point here is: is this really enough to draw an audience in? Sure, Nica and Jeremy have a dysfunctional relationship that is somewhat interesting, but where is this going? There can definitely be more unique elements to this story, and as of right now it is lacking in aspects that keep the reader invested in their relationship. We see plenty of examples of dysfunctional relationships in media, so how is Nica and Jeremy's different? As a reader, we want to be able to be hooked on their drama or their feelings, and as of right now it feels more as if it's a general overview of their relationship with a few oddly specific details interspersed.
Maybe this is too harsh for a first draft of a first chapter. I'm definitely looking forward to more, and perhaps what I read in the next will have me revising some of the things I said here. But this is all based of my first impression of the first chapter-so maybe Jeremy and Nica have much more in store next week! Very excited to see what's to come!
Keep that feeback coming, folks. People have pointed out things I missed and given me other "food for thought", to be sure. So appreciative.
what are their zodiac signs
Keith is there any way to send this out as a Google Doc, or, preferably, a Word Docx? It would be easier to comment and help with editing?
So, hard to say from the first chapter, but I kind of liked it from “Nice Shirt Red…”. The work prior, I am sure it will circle back to along with the connection to the Marley song, but I wasn’t pulled in by it. Regardless, I am excited to continue to watch the progress and the process.
Is this where the feedback goes?
So a few nitpicky grammatical things before I get to the main meat:
There is a sentence in here that is confusing to read, particularly because it is nearly a run-on: "The second accounting class he took convinced him he’d chosen the wrong path so he dropped out and bounced around from job to job for a while, convinced by the romantic notions of literature and youth that this was how he would find his calling: truck driver, sous chef, telemarketing, selling real estate". This could be easily fixed with a comma or a hyphen in whichever way you feel is necessary, but for a pair of fresh eyes it took me a minute to take it in. It's a longer sentence heavy with information-so I think it would be best to parcel it up a bit. The ending of the sentence, "...more than he could remember sometimes" is also a little confusing. More than he could remember....what? I'm assuming you meant his varying array of potential career choices, but it wasn't clear at first. I would recommend changing it to something more like "more jobs than he could remember sometimes" or something along the lines of that to clear things up.
Next up, there is a paragraph where Nica is spelled Nika, and I'm sure that was just a typo, but pointing it out!
Last, you mentioned Nica is a full foot shorter than Jeremy, but then go on to say at the music festival that their eyes were less than three inches apart. Unless I missed something and Jeremy was squatting, this is not possible. There also can't be a narrow distance between their faces.
So the nitpicking aside, I guess my main point here is: is this really enough to draw an audience in? Sure, Nica and Jeremy have a dysfunctional relationship that is somewhat interesting, but where is this going? There can definitely be more unique elements to this story, and as of right now it is lacking in aspects that keep the reader invested in their relationship. We see plenty of examples of dysfunctional relationships in media, so how is Nica and Jeremy's different? As a reader, we want to be able to be hooked on their drama or their feelings, and as of right now it feels more as if it's a general overview of their relationship with a few oddly specific details interspersed.
Maybe this is too harsh for a first draft of a first chapter. I'm definitely looking forward to more, and perhaps what I read in the next will have me revising some of the things I said here. But this is all based of my first impression of the first chapter-so maybe Jeremy and Nica have much more in store next week! Very excited to see what's to come!