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As per this thread, I am doing a workshop of my novel, Utility. If you'd like to take part, all you have to do is email me a request for a manuscript at: dscicala at gmail. You can also private message me your email adress (or other means of getting the manuscript in your hands).
Once that happens, you obviously can just post your thoughts here.
This is the first half of the novel and is 98 pages long.
Why is it called Utility? Does this have something to do with Economics? Or paying utility bills? What? baaaaaaaaaaaah
Good question ^
I think a subtitle should maybe be considered?
I started reading but want to pause for a second to get an idea of what kind of feedback you want. Do you want plot feedback, writing style feedback, all of the above? Should I focus on the fact that this is geared at interneters?
I'm looking for feedback on anything. I wrote up a pretty big document with all of my biggest concerns in each part that I thought of posting here to get your thoughts, but I thought that would steer discussion too much toward what I already know to look out for. I'd rather get unexpected feedback.
For those interested, I've sent the manuscript out to 6 FTR regulars. 3 of them have shown definitive signs of already getting started on the manuscript (werd), and some have been sending me comments offline (by which I mean through online venues like email, but not through FTR).
You're welcome to send comments wherever you'd like, whether they be through this thread or otherwise. I'll likely at some point ask some common questions here (a couple of things that a few people are commenting on that are pretty important) that might lead to some productive conversations.
Hey Surviva,
I'm about half way through part 1 of 3.
First things first, I'm enjoying it. Which is of more importance than anything else. It's also piqued my curiosity.
My plan is to read without thinking too much and just try to enjoy it as a piece of literature on my first read and then have a second read and try to think of something constructive to say.
But having never done this before I'm a little scared to give an opinion. I'm not sure if this is a fear of demonstrating my own inadequacies or if the fact that you've exposed yourself by stating your lofty hopes has left me feeling uncomfortable at playing judge.
Either way, I'm not looking for you to tell me that it's ok to comment regardless, but rather pointing out that I'm looking forward to someone else starting the discussion.
In spite of all the above, ie my intention not to comment on my first read and my uncomfortable fear and/or uncomfortableness, I'm about to comment about one thing that has jumped out at me several times. I'd like to preface my comment by pointing out that I'm currently taking diazepam which will of course excuse anything I say that makes me feel foolish at a later point in time.
Some of the footnotes seem unnecessary. I'm assuming the point of them is both humour and because you feel adding them directly to the relevant sentence would detract from it's lyricism. Often this works.
However in some cases adding it to the sentence would imo improve the lyrical flow.
Example: page 48.
Feeling as sure as I was going to feel....
Maybe that isn't the best example but as I said I hadn't planned on commenting yet and that was the first example I found where this may apply going backwards from my current point in the manuscript.
It's just a random thought I had and I figured I may as well get this thread started even if my opinion has little value and makes me feel foolish when I read it later.
So, what's your reasons for using the footnotes? Have I missed something important?
Called it.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiwiMark
I'm interested in this but am a bit in limbo irl at the moment having just moved countries. Hopefully I find myself a flat etc. soon and can crack into this before it gets so far along as to look daunting to join in.
I shared the following via PM:
"Hey dana,
I'm replying to you privately because this includes information that I'm expressly prohibited from sharing publicly. I'm sending this to you because I think it accomplishes 3 things:
1) You seem intimidated by the process--maybe as a result of me listing my credentials--so I thought it might be best to undercut myself a bit by showing some opinions of some people saying I suck.
2) To show that many of the most helpful comments can be very basic things that people with no literary experience should be able to pick up on: your writing is unintelligible, your plot makes no sense, etc. Obviously just flinging poop isn't that helpful, but when I get specific examples and can see a consistent thread to what you're saying, then I can do some productive slashing and burning of the things that are making my manuscript bad.
3) It kind of indirectly answers another question you asked about in your post, but I'll be more vague about this point.
. . . {Input from a valuable opinion saying that my writing style is crap and my face is, indeed, hated.} . . .
I've since done a complete rewrite of the manuscript trying to fix many of the problems addressed in this feedback, but you don't need to triple guess your own opinion of what is and isn't working in this manuscript. Also, the above is far from the worst thing I've heard about my writing (some MFA classmates can be downright inappropriate to people lol), so nooooooooo need to be afraid of offending me. My motto is: Refer to the screenname :P
Best to you and a million thank yous for your help,
surviva"
I feelz special!
Anywho. What's with the footnotes?
I'm guessing that was what you thought you answered but I didn't feel you did.
Hey surviva
Up to the end of part 1. It's an interesting read so far, I've got a few comments mainly about the readability.
The title as penney and m2m said is slightly vague, need to read the rest of the novel to see if it works though.
0.1 is very good imo, I think you can drop the "alright that's skipping too far ahead" sentence in the first paragraph.
Page 7, instead of "clicked and clonked and dragged" maybe use "clicked and clonked/clacked". Don't really imagine high heels dragging.
You use "I" a fair bit, not really a big deal but maybe look for sentences to combine to reduce the number of them when the main character is thinking or on his own doing stuff.
Footnote 9 is very hard to follow.
IRC chat bit is funny.
Bump!
Been side tracked for last couple of days, disc problems in lower spine, losing one job, finding another job.
Will finish reading tomorrow.
This thread is dead! Which I'm guessing means people have been just discussing it with you privately. Kinda kills the point of a book review thread.
Damn, homes! Good luck with all that.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
I'll let everyone know that you disapprove of their methods, haha. I don't know of anyone who's done all 3 parts, at which point there might be more discussion here, and I'll be a little more open to answering some questions people have had. It hasn't even been a week yet, though.
Meh, chiropractor is awesome, recovering well, hated last job, now have better paying new job, all is well or at least soon will be.
I guess I'm just impatient.
I'll finally answer this question, since it's something a lot of people have asked about. So many of the most important suggestions I received on my previous draft had to do with 1) the sentence-by-sentence readability and 2) the excessive detractions from the plot with some of the ruminations on probability and physics and religion and all that fun stuff. The original draft, for example, included an insane amount of parenthetical asides that made for a much more consistent tone of spoony being a ranting but somewhat disorganized thinker.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
This was a problem that was kinda hard to solve because my narrator is an obsessive, sometimes ranting thinker, so getting rid of a lot of the material altogether is fundamentally changing the character in a way that I did not at all want to change. Also, I liked a lot of the material that were used as examples of getting too far off course, and many of them were auxiliary to effectively pulling off some of the themes I develop.
Anyway, I cleaned up a lot of the sentences by putting a lot of the parenthetical asides into footnotes, and I tried to fix the problem of the plot being slowed by too many explanatory detractions by using the tl;dr parts. I was especially interested by (note: interested by, not married to) the tl;dr idea because of my attempt to appeal to the internet-age generation and because I've for a long time been toying with ways to write a normal-sized novel (60,000+ words, 200+ pages) while giving my reader the option of fast-tracking their way through it so that it can be as short as 45,000 words (150 pages). I already have supplementary chapters outlined for if there were ever a digital version where their can be hidden content.
Anyway, this clearly isn't working in its current state for a lot of people. I suspect that it CAN work (Junot Diaz is someone who's gained a lot of critical acclaim for his use of footnotes in novels that have reputation for being very modern and hip), though maybe the fact that there is a conceit of this being a very personal journal makes it so that using any pseudo-academic techniques stick out much more than they do in a Junot Diaz book where it's a third-person narration. There is also the possibility that I'm just not using it well, including too much material that's superfluous regardless of whether or not it's in the main text, am using it excessively, am using it inconsistently, etc.
So I'll open the floor for you guys to discuss this issue and the best way of navigating it.
Footnotes!
Huh!
Good god, yall!
What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing (except citing references)
That said, I do like that there are pages with 3+ footnotes that all say, "whatever that means." I think it's cleverly funny; it gets across that constant conceit of marginal self-awareness from the protagonist. By which I mean the protagonist is aware that his internal narrative is inconsistent, but unwilling to sort it out.
"A puddle slept in the middle of the concrete like a watch dog." (Ch 2.2, p. 33)
is brilliant (and my favorite single sentence in the novel so far). Where are the rest of these amazingly evocative descriptions of the world of our protagonist? Why doesn't this tone poke its head up like a skittish groundhog in the first chapter?
I've really appreciated some of the suggestions you've had on where to insert more description. I added a half-page description of his desk area with crusty plates and crunchy socks and stacks of papers ready to fall in on him and all thanks to your astute suggestion to give some imagery to the place where he spends so much time throughout this novel.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I'm not at all surprised that the description is weak in several areas, but it's tough for me to spot all the obvious opportunities for myself because 1) spoony is a really matter-of-fact narrator so any thorough sensual descriptions of what's going on around him is kind of breaking character unless it lends to a rant on why Catholics suck or something, so I really have to take advantage of the times where it feels natural to put it in the narrative and 2) "setting a scene" is my least favorite part of writing; I love thinking out long, ridiculous strings of dialog (ala Babel/spoony exchanges), I love thinking really deeply on literary themes and philosophical ideas, I even enjoy mapping out logistics and plotting, hell I even like finding telling details about things that lend some piece of characterization or something, but actually doing it just to get the reader's bearings straight in a scene is abhorrent to me even though it's obviously very important.
So, yeah, definitely keep those suggestions coming.
Just skimmed through your thread, although not much of a literary reader.
The comments about footnotes beg the question:
Is this aimed to be a printed product or more an electronic ebook?
Flipping through pages and jumping around to appendices or footnotes can be very distracting in printed form.
However it can be a highly effective method with clickable links or popups when used in digital media.
An extreme example of this would be the novel '253' by Geoff Ryman written specifically for a website.
Identifying a personal weakness is the first step to becoming stronger. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
Well, you're already NOT committed to a 100% 1st person narrative, so there's no reason the descriptive passages have to be in the voice of the protagonist. Consider the merits of a chapter from the perspective of a puddle that splashes sidewalk pedestrians on a rainy morning.
It seems like you're cautious to explore the "sensual" world because it's not something our hero would notice or talk about. You already point out some of the things he doesn't say (convo w/ gf). The things he doesn't notice can be equally telling.
I'm not sure about this novel not being entirely in 1st person narrative. It's told entirely through spoony's journal.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Anyway, I was only giving reasons (excuses?) why the descriptions don't come naturally to me as a way of imploring that you continue to give me good feedback on areas where it could/needs to be added.
Finished parts 2 and 3, looking forward to the rest of it which is always a good sign.
Minor points:
- Why is spoony eating with chef?
- Why does he saute chef's cross?
- pg103 "the silence deafens" doesn't fit in.
- bill hicks quote is really good.
- Are you going for a printed book or an ebook?
I've had trouble figuring out exactly how to market myself on this. IDEALLY I would like to have it published in two (or more) editions. What you guys are reading is the Hard Copy manuscript.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoopy
I also have another (though less updated) ebook manuscript that includes denser internet language (both in the internet sections and in the narration), links to media, soundtrack notes, Easter Eggs to content, there's one part where you can decide which chapter you'd rather read (or you can read both because they're both final-draft-worthy, it's just that they both kinda get the same point across), etc. It's kind of my dream to make this into one of the first TRULY digital novels that actually takes advantage of what e-readers bring to the table (speakers, internet, etc).
However, I feel like just focusing on that is going quite a bit more niche than this project needs to be, which is why I'd like a hard-copy edition as well because it works without all those bells and whistles, but then again e-readers are taking over so quickly (especially among the audience this is geared toward) that I might not be shutting out as many people as I fear. There's also the issue that exclusively doing e-publishing is basically going rogue, which brings in all those scary issues of self-marketing and needing a certain amount of sales/critical success for me to ever become a teacher and the fact that I can't do a lot of the things I'm talking about without outside design help.
Anyway, e-publishing will probably become more-and-more a thing so that by the time this is in publishable form, a lot of these problems might solve themselves. Afterall, when I started writing this novel (I had this digital novel idea in mind all along), people would ask me "but e-readers don't have speakers and internet isn't that common on them" etc, and here we are not-too-much later, and the technology's already caught up to all of that like I'd predicted.
So to answer your question in one word: "um..."
Hey dude I just wanna pop in here and say I'm sorry I haven't gotten to reading your book yet. I wanted to be a part of this because I feel like it something I should do for several reasons, but I also haven't read a novel in ten years. Without going into any details of why, let me just say that I have a mental block against reading fiction. But I do plan on reading your novel and giving input because I think the idea is really great and the analytical process would benefit me even. I'm just taking my time getting around to it, I guess.
FWIW I have recently discovered I love Kurt Vonnegut's writing, but still can't bring myself to read one of his novels. Whatever, this isn't about me, just felt like you deserved an explanation since you sent the text yet I haven't done anything with it
I personally rarely if ever read fiction, but this idea inspired me to go with it, and it was well worth the read.
We're not so different, you and I.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
I mean, we are on some logistical levels simply because I had to get my terminal degree in English somehow, but our fundamental relationships with fiction aren't necessarily so different. This novel is, first and foremost, a novel written by an ADHD'ed person who grew up on the internet and first-person shooter games, and written FOR an ADHD'ed generation that grew up on the internet and first-person shooter games.
Speaking of Vonnegut, he once said (though I can't find the quote) that he wrote short novels because he wanted to be read by people of influence, and people like businessmen and politicians are too busy to have time to read Middle March. I decided to write a short novel because I think the length of the novel is quite possibly the single most important attribute that determines how likely a member of this ADHDed archetype I wrote this for is to ACTUALLY finish a novel.
I thought about Vonnegut a lot in this respect. One of the very few novels I've read more than once is Vonnegut's shortest work (Slaughterhouse V), my favorite novel written by him is his second shortest work (God Bless you, Mr Rosewater), I have read his teeny-tiny essay thing God Bless you, Dr Kevorkian, and I have read several of his short stories. Other than that, I am 1 for 3 on finishing his 300+ page novels that I started (I finished Galapagos, and did not finish Cat's Cradle or Jailbird).
Anyway, that's a small sample size but that's very representative of my relationship with novels overall. I think there's something psychologically discouraging for someone like me (and maybe you, too) to get 150 pages into a novel, and STILL have 67% of the novel to go, including so much of the exposition, character development, etc that it's yet to even get me fully invested into the main conflict at hand. The idea of the structure of Utility is that once you get 100 pages into it, the exposition and character development and all that fun stuff are all done--you should at that point have your seat belts buckled as you prepare for the rise to the climax and then the ultimate resolution of the novel.
Not that I think that all novels will have to look like this one in order to keep our generation's attention, but this was the very purposeful approach I took with this particular novel. This also isn't meant to convince you or others to read it or anything, since you've already said you intend to, but you are far from the first person that I know of who has an aversion to fiction, yet likes Vonnegut (I would put myself in this category, or at least my 18-year-old self), and I've put a lot of thought into that.
Also, there is a shout out to Vonnegut in this novel that I'm pretty sure many Vonnegut fans will appreciate.
Whatever happened here? We had dreams, once...
Totally forgot about this. Gimme the whole book in one go and I'll read it and post my thoughts with no regard for your feelings or mine. My main memories of it right now are enough footnotes to rival a legal text, oral sex (giving), cooking, stalking in a shop and being curious enough to want to read the rest. So gimme gimme gimme.
careful, rong is notorious for stealing people's novels and publishing it as his own and making mirrions. it's the only why he trolls these forums.
it's the only why? i won't even go back and edit that. also beer.
Reminds of the movie murder of crows which had a really cool concept but didn't quite work.
@dana: shipped. It's actually an updated draft, including some edits made on FTRer suggestions (though most of the high-level changes came from my former advisor and classmates).
Right around the time that my website was flopping, I saw Social Network. Ever since, it has been my dream to be the Winklevoss twins. Two dudes come up with a stupid idea for a Harvard dating site, which gets stolen by a genius mastermind turns it into--oh you may have heard if it--FRIGGIN FACEBOOK, and then the twins chill out and drink beers on a scooner for the next half decade before turning around and filing suit and end up making $65M off of their marginally-non-retarded idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by eugmac
I'm gonna add my thoughts after each little bit I read so I don't forget anything (I'm not arsed to take notes) and this way you can map my feelings for the story as I progress through it.
Read up to but not including 1.4.
So far it's good. The pace is appropriate, it's been interesting and witty and the foot notes add to the overall flow of the prose rather than feeling awkward.
The first paragraph if 1.4 needs editing due to a few words needing to be deleted.
The romantic bathroom exchange feels.... I dunno, artificial? It's like you're trying too hard to make it seem natural and real and kinda bumbles along without achieving anything aside from preceding the bedroom scene. It's the first bit that doesn't feel natural.
The irc bit's good. Babel reminds me of yawn for some reason. I
like the ethics and metagame part. Nice examples.
The Evie introduction and conversation seems natural which is good and can be tricky to handle but works well.
That's all for now.
Up to but not including 2.3.
All good so far. Critical information trickling out at an enticing speed. Lold a few times at irc bit.
"nefariousness behind his joy". I like that. And the guard dog puddle, I like that too.
After another large editing binge, you'll be happy to know that I've reduced the footnotes from 93 down to 1. The one remaining one is in the final 20 pages and is a legitimate academic note.
I'm sprucing it up for a wave of submissions to some small presses I'm really interested in. Pretty stoked about it because, unlike agents, the publishers I'm looking at are very open to playing with form (time to revamp the Easter Eggs idea). Much thanks to FTR for all the help you gave and that still trickles in from time-to-time.