To the World! - Chapter 1

Liam meets the first person on the road

It was cold as hell on the road.

   The wind was blowing hard, it cut right through Liam's hoodie like it was nothing, and the night started to fall slowly...which made the boy even more nervous. He was afraid of the dark. There was almost nothing but pavement and dirt for the next... hundreds of miles. Liam was feeling hopeless, feeling already regreting leaving his parents, even for a better lilfe, but, he felt a wave of relief when he found a single establishment on the side of the road, There was a neon sign buzzing that said: "Tino's Burguer". Perfect, his legs were hurting from walking hours to the north. He didn't have much money to buy good food, but it was better than anything else. Maybe he could find a spot to nap there! Liam could see cardboards on the side of the place, after all.

   The bell on the entrance jingled when he got in through the double doors, the place was nice, nostalgic, reminded him of a restaurant on his old neighborhood. A checkered black and white floor, a sticky and dirty balcony, that a waitress cleaned endlessly, a dusty jukebox on the corner, playing an old and creacy leather booths lined on the walls, and the place smelled like ketchup, mayoneise, and something...burnt or rotten. But in general, it seemed cozy, well, cozier than many places he's been to before. There were few costumers, An old couple here, a tired worker there, and another teen. He seemed like Liam. He could feel it: A runaway, like him.

   That made him feel less lonely.

     The boy was ginger, freckles covered his face, and his eyes were browm, he weared a red hoodie and black shorts, besides that, he seemed like he got into a lot of trouble, bruises all over his body and many bandages. Maybe he was the kind to protest.

     Liam didn't want to sit by himself, but he couldn't sit with a stranger either, so, he sat on a booth next to the ginger boy, not right on his side, and picked the menu.

...

   He couldn't use money on anything but a soda, the rest was saved to special ocasions and when he'd escape.

  

  Liam sighed heavily and ordered just a simple drink then. And drank it slowly, enjoying every sip.

 Suddenly, the silence is interrupted by a raspy voice:

 - ...You ain't gonna eat something? You're as thin as a toothpick...

It was the strange boy.

 Liam looked surprised at him with his blue eyes, and then quickly looked away:

- No..I don't have money to do that here, too expansive. - He took another sip of his soda and spoke again, - Can I know your name..?

 The ginger looked down and shook his head. He seemed untrusting. Fairly, to say the least. 

 Liam nodded in answer and looked down back at his drink, in silence.

- Just call me "J"

- "J"? - Liam repeated, then opened a small, gentle smile - alright then!

 J smiled a bit back, then quickly went back to his serious face:

- Are you..trying to run away too? - J asked.

- Yes, I left home yesterday, i'm making my way to road 96. - He said surprised, then gave a breathy laugh, in relief - Oh, it's good to meet someone who's trying to do it too, I've been so lonely...

- Yeah, I get it, it can get lonely in the road - J said - But be carefull, you're lonely but you can't trust any random you meet. Like, uh... this cab driver I met last month, phew! He was scary as f**k!

- So...that means I can't trust you?

- No, ya can't.

He said, with a tint bit of humor.

Liam laughed, and then extanded his hand:

- Well, J, I'm Liam, is nice to meet you!

The ginger boy tilted his head and looked down at the offered hand.

- Hm...Liam? That's a nice name. It's good to meet you too. 

Author's Note

If you have any opinion on what you think could happend next, please leave it on the comments, I'd really enjoy to read suggestions!

Reviews

[JayG]

• It was cold as hell on the road.

So...is “cold as hell” colder or warmer than “freeze your a*s off “weather? Remember, your intent for the meaning doesn't reach the page. It's what your words suggest to the reader, based on THEIR life-experience.

But over and above that, who cares? The protagonist never notices and reacts to the weather. Would the story change in the smallest way were it warmer? No. So telling the reader about what’s irrelevant to the one whose story it is does nothing but slow the pace of the story and dilute impact.

From the reader's viewpoint, someone unknown, in an unknown place, is giving a weather report that may or may not matter to the story. And if the protagonist is dressed for it, the temperature is irrelevant.

But more than that, if he’s cold, have him shiver and button his coat. Do that and the reader will know without-you-lecturing-them. In other words, show, don’t tell. Write those three words in large letters over your desk.

• The wind was blowing hard, the night started to fall slowly... and there was almost nothing but pavement and dirt for the next... hundreds of miles.

Unless the planet changes its rate of rotation night falls at the same rate every day, neither slowly nor fast. But again, who cares? He’s going inside, not because it’s cold. Not because it’s getting dark. He’s going in because he’s hungry. That matters to him. The rest matters to you, and you’re not in the story.

Here’s the deal. You, someone neither on the scene nor in the story are talking about things the protagonist isn't noticing and reacting to. So that’s a report, not story. It’s you trying to play storyteller by transcribing the words you’d use. But verbal storytelling is a PERFORMANCE art, where how you tell the story—YOUR performance, matters as much as what you say. And none of that performance makes it to the page.

Worse than that, the story will only work if the reader takes the storyteller’s role and performs exactly as you do...which they can’t do. But for you, who do perform as you read it, it works. And since we'll not address the problem we don't see as being one, I thought you might want to know—especially as it'sa matter of knowledge, not talent

In short: To write fiction you need the skills of the fiction writer. No way around that/

I hate to hit you with this, after all your work. But you’ve fallen into the single most common trap in writing. You’re trying to tell the reader a story, and you’re thinking about that in cinematic terms. You’re giving the reader information on temperature; wind speed; conditions for miles ahead, in places he never reaches. So, who cares? It’s irrelevant to the action in this scene. Make your reader know what they need WHEN they need it. Fail that and they will have forgotten it by that time you expect them to know it. Remember, your reader may be with you for only a few minutes at a time. So what they learn during lunchtime on Friday will be forgotten by Monday’s lunchtime, when the reader is reading again.

When a scene opens, readers want to quickly know:

1. Where are we in time and space?
2.What’s going on, and what’s our short-term scene-goal?
3. Whose skin do we wear?

Unless we have context for those items, we learn what happens, yes, but because we don’t know why, and have no emotional involvement with the protagonist, we don’t care.

You’re working hard. You have the desire. You have the situation and plot. You want to please the reader. But...what you’ve forgotten is that Commercial Fiction Writing is a profession, one under refinement for hundreds of years.

For all that time they’ve been learning how to involve the reader and make them NEED to turn the pages. Of equal importance, they’ve been identifying the traps and learning how to avoid them.

So...acquire those skills and you’ll hook the reader and avoid the traps. Skip that step and...

To help, two suggestions:

1. Grab a copy of Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It’s a gentle introduction to those skills.
https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/gmc-goal-motivation-and-conflict-9781611943184.html

2. For an overview of the traps, gotchas, and misunderstandings, you might try some of my articles and YouTube Videos.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

. . . . . . .

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

“In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
~ Sol Stein

[Sunny]

Thank you so much for the criticism ! I'll try my best to improve all of these points, thank you, really. It means a lot.