Ch.1 Too Much of Everything

The first chapter of my book.

It's too

hot outside

for a funeral.

There's too

much sunlight

for something so sad.

There's too

much black

considering all the heat and the sunlight.

There's too

many tears

for me to cope.

I'm too

far up, standing right in front

where I can see the casket

and everyone can see me

not crying.

It's too

much for me.

Not crying makes me want to scream.

I want to tilt my head

up to the sky

and scream as loud as I can

until my throat is raw

and my voice is gone.

I'm too

in shock though

to do anything but shake.

Author's Note

Please let me know if you read this and leave a comment. And feel free to point out any grammatical or spelling errors. Thank you!
-theladygraceling

Reviews

[carol]

First let me say that this story has a great hook, meaning you got my attention right from the start. You have a good story to tell here, the only thing that concerns me, is that you may lose some of your readers due to the format in which you have chosen to tell it. I know you want this piece to be in the form of a poem, and I get that. But I think it would make a better read if told in story form. Remember that a story well written is poetic. I have read through the first few chapters and think this has the makings of a good book, you have something powerful to say and I want your readers to hang around chapter after chapter. But as this is written now it is all telling and no showing. Readers want to be shown what is happening in each scene. This can be easily fixed by using dialogue, for example try putting the first few lines in the form of a thought, this is done by using an italic font.
It’s too hot outside for a funeral, too much sun light for something so sad. Why is everyone wearing black in this heat? So many tears from everyone but me.
From here trying describing the scene, it will give your readers a bird’s eye view into what is going on, they will be able to picture this scene as if they were at the movies. For example:
Standing up front, Riley can see the casket, she feels exposed and naked to the crowd of mourners behind her. She wills herself to cry, hoping her tears will somehow release the pain that is tearing her up insides. She fights the urge to raise head to the heavens and scream, scream loud and hard and long, scream until vocal cords give out and throat becomes raw. But instead she stands there, in shock, body shaking.
Something like that…
I know you really want the poetry to shine through, and you can still show case it in the coming chapters, by simply having Riley sit down with pen in hand and write it down and let your readers enjoy it by reading what she has written. When I wrote “Lost little girl found” It was done in the form of a monologue, which is meant to be told to the audience, that is why the “all telling no showing” format works with it.
I am so impressed with your writing, you have a lot of talent, and please don’t ever stop. Also keep in mind that every writer has their own personal opinions on how something should be written, remember that when reading this. Take from this review what you think will help, and disregard the rest. I can’t wait to read this story in its entirety. Great job.

[theladygraceling]

Thanks so much. I really appreciate your review. I've tried writing regular novels but I'm not very good at it so I decided to try writing in verse and I found it a little easier. I've written a lot of this already in verse so I might try to finish it but I'm going to try and take your advice and rewrite the story as a typical novel. Thanks for the advice. It really helped a lot. I'll try and rewrite some of the story and if I get anywhere, I'll post it. Thanks again.
--theladygraceling

[carol]

You are welcome, and please don't rewrite it as a "typical novel" unless that is what feels right to you. This is your baby, you have worked very hard on it, so please finish it. Remember, just because I am not a person who would normally read a novel done in verse, does not mean that there are many, many, more people who do. I will keep reading and reviewing this novel, and I will keep in mind the format you have chosen to write it in and help you along the way, keeping true to the verse format. I think you are very talented and really do want to see you keep writing.

[carol]

Okay, now that I have a better understanding of where you are going with this, let's see if I can help you out with a little bit imagery, not an easy thing, but Emma nailed it, when she said she wants to close her eyes, and see, hear, smell and feel what is being played out in front of her. When I wrote "Little lost girl found" the first line came to me as I sat on the top step looking down at my Christmas tree, sprawled out across the living room floor. I was also working on an afghan at the time, so I closed my eyes and wrote what I saw in my head, and felt deep in my heart at the time.
Now after I read the first chapter I closed my eyes and pictured the scene in my head, and in my mind I could smell the sweat, I felt it on my skin, I saw the grief in the faces of the crowd. Seeing it in your head is the easy part, now putting it on paper, well not so much. but let me see if I can show you what we are talking about.

Grief, oozed out of my body, clinging to the humidity in the air. my senses fill with the odor of sweat, perfume and human musk, as it waifs past me, carried by a soft but smoldering breeze.

It's too hot outside for a funeral.....

There is too much black, clothes glued to moist bodies, from the sun as it beats down, from a cloudless sky....

I usually try to stay away from using to many words ending in (ly) but I think it may work here.

I hope you can see by the amount of time Emma and I have put into this that we think you have a lot of talent. It is obvious that you are a great story teller, and in time you will become an amazing writer.

[theladygraceling]

Yeah, I see what you two are saying. I'm taking another look at a few of the chapters and tweaking them a bit to try and show a little more, I just haven't made them public yet. Both of you gave great advice and I'm glad for the support and help.

[Emma Olsen]

I apologize, I don't have enough time to read through your whole piece, so I'm going to just try to critique this first chapter. This may mean that some of my comments aren't applicable.

You might want to work on formatting a bit since a few of the spaces made me think I needed to highlight them or something. lol It looks like someone said this below, but I also had issues with it in that I didn't know what rhythm you wanted me to read at so I went da-duh da-duh da-DUH every line (so kind of iambic.) When you get further in the poem this miserably fails me, so I feel I'm probably reading it wrong. Commas and punctuation could really help.
Also, carol is totally right, again, on showing versus telling. Poems, especially, should show. I get this is at an outside funeral and the speaker's in front and not crying . . . but in terms of a real scene? I don't see this. I'm not anchored, and I'm floating in the character's head. Details about the funeral could really be used effectively to ground the reader and parallel the emotions of the speaker. For instance, what time of year is it? I hear 'heat,' but is that an unnatural heat for this time of year or are we talking the middle of summer? You could easily use details about the time of year to show the inner state of the speaker. For instance, winter could advertise a barrenness and emptiness the speaker now feels. Spring could be an ironic counterpoint, new life in a time of great mourning. You get what I mean? Instead I have 'heat' and 'sunlight' and neither of them are really doing much for me because I have no details about them to show how much is too much for the speaker. They're doing very little to contribute to a greater understanding of either the scene or the character. Would even faint sunlight be too much? Mild heat? Or is this blistering heat and brilliant sunlight? Flesh out your details. You're only giving me the basics, and I want more. I want you to use the details to really make me feel this character's agony at this funeral. You are telling me that she feels upset and I understand that, but I am not upset with her and I want to be. I don't think it's important to tell us who died, right now (I'm sure you cover this later and the suspense could be a good way to draw readers in), but I want to feel more immersed in her emotions. You can do that either through imagery or other poetic devices. Here's a .pdf of some: http://www.chaparralpoets.org/devices.pdf
Devices can give us poetic equivalents of an emotion or experience. You're using repetition here pretty effectively, but I have to admit I am getting incredibly distracted by your line breaks. I think you need less of them, it's too clunky right now and it's distracting, to be honest. I think you need to let the lines flow more. Experiment with prose poetry. (I think looking into this type of poetry might help you a lot, too. Seeing how others manipulate the form to make a poem is pretty interesting.) I'd suggest indenting after your 'too's, but to have paragraphs after them. You can explore the scene and the grief in the paragraphs and then use the repetition of 'too' to anchor the reader back into the scene.

Right now I think my biggest comment is that I know nothing of who this character is because I don't have a sense of what is 'normal' for them. Is this behavior normal or abnormal? The way they act in this situation demonstrates some of who they are, but since I have no context of how important this person is to them (I assume pretty since they're in the front row . . . ?), I'm not sure how this event is confounding the normal state of being. In terms of story dynamic, I need the status quo in order to see how things have changed and how this impacts the character. An example: Our family had always been whole, normal, for the fifteen years of my life so far. I had never experienced death, so that now, faced with the reality of it in so gruesome a way, I don't know how to act.
Do you see how I'm using establishing details above to set the scene and give background? I don't know how old your character is or how often death occurs, so I don't know if she/he is reacting normally or not. Obviously, learning how to parse the background for significant details is a little difficult, but it's important so that the reader knows how this action has changed things, how it has become significant to the story. Death is obviously traumatizing, and the actions the character takes show a lot of their character, but context is SUPER important. Someone who's lost most of their family would be very different from someone who's lost only one family member, and timing of the event matters, too. A young person losing a mother or father is very different from a forty-year-old losing their parents.
I feel sympathy for your character right now, but I want to feel empathy, and I think that's resulting from just not knowing enough about them (I don't even have a gender) to know what this event really means to them. Find ways to introduce that, whether it be through personal narrative, dialogue, or descriptions of the scene. Use these details, immerse me in the scene. Tell me who 'everyone' is, whether a religious leader is leading the ceremony (what kind of religious leader), who's standing next to the narrator, what the coffin looks like, if it's open casket or not, how big the funeral is, how long the ceremony is, etc. etc. You don't need to answer all these questions, but just some of these details will make this scene feel much more real and alive. Right now it feels like an outline to me, not an actual moment. It's too general, not specific enough. Generalities should always be avoided, because the reader wants to see your specific vision, your specific outlook, how you build a certain character or story. I can read about a funeral anywhere, but I can't see a funeral the way you see it.

I think you've done a good job of instilling suspense and a hook, but I think you can push it more and experiment with the form. (Also, get rid of those ugly grey boxes. They're not doing anything to advance the meaning or form for me, so they're really just a distraction. Just have the indentation, nothing else.) I wish I could remember the names of some prose poets, but I can't recall any right now. If I think of some, I'll let you know. Doing research into that style will really help you, though, I think. You have a good base here, but it needs more development. Good luck!

[theladygraceling]

Thanks so much for the review. The first chapter doesn't give much information on the narrator because it's so short but the next chapter gives a name and a gender and you do start to learn more about her. I will try and fit more "showing" into the chapter though. I'll also do some research on prose and practice my writing. As for the gray boxes, they kind of just appeared when I did the in dent and I don't know how to get rid of them. Thanks for the review and I'll try to tackle as much of the advice you gave me that I can.

[Emma Olsen]

Prose poetry specifically. Prose by itself is a word for novel/story writing. As an addendum: establishing more of the character and her background is important because you don't want to give the reader any excuse to stop reading. If they're not empathizing with your character, that can be used as an excuse to put the book down. I'm not talking huge details, but some more in order to place her a little bit more in context to this tragedy will help to capture the reader. Do you get what I'm saying? You do have very good raw emotion in here, but I don't want to view it as a third party, I want to be in her head.
That's weird about the boxes . . . I wonder why that happened. I did some indents in a poem of mine and didn't have anything like that happen. Bizarre.
Anyways, good work and good luck! Let me know i you want me to look at a future draft when you finish it or something.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Is this meant to be an epic poem, sort of along the lines of the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid? I liked the poem though. On to the next chapter!

[theladygraceling]

Yes, it's sort of like an epic poem. The whole book is written like this. Its poetic but meant to be read like you'd read a book. Thanks for commenting!

[Lazerbagels]

I liked it. Although i'm confused as to whether it's a poem or a book. Maybe both? Regardless, It was good. Some nice word choice homie. Thumbs up.

[theladygraceling]

Thanks for being my very first review! Just to clear up any confusion, it is kind of a mix between a book and a poem. It is written sort of like a poem but it is long like a book.