Here is a rough version of the first chapter of my book?

Question

Chapter 1

“No! I will not stay here and deal with her! We live like such fools! Forget your regrets about the divorce! I’m not going to come running to you either! I’m leaving for good!” Candace yelled into the receiver.

“Well, you’re going to have to stay, whether you like it or not. What is your other choice?” Mr. Timmons insisted in a frustrated tone. He was becoming increasingly impatient with Candace and her demands.

“I have had it with both you and Mom! I am just going to leave!” she screamed. She slammed the receiver down on the desk.

Her face, as swollen as a bad mosquito bite, wrote a story of anger and tearful disappointment. Candace felt betrayed by her father’s refusal to allow her to live on her own in apartment, or else, take her into his home. The predominant coldness of her mother had finally pushed her to the cliff’s edge. Leaning over precariously while looking down at the valley below, she thought about jumping off sometimes. Her desire to get out of her living situation seemed stronger than ever. She was putting her escape plans into effect. Thanks heavens I probably won’t be staying here much longer. I can go stay with Dad or Auntie and really work on my paintings.

Her hazel eyes met with her mother’s cold steel blue eyes. Candace stared right through her, as if she were a mirage instead of a desert oasis. A righteous rage penetrated her mother slowly, but she chose to ignore her interests as usual. Warning, symbols and body language meant little to her because of her emotional vacancy.

“So I guess you will be happy now. You’ve finally got what you wanted. Don’t bother to say goodbye and I will see my way out,” Candace announced coolly. You always use people and then pretend that you didn’t do anything to them, or that you’re really sorry about your actions.

Mrs. Timmons hardly looked up from her spot. She jerked to the right in her chair for some reason, maybe from shock. Candace couldn’t really tell what was going on in her mind. She waited for a response from her mother. Finally, Mrs. Timmons took a deep breath and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Fine. Leave the keys with me. Take what you need and nothing else,” Mrs. Timmons responded icily, as she crossed her arms over her chest. She stared at the floor instead of raising her head to look at her daughter.

“Well, you always get what you want now, don’t you? One way or another, you manage to manipulate my life. Sometimes I can’t even believe what you’ve managed to get away with. If Dad only knew the whole story,” she moaned as she trailed off, twisting her left fingers into her hair.

Mrs. Timmons defiantly looked away for a moment. She took a deep breath while her eyes moved back and forth from one side of the room to the other. Candace waited for her to say that last comment she usually made whenever they disagreed. I’m not the one who has to win the arguments, she thought to herself.

“Well, do what you want. You are always full of nonsense. Just go pack up your things and leave then, if you’re not happy. It’s not like I want to hold you up,” she announced coldly after a few minutes had passed.

“Fine.” Candace retorted without hesitation. I won’t waste my time on someone who doesn’t care, because if I wanted to, I would stay.

She furiously fled out of the living room. Rushing across the hall, she headed for the far staircase. Since she had lost this round of gunfire, she decided that she would no longer fight in this war of words between her mother and her father. Her intention was to leave this house, once and for all. This time, her determination to leave seemed genuine.

Her strawberry-blonde hair flew through the air in streams as she nearly catapulted herself out of the room. Her mother and sisters stared behind her as she made her way out. She was always the first and last one in the room to make a scene. Her mother put her book down on the side table, got up out of her rocking chair and walked to the middle of the Persian carpet that lined the hardwood floor. She watched as her eldest daughter stomped up the stairs to her room on the third floor.

“Don’t bother saying goodbye! I don’t want to see you ever again!” she yelled down the stairs as she crossed the loft into her room. There was no response. Her words echoed through the entire house.

The usual realization of her indifference caused little grief to Candace, since she had spent years putting up with her mother’s attempts at using her to get more money out of her father. They had been divorced since she was eleven. Their separation wasn’t unpleasant, and neither was their marriage. Her father was simply a classic workaholic. He stayed at the office till 8 p.m. or later on a typical weeknight. This Friday, she managed to get a hold of him before 9 p.m. That was unusual for her.

Initially, she had hoped her mother might actually respond in her favor. As usual, her dreams were dashed. She had decided to just hang up without saying anything else to her father. Her father didn’t make most of the decisions simply because he wasn’t around. Because of his lack of involvement, she had put up with her mother’s meddling for years.

Tears rolled down her eyes as she stormed up the stairs to the attic above. Her temper was like a brooding tempest that waited in the outer edges of the horizon, closing in slowly on a warm, clear sky. She continuously shocked all the members of her family with her outbursts. They could never predict how, when or why she would let her demons loose.

The bedroom door slammed behind her. She dropped onto her bed, placed her head on her pillows for a moment, then let out a sigh. She rested there for a few minutes. Then exasperation took over, so she decided to take a quick shower.

As she stripped each layer of clothing and placing them in a pile on the bathroom floor, she slid into the hot shower she had just started. Quickly she lathered up the soap and began washing herself. The warm water rinsed away her salty tears that had started streaming down her cheeks. She was relieved to be upstairs, just so that she could avoid crying in front of her mother. Mrs. Timmons had disapproved of any public display of emotion.

This was one of the many so-called attributes of hers that annoyed Candace greatly. As polar opposites, they didn’t have much in common to begin with. She wasn’t obsessed with clothes, but her mother had to have the finest designer clothing from all the expensive shops downtown.

As a child, she had been fascinated occasionally by a beautiful dress for a special occasion, but as soon as she hit her teens, she started buying baby doll dresses and seventies-style clothing from old thrift shops or else, the mall. Once in a while she went to a large boutique when they had a sale, but she didn’t shop on a daily basis. Her mother was nearly addicted to high fashion and had racked up huge bills every month. When she realized the allowance wasn’t enough to pay for all the items she bought, she went to court to demand more money. At one point, she even had to take out a second mortgage just to pay off her credit line. She had read their files, budget plans and online portfolio.

She thought about these details as she washed and conditioned her hair. She let the water rinse her thoroughly, then finally stood in the shower for a while just to feel the warm water fall on her body. She thought that was a sensual experience of sorts. She wasn’t a virgin anymore, so she was fascinated by every opportunity to experience some kind of sexual or sensual pleasure.

Finally, she got out of the shower, brushed out her hair and dried off her body with a towel. For a moment, she looked at herself in the mirror. She was thankful that her appearance was so different from her mother. With her light reddish blonde hair and dark hazel eyes, she resembled her patriarchal grandmother far more than the woman who gave birth to her. With the release of a sigh, she picked up a tube of concealer. As she dotted the makeup over her circles, she started examining the situation.

Candace had wanted out of the family for a long time. The only members she got along with, other than her little sisters, were her aunts and uncles. Her grandparents had passed during the first nine years of her childhood. She figured she would go stay with them for awhile, since they would not mention that she was staying with them. They lived six hours away along the coast. During her teenage years, she had tossed around the idea of running away, which seemed glamorous and wild.

Occasionally, she read the newspaper. One of the featured stories might mention teenagers arrested by police officers, kids in juvenile hall, and occasionally, something about kids on the street. She had decided against such an existence. Now she was older. Her main focus now was to get off this battlefield of anger, simmering discontent and veiled hostility. She would not wear a mask of calmness over her anger like her mother.

Answer 1

I think you have a great start!! Interesting character, propelling story, nice description all in all you have a wonderful story line. It has a good hook to get the reader's interests and keep them reading. You might pick up a book on writing novels or stories. Right now I am reading Dwight V. Swain's "Techniques of the selling writer". It is interesting. But there are tons of books on writing out there. Although honestly, I think you have probably been reading.

It is just little things. In one paragraph, "She thought about these details...", every sentence starts with the word "She". (Personally, when I have a first draft I like, I go back over the story using the highlight feature on my computer. Then I have it highlight every time I start a sentence with “She”. They all pop up yellow, if I have used it more than twice in a paragraph, I can spot it and rewrite it. Then do it again with another word I feel I may have over used like “had”.)

In this paragraph you change from third person to first person. "She was putting her escape plans into effect. Thanks heavens I probably won’t be staying here much longer. I can go stay with Dad or Auntie and really work on my paintings." or left off that Candace is thinking this.

Another sentence "As a child, she had been fascinated occasionally by a beautiful dress for a special occasion, but as soon as she hit her teens, she started buying baby doll dresses and seventies-style clothing from old thrift shops or else, the mall." is too long. By breaking it up you might be a stronger impact. Also "occasionally" and "occasion" is the same sentence sounds redundant.

Grammatically, you have a tendency to drop the second set of quotation marks after a tag line of the dialog. Small stuff.

I would be interested in reading more. I hope that is the kind of response you are looking for. Really, it is great!!! If you don’t like or disagree with anything I suggest, hey it is just my opinion. Feel free to ignore it. Just keep writing!!!
Good luck

Answer 2

Well, the way Joseph Smith translates, Jacob also uses the French word "Adieu" (To God) as he is getting ready to die. That always bugged me until I stopped to think that Joseph Smith was probably using the best vocabulary that fit when translating. Translating is a pretty difficult task. I have done it. You can choose the best words you can and still not capture in the least the nuances that you are trying to convey. If you think about it, human words, in any language, are pretty weak. I've studied a lot of languages, I have found some languages that do not contain mundane and ordinary words like "green," or "hair." And then there are languages, like English, which is a conglomerate of so many other languages, that contain too many words that mean the same thing. I guess Joseph Smith could have translated "Alpha and Omega" as "first and last"--but in saying that Jesus was the First and the Last, does that give the same striking message? Close but not quite. It is important to convey the concept that Jesus is immortal and with the Father from the beginning and until the end. How do you do this in so many words?

Answer 3

Hi. Thanks for sharing your first chapter with us.

I just wanted to let you know that this is probably not the best place to get good critique on your writing.
You can go to a number of free sites for authors to upload their work and be reviewed by eachother... a simple web search will point you in the right direction.

As far as your story is concerned, I would say you definitely have some interesting things happening. I would just be careful not to throw your reader into the deep end of the pool right from the beginning.
The reader needs to know some things about your character that makes them seem likeable or interesting.... then you hit them upside the head with all the drama.
Always remember that your reader wants to identify with someone and care whether they live or die - succeed or fail. If people are just randomly doing things without having a deep profile, your reader will get bored too easily.

Good Luck and keep up the good work!

PS - don't worry about the grammar too much. It IS important but practice makes perfect. Spend some time reading other books and you will learn a lot.

Answer 4

hmmm...the story, it's okay, sounds to me like it might be true. you will need to brush up on your grammar, and take some English literature classes, but it's a start. good luck!

Answer 5

Wow, you are really prolific. Your sort of style kind of reminds me of VC Andrews. Good stuff.

Answer 6

Its good. I like it.
What happens to her?