Is my writing any good?

[thewolf999]

Ok, this is quite serious - all my life I've wanted to be a writer/novelist, but I've always been held back because of a lack of self-belief. Recently, however, I've had a sudden burst of creativity and managed to write what is currently around half a book (50,000 words or so.) I've shown it to friends and family, and they have all said its pretty good, but I don't know if they're just being nice or what.

I mean, I have an alright job as a junior accountant, so I just want to know - is my writing actually good enough? I thought if anyone's going to be 100% honest with me, it'll be you guys (been a longtime lurker here) - so I've attached the first chapter. Its just one draft chapter so might not be amazing, but does it have sufficient promise?

Please tell me what you think

And just be 100% honest - are you sufficiently interested to pay $10 (or whatever a book costs these days) to read more? Because if the answer is no, I might as well get on with my life and focus on my career. I mean, some dreams aren't meant to come true, right?

And, please no-one make any dumb jokes here, this is my dream we're talking about here!

Thanks

Just give your honest opinion

 

[imageWIS]

Jon.

 

[Connemara]

Can I just give you my credit card number? And my Social Security number? I really trust you!

 

[thewolf999]

FFS I'm not a spammer or identity thief! I just put it in a zip because its a rich text document and I don't know if you can upload them straight away. Thanks for welcoming me guys (heavy sarcasm) I'm pretty confident this'll be my second and last post here.

Here it is in virus-free form

CALIPHATE 2020


1 – Discovery
It started out as just another ordinary day for Mick Hammond.
He was taking a break from digging, sitting on the hot sand under a scorching sun, unyielding in its intensity, and drinking from a bottle of water. As the cool liquid made its way down his throat, he felt refreshed – the heat-induced haziness which had gripped his mind for some time began to pass.
Hammond had been here, in the middle of the Egyptian desert, for over three hours now. He and his team of diggers had been looking for the grave of Avidius Cassius, the famed Roman usurper, for a month with little to no success. Cassius, who lived in the 2nd century AD, had made the grave mistake of trying to usurp possibly the greatest ruler of the western world to have lived, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Believing that Aurelius had died, Cassius declared himself emperor of all that was Roman – however, on learning that the emperor was still alive, Cassius lost most of his support and was subsequently murdered by his own bodyguards, or so everyone thought. The modern academic community certainly believed he had been murdered, and that he had been beheaded and buried in Italy; however Hammond was certain that Cassius had survived and managed to escape Aurelius’ wrath. Unfortunately his fellow historians hadn’t been ready to agree with him, and after writing an academic thesis about the subject, Hammond had been effectively laughed out of his prestigious post as head lecturer of history at Queen’s College, Oxford University. So now he was in virtual academic exile until he proved his theories right – once he found Cassius’ grave, to say his colleagues back at Oxford would eat humble pie would be an understatement.
When Hammond arrived in Egypt a few weeks ago he had no idea of where to start looking, and after consulting numerous so-called ‘expert’ Egyptologists, he had been led to this place, about one hundred miles outside Alexandria. Supposedly that was where Cassius had really been buried, yet Hammond’s team had found absolutely nothing so far. Perhaps this was not the right place – or worse still, Hammond thought, perhaps he was wrong.
Crap, he thought. He had sacrificed everything for this – his job, his long-time girlfriend, his reputation: everything. He hated the unforgiving heat of Africa, but even more he hated the possibility of failure. Hammond had never failed at everything – he had graduated from the London School of Economics (in archaeology no less) at the top of his class, only to become the youngest Oxbridge lecturer in history two years later. His girlfriend, Emma, was the daughter of the richest man in the world – Sir Hugh Howard – and having a powerful future father-in-law had made Hammond’s possibilities seem endless. Now, opportunity had turned to despair – it seemed as if every door was closed to the formerly eminent archaeologist.
He ran his hand through his light brown hair (now a bleached-blonde from the sun) and stared at his reflection in the small oasis where he was refilling his water bottle. Just under six foot with an athletic frame, Hammond knew he was considered quite attractive – his striking blue eyes complimented what ex-girlfriends had called a ‘cute smile.’ Yet he was hardly likely to find a replacement for Emma – with her departure on top of everything else, his self-confidence had been shattered. Where once he thought girls glanced at him to admire him, he now thought to himself ‘what’s wrong with me, why are you staring at me?’ every time someone so much as looked at him. His therapist said he had ‘severe insecurity issues’ – an assessment Hammond was unable to disagree with.
There were more problems on the horizon too – Sir Hugh, the only one of his financial backers who hadn’t withdrawn his investment after Hammond published his controversial views, phoned him yesterday and had said he wouldn’t be funding the dig the week after next. Hammond supposed that the reason Sir Hugh had funded him up to now (when everyone else had run for the hills) was only because of the archaeologist’s former relationship with his daughter. This latest news, however, meant that Hammond didn’t have any money at all to pay his diggers’ wages for this month.
Undoubtedly they would leave soon after they realised this, and Hammond would be left digging alone in the desert. He’d also be sleeping in the desert, he realised bitterly, as he now had no way of settling his bill for his room at the Egyptian Four Seasons. He would have stayed somewhere much cheaper, except for the fact that the Four Seasons was the only western hotel the Caliphate allowed within its borders. Ironic, given the totalitarian government’s hatred of western decadence, that the only foreign hotel they permitted was a luxury five-star chain.
Hammond considered the pills he had back at the hotel – cyanide capsules. The suicide pill market was worth well over a billion dollars – not surprising, considering that over a third of the population of Caliphate countries (and 10% of the western populace) suffered from the Virus. Nobody knew where it came from – many scientists thought it was an offshoot of AIDs, others believed it was a mutation of avian flu. No-one could explain how it was transmitted either. At first it was believed to be airborne, hence explaining its rapid spread – yet whilst one infected person might pass the disease to all the neighbours in his street, none of his family (who he came into much closer contact with) where infected. It seemed almost as if vulnerability to the Virus was partially genetic, yet scientists had yet to discover a way to obtain a vaccine from those who were unaffected.
The worst thing about the Virus was how it killed – once infected, its victims were bedridden for weeks, if not months, slowly rotting away into nothingness. The longest surviving infectee lasted eleven months – almost a year of constant torture and pain. Thus, suicide pills were heavily used amongst those who were infected – it gave them a quick way out, a path to salvation in the afterlife. In fact, the Virus had caused a massive increase in people’s preoccupation with the afterlife, which had the effect of vastly strengthening the theocratic Caliphate’s grip on its people. Compared to five years ago, before the spread of the Virus, the Caliphate government had a much stronger authority – it terrified its populace with the threat of eternal damnation in the afterlife, a potent threat where the average life expectancy was 38 years (although these figures were skewed by the Virus, since modern technology enabled uninfected people to live to almost 100.)
Hammond considered it also ironic that, for all its hate of the west, the Caliphate was prepared to buy the suicide pills for its people from American and British pharmaceutical companies, who pumped out millions of pills a year. He considered it even more ironic, however, that he was considering using such a pill, when anyone who had the Virus would give anything to be an uninfectee like himself.


He was suddenly interrupted out of his reverie when he heard Ahmed, his chief digger shouting.

“Kaffir Mikhail!” he shouted, almost jumping up and down with excitement. “Kaffir Mikhail!”

“I’m coming, calm down,” Hammond said, although he doubted it would do any good – none of the diggers spoke English, and Hammond certainly spoke no Arabic. But words were not necessary here.

For a few seconds Hammond could not see what the olive-skinned Ahmed was pointing to – the men had dug about three metres into the ground, and at the bottom there was just sand. But then Ahmed, grinning manically at the bottom of the pit, pushed his shovel against the bottom, as if he was trying to dig up more sand. Instead of going into the ground, however, the shovel smacked against something undeniably hard – and metallic. It was then that Hammond saw there was just a thin layer of sand at the bottom, and underneath there was some kind of dark grey object, possibly a tomb.

“Brilliant, guys, brilliant!” he yelled, punching the air with his first and hugging several of the tanned workers with elation. To think, only a few seconds ago he had been contemplating suicide – now he had been proven right all along. Even if it was not the tomb of Avidius Cassius, this find would be enough to vindicate the archaeologist – it was clearly a large artefact, evidently wider than the five foot breadth of the pit, and just as long.

Not even bothering to take another swig of water, Hammond leapt into the pit, landing on the object and making a horrendously loud clanging sound. ****, he thought – in his excitement he had forgotten the first rule of archaeology: take every precaution to not damage your artefacts. Now he had just jumped right on top of one.
Still, it looked intact. He knelt down and brushed away the sand to expose the metal. This was the moment of greatness that he had waiting for – the artefact was clearly old, how old he was not sure.
Then things took an unexpected turn.


He realised with an alarming clarity that something was wrong – there was no rust. At all.
Impossible, he thought. Absolutely impossible. Old metal always, always rusted, and there was no way this could have been preserved well enough to be an exception to that rule.
Unless… he realised. He ran his hands over the metal, it was perfectly smooth and finely formed – just like… stainless steel. But that made no sense – stainless steel was an alloy of numerous metals, and the technology to make such a material had only been invented in the 20th century. That might explain it, as stainless steel was invented in 1913, so it could be around 100 years old, yet Caliphate countries did not start using alloys until just before the 20th century – so how could such an artefact be in Egypt?
The more he felt the object, the more Hammond’s new theory became more implausible. This was not the rough stainless steel made before the 1990s – it was clearly made in the 21st century, or roughly around that period. It was perfectly smooth, which would not be possible if it was human-made – thus it could only have been made with industrial robots, a process which had only come into use during the 21st century. It was also a bit too shiny for steel (one of Hammond’s favourite subjects at school had been chemistry)… he realised as he saw his blurred reflection in the object, with a start, that the metal also contained titanium. Titanium had the same strength as iron yet was a fraction of the weight – thus, an alloy of steel and titanium would be virtually indestructible and incredibly lightweight. What was an object of this material doing buried in the desert, clearly quite old?


Whatever Hammond thought at this point, he was not prepared for what would come next. He saw something that chilled him to the core despite the fiery desert heat, making his blood run cold with shock.
He saw white lettering printed on the metal surface. He desperately brushed away the sand particles, squinting to read what it said… NASA 101.

“What the hell??” Hammond jumped back in absolute shock, not even registering the fact that his Egyptian diggers were cursing him for taking religion in vain.

He climbed out of the pit, ignoring their mutterings of “infidel.” This was not exactly true – Hammond did have a religion: the religion of success, but right now he wished he had an actual god he could turn to for answers.
What did the North American Space Agency have to do with this? The archaeologist turned to the workers and ordered them to dig the object out of the ground. Ahmed apparently understood (or at least Hammond assumed he did) as he muttered what Hammond took to mean he needed to go to the nearby village to get more workers, for which he would need more money.
Both men felt the desert wind start to pick up and whip around them, hurling sand into the air – clearly a fierce storm was on its way. Hammond gave an inward groan of frustration – he had discovered something so incredible it was incomprehensible, and all this Caliphate worker could do was give excuses. The archaeologist knew Ahmed probably thought little of him – he was worse than an ordinary western ‘heretic,’ he was a non-believer, a man who had no god and thus no soul. Of course, being a westerner was bad enough outside the west – the Caliphate and the World Council (which was really just the council of Europe and the US) had been in a cold war for over a decade, and their respective peoples shared a mutual hatred of each other.

Jealousy compounded the situation: Hammond could imagine how Ahmed was brought up, in a squalid flat in Egypt’s ‘city of the dead’ (a cemetery turned shanty town housing over 5 million people) probably with many brothers and sisters, many who died either from malnutrition as infants or from the Virus as adults. Living standards in the Caliphate were deplorable – with the exception of an elite minority, the population lived in horrendous conditions, having nothing to look forward to except their beloved afterlife. Ahmed was probably the same age as Hammond, yet he looked about sixty – whereas the archaeologist had grown up in a comfortable home, Ahmed had suffered hardships even before the Caliphate came into existence. Born in Iran when it was still an independent country and before the Caliphate took over the Middle East and Africa, Ahmed had watched his mother and father being butchered before his eyes for daring to speak out against the government; then his aunt had taken him and his siblings to Egypt for a new life. This much Hammond had learnt from Ahmed’s English-speaking brother who had introduced them.
So when Hammond stared into Ahmed’s steely grey eyes, filled with far more suffering and anger than any man in his twenties should have to experience, he feared the chief digger would not yield, as he had evidently met far more intimidating characters than the archaeologist (if I could be called at all intimidating, Hammond thought wryly.)
Seeing Ahmed stretch out his dark, scarred hand, Hammond knew he had little choice in the matter – he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his expensive leather wallet (a gift from Emma on their anniversary last year.) He reluctantly took out his last one hundred Euro bill and handed it to the man, who eyed the note greedily. Whilst Hammond’s bill at the Four Seasons was ten times what he had just handed over, a hundred Euros would be a good month’s salary for the average Caliphate worker, if not more – only the Chinese yen was more valuable on the world market.

“Hurry,” Hammond said, watching as Ahmed and his men climbed onto their horses and galloped off across the Egyptian desert, the sea of desolation that it was. He considered how paradoxical it was that the Caliphate empire, which now controlled 90% of the world’s oil resources, had very little modern transport – there were few buses, trains and cars, and even few jet airplanes. As the wind blew ever fiercer, Hammond looked towards the approaching stormfront, briefly admiring the Great Pyramids of Ancient Egypt. Having once been a symbol of Egypt’s greatness in the world, they were now a bitter reminder of eminence past for the people of the Caliphate. As the air tousled his hair, Hammond wondered how future generations would see him and the world of his day, if in fact there were any future generations – as an avid historian; he had noted long ago that man excelled in one characteristic above all others: the art of self-destructiveness.

“Hurry!” he shouted again to the rapidly disappearing figures, although his words were superfluous – the expression on his face (plus the money of course) had told Ahmed just how momentous this was. Ironically so, since even now Mick Hammond had not even the slightest idea of how earth-shattering this discovery was, and not even just to him.
To the entire world.

 

[Connemara]

I feel like the entire story has been told in this single chapter. Your writing is choppy and frankly boring. Sorry.

 

[lawyerdad]

I'd suggest reworking the first sentence. Conventional wisdom, which is sometimes correct, stresses the importance of a first sentence that grabs the reader's attention and makes him want to know more. Your first sentence doesn't do that; it's basically an exercise in throat-clearing.
Having briefly skimmed the remainder, I'd say that what you're working toward seems to be more a plot-driven story than, say, the next "Ulysses". Well and good, since "Ulysses" was great but he hardly need another one. But given that, it's pretty hard to make an assessment when there's not enough of the story there to see how things unfold and whether things hold together as the story does unfold.
Your writing certain is readable and tecnhnically proficient. In my non-expert opinion, there's nothing about it that should hold you back if you can develop compelling stories and characters. I've certainly read worse in novels published by some very successful writers.

 

[DNW]

You string too many things in your sentences. Ditto on the choppiness. It feels like driving over hundreds of speedbumps reading your sentences. For example: He was taking a break from digging, sitting on the hot sand under a scorching sun, unyielding in its intensity, and drinking from a bottle of water.

 

[TheIdler]

Well, first off, kudos to putting your dream to the test in this way.

I agree with lawyerdad that I've read worse writing in published novels. Unfortunately, however, my honest answer to your question is that I would not, based on what I've read here, pay to continue reading. There are problems here which are easily fixed (like it's annonying that you specifically point out that the diggers don't understand English nor Hammond Arabic...but then you have the diggers get annoyed at him saying hell and him "not registering" that they mutter infidel). There are also, though, problems here which are not so easily fixed, like how your tone ranges from didactic to sensationalistic, or how the narrator seems at times to use Hammond's point of view and other times not, or how choppiness and repetitive structures mentioned by the other posters break up the flow.

But the deeper question of whether you should give up writing is not answerable based on this chapter. In short, _this_ writing is not something I'd pay for, but _your_ writing someday might be. If you enjoy the act of writing itself, then do it because you love it. If this is your first attempt, and it really is a dream, then by all means keep at it.

 

[rach2jlc]

I have some experience in this arena and am a little unsure what you'd have to gain by posting this blindly in a fashion forum. What might we have to tell you about your WRITING? We talk about fashion! Anyway, I also think that nobody is qualified to tell you whether you should quit writing or not. Every editor, agent, and publisher has different opinions, just like every two readers. Nearly every great novel in any genre that you can name was shopped around and HATED by about twenty-five publishers before finding somebody who wanted it (everything from "Catcher in the Rye" to "A Wrinkle in Time" to "Catch 22" No two people like the same things, so nobody should tell you to quit. As well, being a brilliant prose-writer isn't necessarily the end-all. Some very famous (and wealthy) writers have made careers for themselves while being VERY poor writers. Though Dan Brown writes an exciting story, I don't think anybody accuses his prose of being beautiful.

Anyway, if you are really interested in pursuing this as a career or as something more than just idle fun, you need an agent and/or a good editor. I honestly don't think you are to that stage yet, but that is the next step that takes place after finishing a manuscript. I'm not even going to get started with the writing itself, which is in dire need of good editing. As others have said, it isn't BAD by any means, but the writing impedes the story, which is NEVER what you want. The best stories are those where the reader forgets he/she is reading. IN the first paragraph or two, I was reminded no less than fifteen times that I was reading a book.

Also, Lawyerdad is right... your first sentence if flat. Go to a bookstore and take a look at some famous novels and their opening lines. Generally, there will be some PUNCH to the first line to make you keep reading. Think of Philip Roth, who has a great first line in "Sabbath's Theatre:" "Either forswear ******* others or the affair is over." How great is that??? (j/k)

If you send what you've written to an agent or publisher as it is now, I'm sad to say that they'll be even less pleasant than we've been (actually, they probably won't even respond because they get about 1500 submissions like this a week... honestly)

Even beyond that, though, for writing in general you need the opinions of other writers or (even better) professional people in the industry, because there is a lot more to publishing than just having a "neat story." I never realized this, at first, but market conditions, the way in which a particular genre/story has sold in the past, your own reputation or past publications, etc. ALL impact whether or not your story will get published and WHO will publish it. I've seen a number of VERY good stories that are still unpublished because a large publisher did the math and realized that, given market conditions and various factors OUTSIDE of the actual story itself, the book probably wouldn't break even. It's sad, in one way, because we all have the romantic notion of a Harry Potter, come-out-of-nowhere hit, but these are VERY rare.

A good editor, in general, will help a client wittle that "neat story" into something that a publishing house would be willing to sink 6-figures into in order to publish and market. Furthermore, they will help you to make the story something that others will want to read.

There are any number of publications, including online sites, that all have links to reputable agencies that accept unsolicited queries (basically, this is where you write a brief letter telling them about yourself and your story). If they are interested, they will then respond.

ON the other hand, if you are just starting out (which, honestly, it seems like), you might want to show your writing to a writing seminar, group, etc. Any of these groups will give you better feedback than a fashion forum.

Good luck. The best advice, though, is just to keep writing. Don't even think about publishing anything for a while. Publishing, editors, and agents can actually be great impediments to your writing until you are prepared (both physically and mentally) to be a professional writer. It's much less romantic than it seems and a lot more headaches, heartaches, rejection, and disappointment (trust me!) SO... for now... JUST WRITE.

 

[thewolf999]

Thanks a lot for the input, I really appreciate it

Yeh, I am just starting out - and to be honest, my first chapter is probably one of my weakest, thinking about it I suppose the passage doesn't make that much sense out of context with the story as a whole (the novel is partly satirical, so there are quite a few themes running through it.)

I know styleforum might seem like an odd choice, but I couldn't think of anywhere that was particularly better - after all, most of the members here seem reasonably well educated and intelligent, and evidently literate from their posts.

My real question was - do I have the potential to be an author, do you think? I know that none (or few) of you are literary experts, but that's not who books are sold to - to do well, a book has to have a broad readership.

Thanks again!

 

[rach2jlc]

I'd say that you definitely have the potential if you keep at it. Writing is 95% hard work and 5% talent (maybe 98% hard work and 2% talent), so I think if you really just work at it, you could really develop it. The problems that I see in it now are not really problems in ability, it just looks like problems in experience. The best advice I can give is just to write without even thinking about publication for now. Two or three full novels is pretty good practice. Most all famous novelists have two, three, four, even five novels that they wrote before publishing anything (I think that Stephen King wrote two or three novels before Carrie, even though that was the first one published.) SO, an author's first published work is usually their fourth or fifth novel overall.

Letting people read your stuff is always difficult in any context (especially an online forum), but you shouldn't let other people's opinions form whether or not you keep writing. You should. If you like doing it, keep doing it. Lucky for you, you already have otherwise gainful employment, so it isn't like you have to write this book to pay your rent. So, just enjoy it and realize that sometimes publishing something can actually hinder your writing more than just having a good time doing it (when you have an agent, contracts, deadlines, and literally hundreds of people and thousands of dollars on the line if you don't finish... it isn't a joy.)

Good luck!

 

[Thomas]

thewolf999, kudos to you for putting yourself out there. I had something to say, but lawyerdad and rach2jlc beat me to it, and they said it better anyway.

I can say that as a speaker, I chop my narrative down sharply to basic elements, then I'll add color and extemporaneous bits and pieces as dictated by my mood, time available, and the audience's patience. Unfortunately this is something you cannot completely make use of - well, just skip the extempore.

Also, as lawyerdad noted, I feel that if I don't open strong, I might as well stay seated. I like Rushdie's opening in Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and can quote it without the book at hand - "There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad it had forgotten its name. It stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made the people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue."

Good luck!