Feel free to rip this apart. I'm not precious.

[AliceScarlett]

I'd appreciate some feedback if anyone had the time and inclination. I've never written fiction before and I'm approaching it as I would with any skill. I want to learn and practice. Like swimming or something.

This is the 3rd paragraph, I'm trying to introduce my protagonist in her natural setting.

I'd appreciate feedback on tense if possible too. I don't know how to keep writing in the past tense :/

"I stacked the plates in the dishwasher, placed a clean mug on the worktop and flicked the switch on the cheapest kettle available on Prime. Two months ago I had discovered minimalism during aimlessly browsing for podcasts to be absorbed in. With the usual vigour that overtook me when I decided a particular ideology would be the key to my salvation I threw away a large proportion of my possessions, including the toaster. Why buy, clean and maintain a commodity that capitalism tells you you need? They said. So I did. Keen to rise above the socially constructed consumerism that lied to me about how possessions would fill my emptiness. As a result I couldn’t leave the toast under the grill unattended as it would set the fire alarm off, and apparently increase my risk of cancer. I decided to risk it for a minute, put two slices of Tesco Wholemeal Medium bread on the wire-rack and walked towards my phone simultaneously pushing out of my mind the image of the tin-foil underneath the grill-pan, saturated with crumbs."

@nagsnovalballs Conceal or reveal, OK, I shall think on this. Maybe she needs to say more about being obsessed with being ill. I thought that was enough, I don't want to fall into the previous trap of overdoing it.

"What do you read for pleasure? How many novels a week/month do you get through and what genre are they? Spend some time analysing them critically for how/why they work (or don’t)"

I read commercial and literary fiction, most days. But I just read them as a reader, I don't study the sentences and learn lessons.

I think you are trying too hard. You need to think about the type of voice your character would have, the type of language she would use, rather than trying to sound impressive. Someone easily swayed by podcasts and the daily mail, is unlikely to sound like she has swallowed the thesaurus. She won’t look at the kettle and think, “cheapest kettle on prime,” she would just think “kettle.” In fact, if she’s making a cup of tea, she is unlikely to even think about the fact she has put a cup out, or switched the kettle on. She would probably be on automatic pilot, thinking about the podcasts and the lack of toaster. You need to get inside her head.
It reminds me a bit of the Dan Brown style of writing, where he has done all this research, but instead of using it to paint a picture, he wants you to know he has done it, so puts every bit of it on the page. It gets in the way of the story and the character. Think of it like a painting, the aim is create an impression of something, which lets the viewer’s mind engage, rather than a detailed and minutely detailed record of something, which while possibly skilful, is uninteresting.
But hey, while I read a lot, I would never have the courage to write, so I’m impressed!

@HollowTalk OK, so describing situations rather her internal world? I'm trying to get inside her head....by showing how she feels....but perhaps I need many more concrete interactions with other people, rather than just walking to work and feeling disconnected.

@Alltogetherandrews I am 100% trying too hard. I'm also trying to not sound impressive compared to the 1st go! Clearly failing at that. But but but I don't want to just describe one boring scene after another.

Dan Brown! Oh no. dies

" Think of it like a painting, the aim is create an impression of something, which lets the viewer’s mind engage, rather than a detailed and minutely detailed record of something, which while possibly skilful, is uninteresting. "

That is a helpful metaphor, perhaps I'm spoon feeding.

I would show the situation and describe how it makes her feel, rather than just saying how she feels without a situation.

You don't (presumably) want someone who just sits there feeling depressed all the time - she needs some justification for feeling bad, so that the reader can understand. Usually we feel bad as a result of things happening, even if they're in our minds/imaginations. Or are you going for some sort of existential angst?

@HollowTalk Not existential angst no, I know why she feels shit and how she is going to try to deal with it. But I can't put all that on the first page!

It feels like on the one hand the advice is to not spoon feed, on the other hand charecters need a specific situation to show why they feel the way they do.

Can you say why being on the bus to work isn't enough of a situation?

See I think being on the bus could be a perfectly reasonable situation, as long as you don’t describe the journey, but show her thoughts instead. Look at the opening paragraphs to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as an example. It’s a scene in which someone gets out of bed and brushes his teeth (initially!) but it shows you so much about the character, what is happening in his life, and what his personality is.

I suppose because if she's sitting on a bus and feeling miserable you are telling us that she's feeling miserable.

If we see her go into work and be shunned by a group of colleagues, then we learn for ourselves that she's feeling miserable. You've shown us why she's miserable.

For example, you say: "On the bus to work I reminded myself that it is a privilege to work in London’s most prestigious children hospitals as a paediatric nurse in the NICU."

It's unlikely that thought would randomly come to her. Why would it? But if the bus went past someone who used to be a patient, who's now skipping to school - that's when your heroine might feel it's a privilege to work there.

In your second bit, there’s no flow to thoughts. Thoughts lead from one to another, each prompts the next, unless something external prompts a change of direction. Yours is just a list of thoughts with no connection. Try to weave them together. Why does she notice the breath on the window? Why does she walk in haste? What’s the thinking? Is she scared? Is it habit? Does she want to get where she is going or is she trying to get away from something? The tricky bit is not to describe the feelings but to show them.

I'm getting frustrated :(

"Why does she notice the breath on the window? - Because shes sitting on the bus looking at it...the purpose was to show that she was being shielded from the city and felt nice.

Why does she walk in haste? I don't know.

What’s the thinking? I cant say what shes thinking i have to show it!!

Is she scared? I cant say what she feeling i have to show it.

Is it habit? Does she want to get where she is going or is she trying to get away from something? Yeah its habit, why is that important? If I said she walked in haste habitually I'd be committing the mortal sin of using an adverb.

@HollowTalk I thought explaining that her mum taught her to do that and it came from AA would be a good enough reason.

What’s the thinking? I cant say what shes thinking i have to show it!!

Is she scared? I cant say what she feeling i have to show it.

No, I wasn't saying that. Of course you can say what she's thinking. Of course you can say what she's feeling. But if you just tell us everything, point blank, we're not going to feel like we're in her skin.

Sorry, I am trying to get work done at the moment but will be online later tonight or tomorrow to carry on.

I think that rather than writing a couple of paragraphs and putting them up here for criticism (which will always hurt, even if you've written the equivalent of Pride and Prejudice) perhaps try to get the chapter written and move on with the next.

Did you ever watch The Bridge? Saga (the main character) was an absolute masterclass in Show, Don't Tell.

I have absolutely no experience or amazing advice to give you unlike others on here I'm afraid. I'm just a bookworm! I actually really like your writing style though. I like the little snips of her mother being at AA meetings, her obsession with lifestyle podcasts and playing doctors and nurses. I love reading and things like this keep me reading as I find them intriguing and brings out the (rubbish) armchair psychologist in me! From just a readers perspective, the only thing that really puts me off is pages and pages of in depth, minute detail, scene setting. You haven't done that, good luck with your book!

I agree - I think you have the makings of a really interesting character.

Just quickly - the mother in AA - that would make a really good scene in the book.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to frustrate you! I was only trying to give prompts. If you don’t know why she is doing something, or it’s just a habit, then I don’t know that it is useful to write it.
I think you have lots of promise, there are some really good bits, I agree the bit about Alcoholics Anonymous is good, it tells us lots about her and her background in such a short sentence, gives insight into where her anxieties may come from, without spelling it out.

The main problem is that no one actually thinks in this sort of language, so it's hard to connect with the character.

Haste forced my head down?
Ignorant to the disadvantages of speed?
Dishonest cocoon?

I've taken the most recent text and thrown together a rough rewrite that does more showing and achieves the things you say you want to achieve in your post (introduce character, introduce setting, show her loneliness).

It's far from perfect, and there could be more setting/atmos, and I've embellished a bit to give her background/character, but it's just to show (ha) the kind of thing that some previous posters are trying to explain (possible TWs BTW), and how it can be achieved with very simple language:

.

I was six years old when my best friend stopped waking up.

She’d been sick for months. Too tired to play. Too tired to even see me.

Until one day, she fell asleep and never woke back up.

At least that was what they told me at the time.

I still think about her several times a week on the journey to work. It’s hard not to think about your dead childhood friend when you're paid to spend your life in NICU.

My mother went two years after that. The AA meetings—which eight-year-old me assumed was some sort of car club—gave her plenty of platitudes with which to lecture me, but did nothing to actually save her life.

Be grateful for the things you have.

Right now that consists mostly of sleep deprivation and no social life.

Thanks Mum (sponsored by AA).

London rushes by outside and I rest my head against the bus window. But it’s only a brief respite, and within moments I’m standing up along with a dozen other passengers as we arrive at my stop.

I will not be late today.

splishsplashshow Do you write?

OP - are you writing about yourself?

@Dhapeer yes, but not usually this kind of story, which is why it’s only a very rough/incomplete rework. I might have been procrastinating on my own work yesterday...

BTW OP I might recommend Ellen Brock on YouTube. She’s a professional editor and has lots of helpful videos on this sort of thing.

Hi OP I think coming on here and being brave and asking for criticism is something that already shows you could be a great writer. It's the people like me who are too scared and just moulder away in solitude writing pretentious crap who never get anywhere!

Reading the discussion so far I thought this writing exercise might be useful. It's trying to get at the difference between showing and telling character that HollowTalk and others have mentioned.

www.homeworknow.com/uploads/7343b10605e810e600b825f4bd111088.doc

The intro is waffley but the assignment itself is good.

@Hollowtalk
"I think that rather than writing a couple of paragraphs and putting them up here for criticism (which will always hurt, even if you've written the equivalent of Pride and Prejudice) perhaps try to get the chapter written and move on with the next."

I can see the logic in that.

I've seen The Bridge but don't remember it, I'll try and find it on All4.

@Slishsplashshow Thank-you for doing that, I especially like the last paragraph. I'll check out Ellen Brock, love getting lost in YouTube.

@Dhapeer Nooooo. Well, I'm, sure there are bits of me in her, and I guess I'm drawing on my own experience of loneliness, but no I'm not planning on writing like a half memoir or a novel as therapy.

@TippetyTapWriter I do love feedback, how else can we learn. I'm looking into the exercise now thank-you.

Maybe, alongside the 1000 other gaps in my ability, the fact that I'm writing in 1st person isn't helpful. Maybe she is constraining the writing?

Take this quote from The God Of Small Things:

"“D’you know what happens when you hurt people?” Ammu said. “When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”

A cold moth with unusually dense dorsal tufts landed lightly on Rahel’s heart. Where its icy legs touched her, she got goosebumps. Six goosebumps on her careless heart.
A little less her Ammu loved her."

This is similar to how I want to write. I think the child is about 8 when this scene is written. An 8 year old couldn't describe the cold moth in this way. But the writer got it in.

Hold on. How did the writer make that work if she is writing from Rahels POV? Is this 3rd person omniscient?

Yes it is 3rd person omniscient - I find that really hard to do and I find I don't get as absorbed in the characters. But then I much prefer to write first person, too.

I think it's good to look at great books - you can learn so much - but realistically you have to realise that isn't their first book and it will be edited by someone with decades of experience. I'm sure authors of great literary works have chucked away sentences, pages, chapters and entire books (even if their work is called a debut novel.)

@hollowtalk

Debut after 10+ years of writing... I didn't even think of that. In a way though that makes me cut myself some slack.

I am going to take your advice and get a good few chapters down rather than copy pasting paragraphs here.

I've switched to third person, tried not to write like a pretentious twat and tried to show not tell. Its very boring now. But at least it is readable and hopefully it is something I can build on.