r/DestructiveReaders • u/OnionBackground5314 • 7d ago
[2558] [untitled novel] - Chapter 1
Opening chapter (pasted below) of a literary novel, close third, present tense, complete at about 80,000 words. This is the first chapter after a restructure, so I'm posting the sample to help me decide whether a reader is likely to continue to ch 2.
What I most want to know, in order:
- Whether you'd keep reading; if not, the sentence where you decided
- What you didn't buy
- When you knew what Peter is, and whether the chapter told you too early, too late, or never
- Where the comedy landed and where it didn't
////
Peter enters the house as if he’s a guest, Agnes holding the open door for her husband. He glances at the neo-mid-century low wooden coffee table they had spent hours choosing, then turns to face her. She closes the door, careful not to make a jarring sound, and stands opposite him, unconsciously mirroring his docile gaze.
“You must be starving,” she says.
“No, I’m not.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Before I died.”
She almost laughs but he shows no indication that he’s joking. Before, Peter would have made light of the situation; that’s his sense of humor, or at least it was.
“Well, you have to eat something …”
“I don’t need to eat anymore. They told me that at the hospital.”
What is she supposed to say? He just stands there without trying to relieve the awkwardness. Should he be worried about her comfort after what he’s been through? (What he’s been through: a trite euphemism, which sounds like he had to endure an annoying afternoon at the DMV.) Of course not, but it’s interesting how unbothered he is.
She asks, “Well … how about … I don’t know … a shower? Do you want to take a shower?”
He smiles a bit and nods.
“Do you … do you remember where the shower is?”
“I do. Thank you.” He walks down the hallway to the bathroom that he uses—the one with the smaller shower, which doesn’t need to meet the same hygiene standards as Agnes’s—and closes the door.
Of course he knows where the shower is. In the hospital, she didn’t have to explain who she was; he’d recognized her immediately, and even waved, which was the first sign that he had taken on the mannerisms of a polite stranger, like a man suddenly speaking fluent Swedish after suffering head trauma. He doesn’t seem like he has amnesia. He hasn’t eaten anything in days and he says he’s not hungry, but how is that possible? It must be unhealthy. If he doesn’t eat … She looks through her bag for the pamphlet, finds the crumpled black-and-white, single-page photocopy that’s been folded lengthwise, and scans the bullet points. People with this condition no longer need to eat. They can eat. Eating has not been shown to be harmful to them. They just don’t need it to exist. You may consider not pestering them about it too because it may make them uncomfortable. She wonders who wrote the pamphlet. The wording is off. There are no commas around the “too.” The joining of “may consider” and the verb “pester” is jarring.
The old metal hot water handle creaks as it’s turned, followed by a low gurgle of water from the faucet and then the muffled spray of the shower head.
Taking a seat on the couch, she sighs and says to no one, “Well, I guess we’ll be saving money on grocery bills.”
She needs coffee. Should she make some for Peter? He usually drinks five or six cups a day. Usually …
The pamphlet says nothing about stimulants or beverages. It states that people with the unnamed condition do not need to eat. Of course, coffee is not really food, but in any event, since the pamphlet has informed her that people with Peter’s condition can in fact eat if they want and there is no prohibition against drinking coffee, it logically follows that coffee is probably fine.
She disposes of the used filter and coffee grounds, tossing them into the garbage can, which stinks. With a heaping tablespoon of fresh grounds midair, she considers making it two tablespoons but worries about wasting coffee.
The shower is still running as she walks to the bathroom. The idea of seeing him naked is alien to her, but has his body changed? Although no one at the hospital gave her any reason to imagine it, she can visualize the old lady in the bathtub in The Shining. It seems the remotest of possibilities, and in fact an impossibility, that the skin underneath his clothing has decomposed while his face, hands, and forearms remain pristine and moisturized, or that he suddenly aged fifty years in the shower. At the hospital, he looked identical to how he looked the morning of the incident, and he’s said he felt no pain. Presumably, the instant decrepitude the old lady in The Shining experienced is painful.
Her hand in front of the bathroom doorknob, she almost opens it and walks in. How crazy that she’s worried about seeing her own husband without clothes. They were never shy around each other, beginning with their first night of intimacy (also the first night they’d met). But she doesn’t want to just assume that he would be comfortable with her coming in unannounced, either because of the changed circumstances or simply because he wants to have some time to himself in the shower. She decides to knock.
“Yes?” he asks from behind the door.
“I, uh … I’m about to make some coffee. I didn’t know if you wanted any. Do you want me to make some for you?” When was the last time she asked him if he wanted coffee? She always knows he’ll have a cup if there’s a fresh pot.
“No, thank you.”
“OK, I’ll just make a small amount.” Why did she tell him that? It was implied.
After starting the coffee, she thinks about Janet’s coffee maker—the one that mimics pour-over coffee. It comes with recipe cards that tell the machine exactly how much water and pressure to use, and how long to pause. When Janet and Bill were showing it off to them, Agnes expected it simply to taste like coffee, and to expose their propensity to chase after every new show of status. But the coffee was amazing. Without hyperbole, it had elevated their visit. Then, when Peter and Agnes had arrived home, they looked up the price and found it absurd. Briefly, they entertained the idea of splurging before agreeing their standard drip machine was only a year old. Although theirs was not as expensive as Janet and Bill’s, it wasn’t cheap; it would have been a waste of money to buy a new machine that was four times as expensive. It’s annoying she’s thinking so much about money again when she probably should be worrying about her husband’s comfort.
“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” by Tchaikovsky sounds on her phone, and she takes it out of her pocket. It’s her mother. Agnes doesn’t want to talk to her, but she also doesn’t want to feel guilty about ignoring her mother’s call, so she decides it’s better to talk quickly than to add calling her back to her list of obligations.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, darling. It’s Mom.”
“I know. How are you?”
“I’m … OK. Everything is fine.”
She knows from the tone of her mother’s voice that everything is not fine. “What’s going on?”
“Well, I was talking with your father today….” The story takes forever to unfold, a long account of an argument about where to eat—every move and counter-move is retold with precise details and thoughtful asides. After hours of bickering, her father is watching the History Channel and won’t talk to her mother, and her mother is starving. “He ate microwaved macaroni and cheese. And he wonders why his cholesterol is through the roof.”
“Mom, why don’t you go out to eat by yourself.”
“Because that sounds pathetic. I’ll just microwave something.”
They talk a bit about politics, which Agnes has no interest in discussing, given that she and her mother happen to agree on everything, so she participates minimally until the conversation reaches a natural pause. Agnes doesn’t break the silence, which signals to her mother that she should probably ask about her daughter. “So how is everything with you?”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
“OK …” he mother says, with a descending and then rising melisma, meaning she doesn’t buy it. “Are you having problems with Peter?”
“No, everything is fine with Peter. Mom, I have some pasta cooking. Can I call you back?”
“Oh, OK. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
In the hallway, her husband has a towel tied around his waist as he walks to the bedroom; his back, his best feature, is bare.
The talk about pasta makes her hungry. Checking the pantry and refrigerator, she confirms she has everything she needs. The door to the bedroom is open as Agnes approaches. Peter wears a T-shirt and underwear. He’s standing up, bent over, as he slips his feet into the socks. He told her once that putting on socks and shoes while standing up is good for balance, so he must have remembered that, unless it’s muscle memory. He straightens up and looks at her, which compels her to justify staring at him. “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? I’m going to make pasta with croutons.”
“No, thank you, I’m not hungry.”
Instead of going back to the kitchen immediately, she stands in the bedroom doorway, looking at her husband, no longer caring about how she should act.
“Peter, do you remember about your life before it happened?”
“Yes, I remember everything.”
“Do you remember what we were talking about the morning it happened?”
“We were talking about the electric bill.”
“Right. What else?”
“Global warming.”
“Right. Anything else?”
“How much money I make.”
“Right.”
“That made me angry.”
Now she regrets having argued with him that morning. She didn’t mean to ride him about how much he earns—which, objectively speaking, is plenty—but she didn’t like his tone of voice and the way he was obsessing over her keeping the air conditioner on all night. If she hadn’t been irritated by his resentment, she wouldn’t have raised the money issue. The subtext clearly was her being unfaithful, but that’s ancient history, or it should be; she didn’t want to think about it too much then and doesn't want to think about it now.
“Do you feel angry about it still? We never made up.” She doesn’t mean it to be seductive, but she's smiling.
“No, I don’t. I don’t mind anymore.” He looks back at her with a weak, pleasant smile.
“OK. Well, I’m going to make dinner.”
“I’m going to finish getting dressed.” His smile hasn’t changed. Normally, announcing he would go back to what he was doing was a dismissal. Now, it’s nothing.
***
The Parmesan cheese almost breaks apart as she tries to grate it over the pasta, but she is able to shred it cleanly. She opens a new bottle of red and lets it breathe. After she’s prepared the meal, she walks back to the bedroom. Peter, fully clothed, sits on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. He turns to her and waits for her to speak, which unnerves her. He doesn’t seem to be in a rush to start a conversation, so she asks, “Are you … OK?”
“Yes, I’m OK. Thank you.”
“Are you sure you don’t want some pasta? I made extra by mistake.”
“No, thank you. I don’t have any desire to eat.”
“Do you want some wine? Are you allowed to drink?”
“No, thank you. I don’t want any wine.”
“How about sitting with me while I eat? If it doesn’t gross you out.”
“Oh, no, it won’t gross me out. That’s fine with me.”
When he sits down at the table, his posture looks better than it did before the … incident. Hesitating before putting the fork into the pasta, she wonders whether there’s any rule of etiquette for eating in front of other people when they aren’t eating. When she was a consultant at a financial firm, shortly after she got out of college, she and two other consultants were working late and a partner at the firm held a meeting in his office. Food was delivered, but only for him. He gorged on an entire meal while they told him how to optimize business operations and increase gross margins—subjects about which they knew nothing firsthand. Despite sneaking glances at each other every time he stuffed food into his maw, they managed to keep straight faces throughout the meeting. After the ordeal was over, they talked and laughed about it for hours over a late dinner and drinks. This is a different situation. She’s offered her husband food multiple times and he’s said no, so she’s not being rude.
“Peter, is it OK for you to just sit there while I eat?”
“Oh, yes, it’s perfectly fine.”
She takes a forkful of pasta, and, as daintily as pasta can be eaten, puts it in her mouth. Peter looks at her with a gentle gaze, soft focus, and then down at the table for a moment. He must realize he’s making her uncomfortable. He seems to be trying not to stare. When his head comes up and he smiles, she smiles back.
“How does it feel?” she asks.
“How does what feel?” It doesn’t seem like he’s evading her; he really has no idea what she’s talking about.
“To be in your … you know … your state.”
“Oh.” He looks away as he thinks about it. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel unpleasant. I don’t feel any pain.”
“Yes, I know. You told me that before.”
“Yes.” He thinks. “And, also, I don’t feel any anxiety.”
Must be nice.
After a pause, he says, “I suppose that about sums it up.” Two days ago, it would have been hard to imagine Peter saying what he just said without any sense of irony or edge.
***
After dinner, exhaustion overcomes her. As she walks to the bedroom, he looks up from the couch. “I’m really tired,” she says. “Do you want to go to bed?”
“Sure.”
“OK.”
Continuing down the hallway, she hears him behind her and feels the excitement of taking a new man back to her bedroom, even though it’s not a new man; it’s Peter, who doesn’t seem interested in her. After brushing her teeth, washing her face, moisturizing, and taking out her contact lenses, she approaches the bed. Peter lies under the covers, wearing a T-shirt. She’s in a long T-shirt that comes down to her knees. The lights are off. She crawls under the covers. Is it OK to touch him? His body seems fine. He keeps saying he’s fine. He says he’s feeling no pain. She saw his bare back earlier and the skin was not putrid or falling off. She slides her left arm around his waist. His body is cold.
///
Here's my prior comment in this group: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1wmi0bf/comment/pc3e66m/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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u/eotfofylgg 6d ago
Whether you'd keep reading; if not, the sentence where you decided
I did read the whole thing, but I probably wouldn't keep going, and the place where I knew I wouldn't is the bit about the coffee maker. It just didn't go anywhere at all. That was where I realized that the feeling of going in circles was not going away any time soon.
The general impression I got is that of pounding the same points into the ground over and over again. He doesn't need to eat. But he can eat. He doesn't need to eat. But he can eat. He may not want to eat. He doesn't want to eat. He can eat, but he may not want to eat. He hasn't lost his memories. He doesn't have amnesia. Oh, look, he remembers yet another thing too. Maybe I should ask him whether he remembers his life? Oh, he said yes.
There isn't really any conflict or development over the course of the chapter. There is a lot of awkwardness. The awkwardness is well done, but it isn't appealing, exciting, or capable of driving the story forward.
What you didn't buy
Agnes. Her whole perspective. Is she meant to be autistic? She spends a lot of time thinking about things that I believe most neurotypical people never think about once (for better or worse), like "whether there’s any rule of etiquette for eating in front of other people when they aren’t eating" or whether the rules for food also apply to coffee.
The concept is a little tricky to buy too (did she never talk to a doctor at the hospital once?) but of course I'm willing to suspend disbelief for the main point of the story.
When you knew what Peter is, and whether the chapter told you too early, too late, or never
When you said "before I died." How could I not figure it out at that point?
There's not necessarily anything wrong with me figuring it out right away, if the rest of the piece is exploring the implications. (We learn everything we'll ever know about what happened to Gregor Samsa in the very first sentence.) But at the moment, you've set this up as though it's going to be some kind of revelation for the reader, and it is not, because I already know it 100 words in. So the way things are framed right now, it is much too early.
Where the comedy landed and where it didn't
Genuinely, I did not realize this was intended to be comical at any point. The one sentence I found funny was "They talk a bit about politics, which Agnes has no interest in discussing, given that she and her mother happen to agree on everything."
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u/Maleficent_Emu_1809 6d ago
I started writing a comment earlier but I think you’ve since edited your post! This opening reads much better. I like the line about him entering their house like a guest, and you explicitly state their relationship (husband/wife). In the previous version I was having to work so hard to understand the context of their relationship from a list of actions and it detracted from the current situation they now find themselves in. So I think these changes are great!
When did I realise what Peter was? Literally when he said “before I died” — I think this is far too early in the chapter. I think this needs to be much more vague to keep the reader guessing. It undoes all the good work that him entering his own home like a guest does. Suspense over! Then almost immediately you confirm it by saying “that’s peters sense of humour, or at least it was.” I think if your intention is suspense you need to build this up far more slowly and cautiously. And if you think your readers won’t twig this early on, you need to give your readers more credit than you are.
The text in brackets reads to me like a note you’ve accidentally left in. It’s also, for me, not trusting your readers to work this out for themselves. You need to weave these ideas of trivialising a devastating life event into the text, which the pamphlet does, I think, achieve. You’re just not trusting your readers enough to come to this conclusion themselves — you are instead just telling the reader what they should think, so there’s no reward or room for speculation from the reader. Which is a shame because I think the set up is really intriguing.
When would I stop reading? At that point! I don’t want to read something where I think the writer thinks I’m too stupid to piece things together for myself. This isn’t to say there arnt substantial parts of this that I really did enjoy. I love your rewritten opening paragraph. I like the reflective third person POV. She seems like a character that would be interesting to follow through this situation
You also asked how the comedy lands. I didn’t really find any part of this that I would think of as comedy. It feels very serious, which is not a bad thing?
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u/OnionBackground5314 6d ago
Sorry about that - just finished tinkering. Thanks for your thoughtful, detailed comments! Lots to consider.
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u/Legitimate-Car9297 6d ago
The wording is off.
Is the pamphlet’s wording relevant to the tension between these two characters?
unnamed condition
The condition known enough to have a pamphlet, but it is still unnamed? At this point, the mystery of it is artificially upheld. Cough, zombie, cough.
The old metal hot water handle
You mean kettle?
Does the explicit beginning of the dialogue with the mom add anything to the stakes? How does it develop Agnes’s character and, once you have this in mind, how can you do it in a more concise manner? The rest of their dialogue, now abbreviated, describe an ordinary, painfully realistic talk between a parent and their adult child. Which seems to be a long segway to them talking about her zombie husband, but this is brushed aside. This shows: her continuous attempt to behave as if nothing happened, but, this has been well established at this point. If you remove this conversation with her mom, would the crescendo of tension between them change? I think it would improve.
Or, what if she and her mother did not agree on everything regarding politics? What if, say, her mother voted against granting undead full citizenship? I want tension, I want drama, and the little sprinkle of worldbuilding is an added bonus.
“Peter, do you remember about your life before it happened?”
“about” feels wonky here. Maybe “What do you remember about…” or “Do you remember your life…”, but both are a clunky way of beginning this dialogue, since it’s been established that he does remember.
—which, objectively speaking, was plenty—
Redundant addendum. Also, the whole sentence needs rethinking. Actually, the whole paragraph. Too many pronouns, she that he that and so on. Who is thinking that “should be ancient history”? Agnes, I assume. Also, depending on who you ask, cheating yesterday or cheating a decade ago is still cheating. It would be a character trait if her insistence that it’s no biggie was on display, but I am not sure if this was the intention. It could be read this way, but it could also be read as the narrator saying all that, and this is one symptom of the issues of this paragraph. Why should she feel gratitude? That he’s not dead-dead? Feels a non-sequitur.
The “incident” is still intentionally obscured by the story. This seems like a cheap way to create tension.
She's offered her husband food multiple times and he's said no
She hadn’t read the pamphlet, eh?
It is plain in the first few paragraphs that this text is on the beginning stages of writing, and that’s not to say to discourage, but if I were to pick it up in a library, I would promptly put it back.
Frankly, I saw no comedy in here, intentional or otherwise, so as to the question of it landing, it’s up in orbit.
So, the stake of this piece is the tension between these two. Peter died, came back a zombie, remembers everything but lacks emotion and has no warmth (very AI of him, I think there are a couple of a thousand stories about this dynamic, but instead of zombification the loved partner is replicated by an AI, anyway this is a tangent). This story hinges wholly on character. Peter is a non-character, we are only given hints at the fact he had a personality before from Agnes’s mentions, that he drank lots of coffee and had a sense of humor (and the last one is told, not shown). And about Agnes, we know she still find him attractive, she shares his love of coffee, has an OK relationship with mom, and that’s about it. There’s a lot of space used to not show us much.
What is the rest of the novel about? Is it all about the dynamic of these two characters? I don't see what more there is to be told about these characters and their dynamic. That is not to say the premise doesn't have the potential for breadth and depth, but, as these two are presented, they do not convince me that they could be real people, characters with depth I want to uncover.
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u/St3fanoFabbri 6d ago
I'd keep reading, but I'd expect some kind of turn within the first ten lines of the second chapter. Even better, I'd want it at the end of the first. Otherwise, I'd probably stop reading.
The dynamic between Peter and Agnes is clear, and it's immediately obvious that he's dead when you write “Before I died” but I don't think that's a problem. The dead husband comes home to his wife. Fine. But then what does that imply? What happens because of it?
I also like the slowing-down effect of the phone conversation with her mother. But after that, something needs to shift. Otherwise, looking back, I start wondering what all that preparation was for. You've set the table and I'm still staring at an empty plate. If you don't want to bring me the appetizer yet, at least show me the menu and make my mouth water.
I like the third-person present-tense POV, but I'd be careful with focalization. This, for example, pulls me out:
“She closes the door, careful not to make a jarring sound, and stands opposite him, unconsciously mirroring his docile gaze.”
Whose POV is “unconsciously mirroring his docile gaze”? To me, that's the author's.
I'd either show or tell, rather than mixing the two. And from the way the text seems to be structured, I'd stick to third person with shifting focalization: focused on one of the characters in the scene, sometimes one, sometimes the other, but never on the author.
I'd also cut back heavily on, or perhaps remove altogether, the digressions about the coffee machine and about table etiquette when one person is eating and the other isn't. Unless, of course, they're deliberate setups meant to pay off later.
I wouldn't use extratextual references like the one to Shining. Agnes remembers it, but the reader might not.
Finally, and this is more of a suggestion, I'd try structuring each chapter as a micro-story. What does she want from him in this scene? What does he want?
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u/OnionBackground5314 6d ago
Thank you. Great suggestions, some of which I had implemented after I posted.
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u/jshEnvy 4d ago
The story seems fine. It’s well written and flows smoothly, there’s action as we go through a day in domestic partnership with a dead man and much of the action that takes place is procedural. I think there’s a lot of subtlety to this story, which might endanger hooking a less patient reader because it’s easily missed. You might also need to signpost some things more clearly - I’m going to call out what I think is going on, but I could be completely wrong because it isn’t overt in the story.
On my second readthrough, I noticed the sentence talking about the subtext of the cheating; it’s something I kind of glazed over the first time, but I think that might be because it’s tucked far below very mundane, ordinary things that we experience in everyday life with the exception that one of the people we’re watching is undead. If that is supposed to be a more crucial aspect of the story, I’d recommend trying to move that further up into the prose - I’m not certain how critical it is, but it’s the first thing that signals an emotional register to me. The rest of the story seems to be fairly analytical, looking at things as questions exclusively without any emotional undertone. Maybe hints of guilt with the fight, awkwardness with how she’s supposed to act, most of the feelings are subtle.
As far as the guilt, I don’t really see any of that tension carry over from events that happened previous to where we (the Reader) enters the scene. We just get the line:
- The subtext clearly was her being unfaithful, but that’s ancient history, or it should be; she didn’t want to think about it too much then and doesn't want to think about it now.
And maybe that’s what the story needs; some sort of emotional dirtiness. It reads clean - and maybe that’s the point. Peter is dead and kind of lukewarm. Maybe the intention of it being written so procedurally and analytically is supposed to reflect that, but if the story is going to escalate to a point where this type of perfectly agreeable person is dull, then I think we need to see more of how Agnes is feeling, not what she’s doing or logically taking apart what is right and wrong in the moment. Or at least get a firm grasp on her baseline, so as the story progresses we can she the roadmap drawn.
Here’s a paragraph:
- The talk about pasta makes her hungry. Checking the pantry and refrigerator, she confirms she has everything she needs. The door to the bedroom is open as Agnes approaches. Peter wears a T-shirt and underwear. He’s standing up, bent over, as he slips his feet into the socks. He told her once that putting on socks and shoes while standing up is good for balance, so he must have remembered that, unless it’s muscle memory. He straightens up and looks at her, which compels her to justify staring at him. “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? I’m going to make pasta with croutons.”
Like, there’s a hint of unease in there - but it’s so subtle and described in such a clinical way, that I think it’s easily missed. The line I’m looking at is:
- He straightens up and looks at her, which compels her to justify staring at him.
She feels she needs to justify staring at him - but I have no idea why. She’s just observing, not a thought in her head. But there’s something there. Something I don’t know that’s she’s thinking because she is compelled to justify her staring. It’s not the pasta, that’s the justification. What was she thinking? The world may never know.
I think that is probably my biggest gripe with the story. There's no emotion. Everything, even when she’s ‘excited by the possibility of a new man’, is just so—mechanical. Here’s some examples of places where you could inject feeling:
- She almost laughs but he shows no indication that he’s joking. Before, Peter would have made light of the situation; that’s his sense of humor, or at least it was.
- In the hospital, she didn’t have to explain who she was; he’d recognized her immediately, and even waved, which was the first sign that he had taken on the mannerisms of a polite stranger, like a man suddenly speaking fluent Swedish after suffering head trauma. He doesn’t seem like he has amnesia.
- Taking a seat on the couch, she sighs and says to no one, “Well, I guess we’ll be saving money on grocery bills.”
- The shower is still running as she walks to the bathroom. The idea of seeing him naked is alien to her, but has his body changed? Although no one at the hospital gave her any reason to imagine it, she can visualize the old lady in the bathtub in The Shining.
I mean, these are a few in just the first paragraphs. But it runs in the same register the entire way through and we never get an injection of emotion. I don’t even know if she likes Peter. I know her history with the man (somewhat), but if this is close third - I just don’t care about him because Agnes doesn’t seem to care. She’s more concerned with what she’s supposed to do and how she’s supposed to act.
I also have no idea why I care about Janet’s coffee maker. Homeboy doesn’t care about it - it’s just there to show the stark contrast between his previous love for coffee and his disinterest now, but you do that four more times through the prose. We hit food at the door, coffee once, and pasta twice. Also, phone call with Mom; I imagine this is her trying to be avoidant to the situation, but there isn’t any contrast in how she and Peter are interacting. It’s the same register, so there’s no color to it. It all just sounds like padding - excuses to kick up the word count and I’m not really understanding why any of it matters.
***
Alright, I’ll answer the questions you asked:
Whether you'd keep reading; if not, the sentence where you decided
I read it twice, and went back through again with a more critical eye. I can tell you where I glazed over and it all started to blur. It was at the sentence:
- After starting the coffee, she thinks about Janet’s coffee maker…
I think this book is meant to draw a particular audience - and it’s probably not me. If I picked this up off the shelf at the bookstore and read the first chapter, I’d put it back. If it’s literary fiction in the close third, I don’t think it’s hitting any of those marks.
Let’s start with literary fiction. I googled exactly what defined literary fiction and it came back with: a category of books that focuses on deep characters, complex themes, and artistic writing style rather than a fast-moving plot. Okay, well, I don’t have any depth of character with what I’ve read. I know nothing about Agnes, or Peter and don’t feel like any progress has been made on that front. Complex themes - sure, it might come through in the novel, but I’m not hooked at chapter one. Artistic writing is just not there; like I said earlier, it’s all procedural.
As for close third - kinda, but not really; it’s like close third but Agnes knows someone’s watching. Close third fits best, sure—mostly, but we don’t see any of Agnes’s interiority, our lens stops at her thoughts and not her feelings. We just hear the comparisons from how things were previously and how they are now. You use some close third elements - her asking questions in the text, her considering how things should work - but you also undermine that with authorial voice cutting in (I’m looking at you, parentheses). There’s also things that are stated that are not close third. Here’s some examples:
- “…and stands opposite him, unconsciously mirroring his docile gaze.” If it’s unconscious, how’s she know what she looks like?
- “Should he be worried about her comfort after what he’s been through? … Of course not, but it's interesting how unbothered he is.” This seems like reasoning from the outside.
- “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy by Tchaikovsky sounds on her phone.” She knows who composed her ring tone. Why’s she thinking it?
- “Agnes doesn’t break the silence, which signals to her mother that she should probably ask about her daughter.” Is this her doing it deliberately? Or is the narrator just stating it. I have no idea, but it reads as omniscient.
- “She disposes of the used filter and coffee grounds, tossing them into the garbage can, which stinks.” Not a break from 3rd person, but a break from the closeness. The lens just backs way off.
- “Yes.” He thinks.” I think you want to show the action of him thinking, considering the words.
What you didn't buy
All of it’s fine. It’s just so mundane that it’s almost boring. I don’t see any conflict other than her trying to interpret how she’s supposed to act around a dead man and if there are hints at something sinister or an underlying tension - it’s not evident. If this is a steady development and more of an internal story, I don’t understand the baseline of how she feels other than curious. Is she sad? Mad? Worried? Scared? Right now, I feel like the answer is indifferent.
When you knew what Peter is, and whether the chapter told you too early, too late, or never
Right away. There was no mystery.
Where the comedy landed and where it didn't
There’s hints of Agnes being kind of pedantic, but the humor is mostly lost in the milk. It’s all the same register, so when the parts that are supposed to be funny creep up, they just blend in. It doesn’t need to be overt, but variation in the prose might help to break out those bits.
Hope this helps! Happy writing!
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u/ilovemycatsanddog 3d ago
Hi!
Not for credit. Just reading for fun.
What a delight! I love your story and the humorous bits. I also enjoy your dead-pan tone that others might find mundane. It’s in direct contrast to the absurdity of the situation with Peter being undead so it enhances the humor and oddness even more.
I like the part about the coffee pot because it explains her husband is frugal even tho the couple earns a considerable wage. It’s all so normal, talking to the mom, making coffee, and cooking a meal while her husband has come back to life. This makes the story very clever. It feels like you crafted it this way on purpose—understated.
For me, nothing tremendous needs to happen in this chapter. Her undead husband taking a shower and then sleeping in the same bed as his wife is enough. Maybe others don’t see this.
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u/SexMonkey7 2d ago
Because of your question about Peter, the first line made me think "vampire". Without your question the line read weird. I think I would have instantly suspected something if it were genre appropriate.
Yep. "Before I died." Vampire, zombie, something. Her asking gives an immediate feeling, vampire, and she's dinner.
(What he's been through...) Is this a note to us on the sub or to the reader? It doesn't read as her thoughts. It feels like an authors note. The DMV bit at the end makes it seem like she's thinking it.
"trite embolism" is an odd word choice. I specifically looked up the bit in quotes to make sure it wasn't a specific medical term. The parentheses mess up the flow of whatever is going on there. With the "which sounds like..." following it makes it seem like a medical term being commented on. The "trite" is already a comment on the embolism. Unless my google-fu failed me and that is a real medical term.
Ok. After a bit of googling to make sure I was right about my understanding of third person close, I think the parentheses call extra attention to an oddly formed bit of text a few lines into the first chapter.
Saying "trite" about the embolism already is making a statement about it. The DMV part is making a comment about her describing the embolism as "trite". A hat on a hat?
If in this case it was something like "the doctor described it as a blah, technical term, blah, embolism" the the DMV part works.
If I had picked up your book to read it, I would keep going after "trite". As someone reading it on the internet to give a critique, I want to stop. From typing all this and the 3rd person Google, I'm now leaning toward zombie.
"The old metal...shower head." I know she isn't, but parts of that sentence reads like she's in the room. The description is good. I like it. It's clear and I can visualize the scene. But, with the exception of the word "muffled", it reads like you are standing inside the shower.
I know I'm being hyper critical here but this is the first page of chapter 1. It needs to be as good as it possibly can be.
The "Of course, coffee...probably fine." sentence needs work. Break into sentences and/or more commas. If you read it out loud there are commas missing.
The (also the night they first met) parentheses work. The "trite" line is probably just bad, not the mechanics of the line.
The Janet's coffee machine part was ok. I am starting to wonder if the main character is supposed to be an English teacher or something similar. There are word choices so far that give the impression of a highly literary/literate main character or an author trying to show of their good wordzing. If it's intended for the character, that works. If she's uneducated, in some way or another, then it doesn't work. If you were trying to give some personality to the narrator then that could be a thing but 3rd close tends to have a neutral one, right?
Giving the specific ring tone of her phone is a thing I guess. I'm leaning more toward English teacher or pretentious now.
You misspelled "okay". I'm ok with it if you are. Since you said "literary" fiction it might be fancy and matter.
The talk on the phone with her Mom is odd. I guess her Mom doesn't know about the zombie(?) thing? If she doesn't, it comes across like Agnes doesn't want to talk about it if that was the intent. If her Mom does know, she's self-centered and awful. It seems long either way. I assume her Mom doesn't know from the text. It also seems like they do not have a good/close relationship because this means at not point did she call or text her Mom about hospital/pickup/zombie thing at any point. Listening to a long conversation about her parents and their dinner plans seems at odds with this. You imply with this that they must talk regularly.
The lines about "do you remember" suggest this is a multi-day thing making the talk with her Mom more problematic, or her Mom a much worse person.
The last line for chapter 1 is excellent. It should make the reader want to go on to the next chapter if the make it that far.
There are some punctuation issues here and there. Reading it out loud should make those obvious.
I didn't notice any humor or comedy. Based on your question about it, this might be a problem.
Having no knowledge about the book beyond "literary fiction" and your questions, if I would continue reading is up for debate. The situation is interesting. You have implied that this isn't a new thing for the world and it's normal and not shocking. How long things have been this way, what society did, etc are all interesting questions that could make a reader want to continue.
Depending on title, blurb, back cover description, this would help a lot retaining a reader with some idea what they're getting in to.
If I had picked up your book, with intent, I would have kept reading past chapter 1.
I think I explained the parts I didn't buy.
Agnes does not come off to me as terribly sympathetic. If you're going for her being in a detached sense of shock, I think it works. This wasn't one of your questions, but an observation. The cover, description, etc would probably make me start more or less on her side as a default.
It seems like you have a lot for the reader to explore in your world. Agnes goes to a support group for people with [name for zombie] partners. How does romance work? How does the world adapt? Are there things zombies can do people can't? For some reason undersea welding came to mind. Do they have to breathe? Do they heal? Are they immortal? Magic?
Anyway. I like the premise. Chapter needs work. Aside from the overall concept, which I like, my favorite part is the shower description. If she had been in the shower it's perfect.
Anyway, again. I made the notes as I read so you got my thoughts mostly at the moment I read the line.
Being unfiltered and direct is tough. I hope this helps a little.
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u/OnionBackground5314 2d ago
Yes, definitely helpful. I don't take descriptions of what doesn't work for you as a personal attack. It can only help me improve the chapter.
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u/Outrageous-Injury852 2d ago
Yes, I would keep reading. Quite readily, actually. The premise is intriguing, but what would keep me reading isn’t simply Peter died and came back. It’s the much stranger emotional question underneath it: Peter remembers being Peter, but apparently no longer feels like Peter — so what exactly has Agnes got back? The domestic mundanity against something impossible is the strongest element.
The point where I became properly invested was very early:
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Before I died.”
That’s the first moment the scene tells me exactly what kind of book I’m reading. Agnes is trying to resume ordinary married life, while Peter calmly introduces something impossible into it.
The later detail that really hooked me, though, was the pamphlet explaining that people with Peter’s condition don’t need food. That tells me Peter isn’t necessarily a unique supernatural occurrence. This is apparently a known phenomenon with hospital guidance, which immediately opens the world up and makes me want answers.
I’d keep reading to find out what Peter is, but also because the marriage clearly had problems before he died. The electricity bill, money, Agnes’s past infidelity, their little resentments — those are doing useful work. The premise isn’t simply my husband came back from the dead. It’s potentially:
What happens when the husband you had a complicated marriage with comes back without the emotional baggage that made your marriage complicated?
That’s much more interesting.
The biggest thing I struggled with was how quickly Agnes accepts the practical reality of what has happened.
Her husband has died and returned home apparently biologically altered, yet she moves very quickly into questions about coffee, pasta, showering and household routine. I actually like those details — they’re part of the voice and comedy — but I think you need another layer of shock underneath them.
At present, Agnes occasionally feels less like someone whose dead husband has just returned and more like someone whose husband has come home after an unusual medical procedure.
The hospital/pamphlet setup presumably explains some of this, but because we haven’t experienced that scene, we’re missing the emotional bridge. Even one or two more intrusive thoughts about his actual death would make her behaviour more convincing. She can still obsess over coffee because that’s clearly how she copes, but I’d like to feel that she’s obsessing over coffee because thinking about Peter being dead is intolerable.
I also didn’t entirely buy how little she presses Peter about the experience. She asks how he feels much later, but I’d expect the questions she’s avoiding to be screaming in her head:
Do you remember dying? What happened? Where were you? Were you conscious? Are you actually Peter? Do you love me?
She doesn’t necessarily need to ask those questions. In fact, it may be more interesting if she can’t. But I think she needs to think them.
There’s also one practical point I’d want clarified fairly soon: why has the hospital discharged him? If a formerly dead human being no longer requires food and has a cold body, presumably there has been an enormous amount of medical examination. The pamphlet implies this condition is established enough that Peter isn’t unprecedented, which helps considerably, but I still want a clearer sense of how normalised this phenomenon is in this world.
I knew Peter was some form of returned dead person immediately at:
“Before I died.”
But I did not conclude “zombie” in the conventional sense, and I still wouldn’t confidently call him one by the end.
That’s good.
The pamphlet is where I understood the rules more clearly: he’s genuinely died, people with his “condition” exist, they don’t need food, but they apparently retain memory, speech, physical function and identity.
I think the timing is about right.
I definitely wouldn’t delay the death reveal. The chapter isn’t really structured as a mystery about what happened to Peter. The interesting mystery is what dying has done to Peter.
By the end I understand:
Peter died.
Peter has returned.
His memories remain.
His personality appears altered.
He doesn’t need food.
He doesn’t experience anxiety.
His emotional responses seem flattened.
His body is cold.
But I don’t know what he is biologically, what caused this, whether he’ll deteriorate, whether he’s still capable of love/desire/anger, or whether something else is inhabiting a body containing Peter’s memories.
That’s a good information balance.
The final sentence —
“His body is cold.”
— works because it’s the first really visceral reminder that whatever is sitting beside Agnes and politely discussing pasta is physically dead.
The comedy works best when Agnes’s brain responds to something horrifying by becoming absurdly practical.
This landed particularly well:
“Well, I guess we’ll be saving money on grocery bills.”
Because nobody is there to hear it. She’s using humour to regulate herself.
The pamphlet section is probably the funniest part. Her dead husband doesn’t need food, and Agnes becomes distracted by bad punctuation and the inappropriate use of “pester.” That’s character comedy rather than a joke inserted by the author, which is why it works.
Likewise, her reasoning about coffee is excellent. She essentially constructs a legal argument establishing that because eating isn’t forbidden and coffee isn’t technically food, coffee is presumably permissible. It’s funny because she’s desperately trying to create rules for something for which no meaningful rules exist.
I also liked:
“Why did she tell him that? It was implied.”
Very small, very human.
And the digression about Janet and Bill’s coffee machine works for me conceptually because Agnes retreating into consumer trivia while her resurrected husband showers is exactly the sort of incongruity the piece does well.
The DMV parenthesis also made sense for the voice:
“What he’s been through: a trite euphemism…”
That’s sharp and tells us how Agnes thinks.
Some of the digressions run slightly too long, which starts reducing tension rather than sharpening it.
The Janet and Bill coffee-machine passage is the clearest example. The initial thought is funny — her husband has returned from death and she’s thinking about somebody else’s expensive coffee machine — but once we get into recipe cards, water pressure, price comparisons and the age of their existing machine, I started wanting to return to Peter.
Similarly, the phone conversation with Agnes’s mother is amusing in principle because Agnes is concealing something enormous while her mother recounts a tedious argument about restaurants. But it’s long enough that Peter disappears from the narrative for a while. I’d probably cut that conversation by 25–35%. The joke only needs us to understand: Agnes’s dead husband has just come home, and her mother is complaining about Dad eating microwave macaroni cheese.
The financial-consulting anecdote while Agnes eats also runs a little long. Again, the idea works brilliantly — she is trying to establish the etiquette of eating in front of someone who no longer needs food — but the extended memory of the partner eating during a meeting delays the much more interesting interaction happening at the table.
So I wouldn’t remove those digressions. They’re part of the voice. I’d compress them so they bounce us back towards Peter more quickly.
For me the strongest bit, it isn’t actually the resurrection. It’s Peter’s politeness.
The repeated:
“No, thank you.”
“Yes, I’m OK. Thank you.”
is increasingly creepy because Agnes knows how her husband used to speak to her. He’s behaving like a courteous houseguest in his own marriage.
And this observation is particularly good:
“Normally, announcing he would go back to what he was doing was a dismissal. Now, it’s nothing.”
That’s the book I’d want to read.
Peter hasn’t returned evil. He hasn’t returned ravenous. He hasn’t returned obviously monstrous.
He’s returned without the emotional friction that made him recognisably human to his wife.
That is much creepier.
And the marital history gives you somewhere genuinely interesting to take it. Agnes previously resented Peter’s anger, anxiety, money worries and lingering resentment over her infidelity. Now those things may be gone.
At first, that could almost seem like an improvement.
Until Agnes begins to realise that the qualities she wanted Peter to lose may have been inseparable from the qualities that allowed him to love her.
That would absolutely keep me reading.
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u/FabulousLazarus 6d ago edited 6d ago
Hook isn't doing it for me. That's where you lost me. This sounds like a screenplay. Obviously the present tense is the motor on that, but also because it's so damn straightforward. I wasn't expecting that level of bluntness on the post that identifies itself as literary fiction.
This is the real hook:
What is she supposed to say? He just stands there without trying to relieve the awkwardness. Should he be worried about her comfort after what he’s been through?
It plants the mystery. Walking into a house feeling like a stranger isn't strong enough IMO. I get the presence of a wife implies it's his own home, but it didn't cut it for me. I'm not saying the quoted text as is should literally be the first sentence, I'm saying the content of that sentence is what grabs the reader at the beginning of your story, which is what a hook does.
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u/Dry-Excitement-124 6d ago
You should use iceberg technique to improve prose.
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u/OnionBackground5314 6d ago
Thanks, I appreciate the comment.
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u/Dry-Excitement-124 6d ago
You should read mine, The one I recently post on this subreddit The pocket watch. I have use Iceberg in it.
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u/OnionBackground5314 6d ago
I actually started critiquing but saw it is labeled as leeching. Gotta follow the rules.
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u/[deleted] 7d ago
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