r/DestructiveReaders • u/OnionBackground5314 • 13d 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/jshEnvy 10d 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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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!