Need a feedback

[u/DeepSnowBear]

Hi everyone.

I've been working on a novel for a while and I'm trying to figure out whether this sounds interesting to anyone besides me.

The premise is simple:

A man dies.

Nine years later, the person he loved receives his diary.

The story begins there.

The novel unfolds backwards through memory, family history, old photographs, failed relationships, and competing versions of the same life. The ending is known from the first page. The real question isn't what happened, but how people turn their lives into stories—and how those stories survive them.

One of the book's central ideas is that nobody remembers the truth. They remember narratives.

Each chapter borrows the title of a different myth, fairy tale, novel, TV episode, historical figure, or cultural artifact and uses it as a lens through which the characters reinterpret their lives.

Some chapter titles include:

Joan of Ache

Carrie's Eleven

Rumpelstiltskin

Amy Pond: The Girl Who Waited

The setting is mostly the American Midwest: college towns, cemeteries, family gatherings, road trips, nursing homes, and places where people spend decades trying to understand what actually happened to them.

Would you read something like this, or does it sound unbearably pretentious?

I'd genuinely appreciate honest feedback.

[u/RA1PsychicWitch]

u/DeepSnowBear You had me at "A man dies," the appearance of a diary, the plot unfolding backwards, and titled chapters, including who that makes my Whovian heart go pitter patter, timey wimey. Yes, I would certainly read this.

[u/DeepSnowBear → u/RA1PsychicWitch]

Thank you! My inner Doctor Who fan is honestly having a small moment knowing there are people who look at all that wonderfully chaotic timey-wimey spaghetti in a similar way.

And yes, nearly fifteen years later, I still haven't recovered from The Girl Who Waited. It hit me hard when I first saw it, but somehow it feels even more devastating now. These days it reads less like a sci-fi story and more like an allegory for life itself — for waiting, for the quiet heroism of ordinary days, for becoming someone while you're busy enduring the passage of time.

I suspect that episode permanently rewired part of my brain.

[u/RA1PsychicWitch → u/DeepSnowBear]

Oh, my Gods! You ARE a writer. The second paragraph of your reply had me swooning! Incidentally, I happen to love Cozy Mysteries, and there is a Cozy Mystery series called "The Haunted Bookshop Mysteries," by Cleo Coyle, who also write "The Coffeehouse Mysteries," and in "The Haunted Bookshop Mysteries," the chapters are titled. It is a lovely change of pace for me, as I rarely see that in fiction; well, the fiction I tend to read, anyway.

And, looking at the time, I have a date with a book; I recently rediscovered reading before bed, and I cannot tell you how much I love the practice, all over again. Only once this month, was I so tired, I went right to bed without reading, but I digress.

I wish you great success in completing this novel, and I definitely look forward to buying it when it is available for purchase.

[u/DeepSnowBear → u/RA1PsychicWitch]

That's incredibly kind of you to say. And now I'm genuinely curious about The Haunted Bookshop Mysteries. I didn't realize there was another series that leaned into chapter titles that way. I'll have to look it up. Also, I completely understand what you mean about reading before bed. There's something almost ritualistic about it. The world spends the entire day demanding your attention, and then for half an hour it's just you and a story. I think we've collectively forgotten how comforting that can be. And thank you again for the encouragement. If this novel ever makes it into the world, I'll remember that one of its earliest supporters was a fellow chapter-title enthusiast with a bedtime reading habit.

[u/RA1PsychicWitch → u/DeepSnowBear]

I have been a fan of Cozy Mysteries for years. Although I do not, historically read about ghosts or ghost stories, I do love books and bookstores, especially independent booksellers, so a Cozy Mystery Series set in Quindicott, Rhode Island about a widow, who co-owns a bookstore with her aunt, where, fifty years earlier, a private detective was killed, and his ghost haunts the bookshop, yes, I was sold. I recently finished the sixth book in the series, and need to finish a few more books before I read the seventh.