New novel hopeful

[Thumpalumpacus]

A good story can suffer a weak plot, but the best plotline will not be read if the characters aren't compelling.

Get out in public. Listen to how people talk, observe their mannerisms, study personalities, and import them liberally.

[Clueless Morgan]

Let me begin by pointing out that you said in your OP:

Let me know what you think; be honest.

Those were my honest opinions.  I wasn't saying that stuff to rag on you, I was saying it because, as a potential reader, that's the kind of stuff that I, the reader, had problems with.  There's no need to get defensive.  If your goal is to get published (you never clarified this point) then you're going to have to get used to being critiqued, and sometimes having those critiques not be all that nice.

Might I add, you don't have to accept my critiques if there is a strong narrative reason to keep something how it is (I don't, for example, know where this story is going or what exposition needs to be conveyed to the reader), but there had better be a damned good reason for confusing a reader before you've gained their trust.

Regarding your first point.
How should this character know why the internet is still working when the world has basically gone to shit?  
It works, and that is all he knows.

My point is that assuming that you're the last person on the planet when you still have things like working internet and electricity seemingly months after the world apparently went to hell makes me, the reader, think the narrator isn't that bright.  As a reader, I'm thinking "Why can I figure that out and the narrator can't?  Of course there are other people in the world!"  If you think about how the internet works, it's contingent upon infrastructure that must still be functioning which implies that there are people maintaining said infrastructure - UNLESS this is some futuristic world where internet is powered by biotechnology and not a functioning power grid which is required to charge/run devices upon which you access the internet.  I, the reader, did not see anywhere where any sort of future-tech is mentioned which tells me, the reader, that the story is taking place in the present day which tells me, the reader, that there are other people in the world who are maintaining the infrastructure, thus, I, the reader, have little choice but to conclude that the narrator is a dunce who can't figure out in several months what I, the reader, figured out in the first handful of paragraphs of the story.

This is what I, the reader, am getting from what you wrote.

Regarding your second point.
He wants to bring the cat with him, because honestly what else is there?  To abandon the cat?  Is there any assurance that the cat can survive on its own?

I'm a cat owner, okay.  I looooove my cats.  My cats are indoor cats (for all intents and purposes) and if the end of the world happened tomorrow and I had to leave home and travel 1000 miles away, I would absolutely set my cats free.  It would break my heart, I would miss them every day, I would worry about them like crazy, but I would rather have them free than utterly terrify them by crating them and packing them around with me on the back of a loud, windy motorcycle.  Like I said, unless a cat is already used to that kind of thing (which needs to be established in the story if that's the case), all it would do is terrify it so the second the narrator opened the crate, the cat would tear off into the woods (or suburbs, or city, or where ever he stops) and he'd never see it again anyway.

As for the assurance that the cat (in the story) could survive on its own - are you serious?  It's a cat.  It'll learn to hunt if it hasn't been hunting for itself already.

If you're really set on having an animal companion, I'd find it all much more believable if the animal were a dog.

Regarding your third point.
The clawing at the door was the front door.  The cloth door is the bedroom door.

I think this needs to be clarified in the narrative, then.

Regarding your fourth point.
When I speak to my cat, I speak to her.  Mouthing is a natural retention of that, even if it is silent.

I talk to my cats, too.  But in a survival situation where you think you might be attacked, I wouldn't be mouthing to my cats, I'd either think those thoughts, or whisper to them.

Just me...

Regarding your fifth point.
There was no need for him to stick around.  He already knew what was out there was dangerous.  Thus the haste.  He was not sticking around to die.

If he already knew what was out there was dangerous, why didn't he just run?  Why did he go to the door, shout "hey!" and then run?  That does not read as "haste" to me, that reads as "spineless narrator loses nerve and runs instead of fights."

I am not trying to write stupid characterizations and stupid scenes that people expect.  Only a stupid character in a regular novel would stick around to check out the danger.

First of all, I didn't say you were trying to write stupid characterizations or stupid scene.

Second of all, some readers might call a character who sticks around to fight off an attacker brave.  It all depends on the story, the character and the circumstances.  As it is, I have no idea whether this character is a brave guy who will fight off the scary thing at the door, or a smart guy who knows to run from the scary thing at the door when he hears it coming, and what you've shown me is a sort of split-the-difference-and-kept-the-bad-stuff situation and turned your narrator into a nancy-boy who acts like he's going to confront the scary thing at the door and then runs away when the opportunity to fight presents itself.

If you're saying your character is smart, then show him being smart.  What you've shown so far (in the first two chapters) is a character who hasn't done anything but whine and reminisce and make bad decisions like leaving behind a shotgun in favor of a cat in an end-of-the-world situation.  That's the very opposite of smart to me.

I do not need my readers screaming at my characters to not be so dumb.

Then don't make your narrator dumber than your reader.

(And I wouldn't be so dismissive of reader-response: sometimes you want your reader to be screaming at the narrator not to be so dumb, especially if doing so increases the tension or intrigue in the story.)

My characters are a reflection of what humanity should be, not of what brainless readers want.

Well, now that I'm a brainless reader, I guess I won't continue reading.    That's a shame because I was actually interested in how you might revise these chapters.

Also, if you don't give readers even a little of what they want, then you won't have any readers.

[Silver]

Clearly, the pact I made with the devil did not come to pass, for I am not a great writer.

[Jenny A]

Clearly, the pact I made with the devil did not come to pass, for I am not a great writer.

But you might become one.  Listening to rather than debating criticism, may get you there.  Hint, if we missed your point, then you need to reevaluate communicating the point.

[Silver]

I have been writing since I was sixteen and I am now thirty five. I might get there?

Highly doubtful.

Perhaps I should just write for myself and never share any of it. That seems more logical.

[Lemonvariable72]

I have been writing since I was sixteen and I am now thirty five.  I might get there?

Highly doubtful.  

Perhaps I should just write for myself and never share any of it.  That seems more logical.

Why take it so hard? Why not just take the ciriticism constructively and work from there. I for one wanna read your story.

[Clueless Morgan]

Clearly, the pact I made with the devil did not come to pass, for I am not a great writer.

But you might become one.  Listening to rather than debating criticism, may get you there.  Hint, if we missed your point, then you need to reevaluate communicating the point.

100% agree.  I spent about half my academic life (pre-university and university) in some sort of artsy program and there are days in those programs where you sit around and critique each others' work, and get critiqued yourself.  I've been told that my presentations were badly laid out, that models I've built were hideous, that I missed the point of the assignment, that nobody in my crit group understood my piece or my design, and on and on...  They weren't telling me this stuff to be mean to me, they were telling me this stuff so that I could better understand how OTHER PEOPLE were interpreting what I was doing so that I could improve in future projects.

That's what critiquing is all about: finding out just how successful we, as artists, designers, writers, etc., are at communicating what we are meaning to communicate to our audiences.  We don't get anywhere as artists by stroking our own egos or getting down on ourselves when we trip over our own feet, but when we can find out from others where we're falling short in our efforts we can take steps to improve.

I have been writing since I was sixteen and I am now thirty five.  I might get there?

YES!!

It's natural to be biased to our own work - we, after all, are the one making it, pouring our sweat and blood and tears and time into it, we know all the awesome things about it and why everyone else should think it's awesome, too, so when we finally present it to the world and seem to fall flat on our faces it's reasonable to want to retreat back into our safe little bubbles.

Believe me, Kitan, I've been there.  I know what it's like to present something I thought was spectacular, or that I was really excited about, only to have someone I really respect tell me it was awful - and not only that it was awful, but tell me exactly how it was awful and to what degree I had achieved that awfulness.  It makes you want to crawl under a rock and die.

Go ahead and crawl under that rock for a while and lick those wounds, but if you want to improve you have to eventually come out, dust yourself off, and honestly assess if that person is making a fair point in their critique.

You know what?  That presentation I put together was pretty bad.  And that model was really ugly.  And what I learned from those mistakes made my future work better.

Use this opportunity to improve your work.

Highly doubtful.

 

Not highly doubtful unless you start to open yourself up to constructive feedback.

Perhaps I should just write for myself and never share any of it.  That seems more logical.

If you want to professionally pursue writing, find yourself a writing group and start sharing your work.  Listen to the feedback you are getting and don't take it as a personal attack, take it for what it is: people sharing with you ideas on how you can improve your work - and in turn you get to read their work and share with them how you think they can improve their work.

[Silver]

If you want to professionally pursue writing, find yourself a writing group and start sharing your work. 

I did have a writing group I was a part of, an E-zine, but the site was shut down.  

I haven't been too moved to attempt to find another online writing group.

[Clueless Morgan]

If you want to professionally pursue writing, find yourself a writing group and start sharing your work. 

I did have a writing group I was a part of, an E-zine, but the site was shut down.  

I haven't been too moved to attempt to find another online writing group.

I can understand that.  From what I gather, it's hard enough finding a good writing group, let alone a writing group that manages to stick together and actually function for a decent period of time.

Do I understand, then, that you're going to attempt to go pro at some point?

[Clueless Morgan]

Oh, also, I was watching Jurassic Park last night and got to thinking of you and your story.

What struck me in particular that might be of interest to you is how the characters (Dr. Grant, Ellie, Ian Malcolm) become the voice of the audience asking Hammond all the questions that the audience would be asking and expressing the same kinds of concerns that the audience might express.  "How can you be sure the dinosaurs aren't breeding in the wild?" "Because they're genetically engineered to all be female."  "How can you be sure the animals won't spread off the island?" "Because we've given them this Lysine deficiency where if we don't 100% supply them with Lysine they'll all die." Etc.

It gives the audience essential expository kinds of information but it also serves two other functions: (1) It makes the characters look smart to the audience in a "hey, I was just thinking that!" sort of way, and (2) it gains the audience's trust by asking and immediately answering a question, so that when you come to a point where you have a hanging question the audience trusts that that question will eventually be answered.

I'm not saying that this example exactly translates to your story since, you know, you only have a single character (so far) and don't have the sort of luxury of having the Hammond character there to answer questions, but I think your narrator is sort of the Hammond character, and your readers are the Dr. Grants - we're asking questions about the story that your narrator has the opportunity to address and answer right away so that when you get to the big story question of "is this narrator really the only person left alive?" (Which is my understanding of the story so far) and leave the audience hanging, you've already invested the time gaining their trust so that they're more likely to stick with you to see where things go.

Does this make sense??