New novel hopeful

[Silver]

Let me know what you think; be honest.

Here are the first two chapters:

Chapter One

It was the last time before trying to fall asleep that I would stare up at the water stain on the ceiling.

The stain, which my father had never bothered to cover with paint, was in the shape of a witch's face. When I was younger, the image by night light accompanied by my father's drunken and delusional rants from the next room frightened me more than the monsters I watched in horror movies.

Shipsie jumped onto the bed, scattering my thoughts of the past back where they belonged, and I smiled as she laid herself down by my legs. The vibration of her purring could be felt as she engaged in her nightly cleaning ritual, the sound of her licking tongue providing comfort to me.

I looked toward the curtained window, knowing that the sun was soon to rise and that I would need to sleep if I was going to be ready to leave by nightfall.

I had not heard my father's voice in nearly three months, the weather was finally warming up, and I figured it was time for me to venture into the world in search of other survivors.

The world went to shit rather quickly, and if anyone was as smart as me they should have also survived. I was not too optimistic about the survival rate of humanity, however, because the internet was still working and I had not witnessed any sign on the world wide web that anyone else was alive.

I could have been the only person left alive, but even my deep pessimism did not allow me to believe it. Surely, at least someone else besides me had survived. Perhaps the individual who survived had no means of internet access.

Which begged the question of why my best friend who did have internet access was not contacting me. I refused to believe that he was dead. I preferred to believe that he was alive but unable to contact me via the internet through which we had kept in contact for over a year.

I would have traveled north sooner, three months sooner, except that the weather had prevented me from leaving. Snow was a bitch during the winter months, and after what I had witnessed I figured it was safer to wait for warmer weather.

Luckily, the end of the world as I had known it did not necessarily mean the end of certain comforts. The electricity remained, which meant that I was capable of heating myself throughout the cold winter months. In a trailer with thin walls, it was essential that I have that heat.

The electric blanket was a life saver in bed, though I did not spend all my time in bed or even in the trailer. At night, when I knew it was safe to venture outside, I would jog to keep myself in shape.

Getting food was the problem. Thankfully, the farm animals lasted me a while. I felt bad killing them, and I made a huge mess in preparing them for cooking, but hunger does strange things to a person. When the animals were gone, I had to search the pantries of neighbors.

Luckily, I did not have to resort to driving anywhere. That would have been a major pain through snow that no one was alive to clear.

I sighed as my cat finally nestled down to sleep beside me. She looked so peaceful. I wish I could be as much at peace. It was easier for animals, at least when they had someone to care for them. I imagined how many animals died in their homes waiting for someone to come back and feed them. It made me extremely sad to imagine their suffering, their pain at wondering why they had been abandoned.

Shipsie was coming with me during my travels. There was no way I could leave her behind. She might hate being in a kennel on the back of a motorcycle, but I had already figured traveling on a motorcycle would most likely be easier than in a car. After all, the highways were probably congested with automobiles.

There was only so much I could carry on a motorcycle, even if it was a traveling motorcycle that had extra space for that which was essential for traveling.

I could not sleep, even though I had planned ahead, because I was nervous. Would I forget something, would I not find shelter before sunrise, what would I say if I met someone else, would someone else try to kill me?

The world was truly unpredictable because it had changed so drastically. If there were any survivors, I had no idea what they had to do to survive. They could be dangerous to my will to survive, and I had to keep that in perspective.

Was I willing to carry a weapon? It was a thought that was still weighing on my mind. It was a thought for which I had yet to provide an answer. My father had a gun, a shot gun which was too big for me to carry with me, but if I was determined I knew where I could find one.

I lived in the south, after all. Everyone here owned a gun as though it was a symbol of patriotism to be in possession of it. My father had clearly not raised me properly because I was nothing like him, and for that I was thankful.

To be like my father would be a disgrace to reason and logic.

I yawned and I knew it was time for me to sleep. Shipsie was already sleeping, like a good cat, and it was time for me to do the same. She had adapted to the new sleeping schedule much better than I had. Transitioning from sleeping at night to sleeping during the day had been hard.

It took less time to learn endurance for jogging than it took me to learn to sleep during the day than at night. Shipsie transitioned along with me, and I was very glad that she was a non vocal cat. She could have drawn the wrong attention if she was meowing when it was most beneficial to have silence.

Chapter Two

Clawing at my legs awoke me, and I nearly kicked my cat out of the bed.

The sound I heard stopped me, and she stopped when she realized that I was awake. She looked into my eyes as I listened to the sound, and I knew two things.

The sun had not yet set and there was something trying to make its way into the trailer. I was scared, but I reacted with slow precision. The doorway to my bedroom had been absent a door before the incident that had made my survival instincts kick in, but I had done my best to provide some sort of protection.

I was not a man who could build something. I was just me. I had built a cover for the room as best as I saw fit, if a flimsy cloth fabric could be considered fit as a door.

However, I had not left myself completely vulnerable. I had made certain of creating an exit through the floor that would lead me beneath the trailer. I thought of the idea when looking upon my father's electrical saw, remembering the work he had done on creating the bookcase for me.

My favorite authors were placed on the bookshelf, authors who had provided escape from a cruel existence.

There was no more escape, for even though the world had become crueler it was better in many respects. There were no more people to annoy me. Everyone was gone and I was finally at peace.

The only disturbance to the peace I felt was that which had ensured my journey to peace. It was ironic. It was the cycle of life. It seemed that one could never escape that which was annoying.

I had no reason to assume that what was attempting to claw its way into the trailer was human due to the fact that I was not hearing a voice. If it was a human, there were plenty of other unlocked neighboring trailers that could be entered. There was no way a strange human could know that I was where I was.

Baby girl, I mouthed to my cat, knowing she could not read my lips but hoping she would sense my sincerity through cupping her head in my hands. Be a good girl. I will be right back.

I had to head out of the room and down the hall toward the back door. What I was about to do had to be done fast.

Taking Shipsie into my arms, I loaded her into the carrier. I then deftly and as silently as possible removed the hidden door from the floor to reveal the opening to below. I lowered the carrier down and to the side, patting the side of the carrier lovingly with my fingertips before lifting myself back into my bedroom.

I turned toward my night light, the only thing that had kept the cockroaches from crawling over me while I slept, and I turned it off. There was no more need for it. I closed my eyes in the dark and I took deep, silent breaths.

I did not stay still for long. I moved out of my room and down the short hall. It was a trailer and it took moments to move from one place to another. Once at the back door, I opened it wide and shouted out with a “Hey”.

I did not waste any time at the door. I was back in my room within seconds and I scrambled into the hole in my floor. I reached up and replaced the covering as quickly as I could. It was something I had practiced quite a few times, and it was accomplished smoothly.

I grabbed the pet carrier and crawled slowly but silently toward the edge of the trailer, which was only a couple of feet away. Trailers were not that huge. Imagining that I had to crawl beneath a house, I might be dead before I could escape.

I removed the siding from where I had planned my escape and dying light filtered through to where I was. I pushed the carrier ahead of me. Following after my beloved cat, I warily looked around the area. I did not see anything, but I did hear something above me. No doubt something had followed my scent into the bedroom and was wondering to where I had disappeared.

The motorcycle was nearby. I kept it under the carport so that it was protected from the rain. All I had to do was strap the carrier to the back where a person would normally sit behind the driver and I could be on my way out of there. After all, I already had everything packed that I needed for an emergency get-away, and anything else I needed could be claimed during my travels.

I scrambled quickly but quietly from beneath the trailer and strapped the carrier to the back of the motorcycle. Then I reached into my pocket to remove my key chain, straddled the motorcycle, and began my journey toward the north and the unknown.

[Silver]

So many reads and nothing to contribute?

[Iroscato]

Quite intriguing, I'd say. The lack of detailed explanation for 'The End' always works better than describing it at length IMO, and you've made a good start grounding the main character with his human weaknesses and strengths. Not a huge amount that I can really say as it's very short, but I rather like your writing style and setup so far

[Aoi Magi]

hmm, I really like the plot but the narration not-so-much. I personally feel you are moving too fast and, umm, disjointed. I as a reader really couldn't understand your environment much to fully imagine it or build any connections to the characters. So you are on a bed, and then you say the bed is in a trailer, but that really doesn't help one in visualising the environment . Same goes for the cat, a little more description of her to let the reader form a connection would be helpful.

[Silver]

Perhaps you are too used to narrations that are overly boring in their descriptive natures.

I am not attempting to provide a five page description of what a chair looks like as some writers do.

[Silver]

Chapter Three (not yet complete) for all you fans out there.

I had been ready to take a permanent vacation from life when it afforded me the opportunity to survive. People were the problem. They always had been. Growing up, I was always told that I would outgrow my shyness.

What was mistaken for shyness was merely a complicated reaction to everyone around me.

It took me years to figure out, without any need of therapy, that I was empathetic to such a degree that those around me affected me by way of how they were feeling.

Imagine working in retail where one is constantly bombarded by the emotions of others. It literally drove me insane. I attempted to control it, but such a condition is no more controlled than one's sexuality. I was fired and my parents blamed me.

I cowered into my books for refuge, allowing my mind to be at peace with what my imagination could control with no outward interference.

It also became clear to me that people liked me better when I was quiet. It made them uncomfortable at first that I was unwilling to engage socially, but as soon as I opened my mouth I seemed to offend everyone.

My spoken words, I soon learned, were abrasive in a way that others considered too honest and too logical. It seemed that no one wanted the truth. Rather, they wanted sugar coated false happiness wrapped in silly merriment.

Was I sad to see them gone?

Not at all.

After all, I was finally at peace. It was the kind of peace that offered me the opportunity to no longer be bombarded by the emotions of others.

The greatest disaster of the century ensured my peace. Certainly, it ensured the loss of the lives of everyone, as far as I knew, but peace always came at a price.

I could not be certain that absolutely everyone had been obliterated by what stalked during the day, but I did know that I alone had survived in the trailer park where I had been raised by my father.

My travels along the road were no exception. I encountered no one, and I was thankful for the one that mattered to me most.

My cat as the passenger was not the problem and traveling at night was not the problem.

I was cruising along with my thoughts to provide me comfort when I encountered a road too congested for me to pass. All I could think was that clearly the town had been hit hard.

Not to be deterred, I directed the motorcycle off the road and cruised along until I was able to find an opening within the town that welcomed me to Madison Mills.

[Clueless Morgan]

Here are some thoughts (you wanted honest...):

• From what I gather, it's the end of the world in some form or other, this narrator is "the last man standing" and there has been a considerable amount of time between the end of the world and the moment the story starts (the narrator has eaten through all the farm animals and is down to rummaging through cupboards for food).  So, why is there still internet service?  That sort of ruins the suspense for me - if there's internet service than there are people maintaining the infrastructure which means this narrator isn't the last person on the planet.
  
• I'm a cat person, right?  That's, like, the first thing anyone who knows me learns about me.  But I don't understand why this guy is so focused on his cat.  For instance, why he would put it through the terror of riding around on the back of a motorcycle (if this is not something the cat is already accustomed to from "before" then it would only serve to terrify it), or why, in a survival situation he would chose to take his cat on the back of a motorcycle rather than a shotgun.
  
• "Something" clawing at the "door" and the door turns out to be a cloth?  What?
  
• Perhaps the mouthing to the cat should be internal thought rather than actually mouthing words.  If my life were potentially in danger I'd think those thoughts and kiss the cat, not mouth them.  But maybe that's just me??
  

• Once at the back door, I opened it wide and shouted out with a “Hey”.
  
  I did not waste any time at the door. I was back in my room within seconds and I scrambled into the hole in my floor.

  
  Huh??  So the narrator goes to investigate what's causing the sound, but doesn't stick around long enough to even look around??  WTF is going on?  How does the narrator even know that leaving through this escape hatch won't lead him directly to whatever was just outside but is now, presumably, startled some distance away from the trailer and now has a better view underneath it where the narrator is now hiding?  I'm so confused!!!
  

Based merely on these two chapters (I didn't read the third) I would not continue reading.

I think there needs to be more world-building, or at least better establishment of the situation and the stakes.

I don't know who this narrator is or what he wants.  Or, more to the point, I don't care.  Make me care about the narrator.

I don't understand why this guy is so attached to his cat so that needs to be fleshed out.  Establish that this cat is already accustomed to riding around on a motorcycle (otherwise it's just mean!), that it follows the narrator around like a dog or something, and why the cat can't just be set free to fend for itself while the narrator leaves.  Right now it's just a cat.  Make it a character.  And it better have a pay-off in the later part of the story - it had better do something that moves the plot forward in some meaningful way - otherwise leave it behind or don't even include it.

I'm thinking you need more showing and less telling - maybe start the story with the guy going through the kitchen of a neighbor and bringing his haul back to his trailer and that is when this strange noise that the door/cloth happens?  Opening the story with the guy waking up and then info-dumping on the reader isn't keeping my attention, but if this guy were looting a neighbor's house I'd at least want to know why and that's when you could introduce the end of the world stuff.  Instead of telling the reader why the narrator can't leave (because of the snow) show us how he's making preparations to leave as soon as the snow starts to melt.  Start with an exciting scene that sets up the mood and a bit of the circumstances of the story; you can info-dump about the end of the world later.

I get that there's no love lost between the narrator and his father but it's conveyed in exposition right now and that's boring.

The whole "there's still electricity" thing doesn't bother me as much as the "there's still internet" thing.  I could see how a trailer might be running off batteries of some kind (depending on the kind of trailer - is it a stationary trailer or a travel trailer?), but the internet thing completely ruins suspense for me.  Like I said above, internet service isn't just a single thing, it's contingent on there still being some amount of functioning infrastructure which itself implies humans to maintain said infrastructure which removes the suspense of whether this narrator is really the last human on earth.  If this is some kind of futuristic world in which internet isn't reliant on electricity or they've developed biotechnology that powers stuff like internet than that needs to be established up front but as it reads this sounds like it's supposed to be taking place circa now and now we need things like an electrical grid and satellite-communication in order for things like the internet to work.  Not buying it.  Suspension of disbelief is gone.


Frankly, if I were you I'd go through all the novels on my shelf and read their first chapters looking specifically for things like how character is established, how mood is established, how setting is established, how tension in the story is established, etc.  

I've heard that readers (and editors) will often decide on whether they will continue reading a novel based solely on the first 13 lines of a book (which basically equates to the first page), and, to be honest, I wouldn't continue reading this based on what I've read so far.  I'm confused, I'm not invested in the narrator, and I'm sort of bored.


Can I ask what your goal for this story is?  Are you writing it for fun?  Are you hoping to publish it?

[Silver]

Here are some thoughts (you wanted honest...):

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.

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?  As a reader, you must ask yourselves as many questions in relation to any situation as the writer does in writing what he does.  Not all the answers can be provided to you, and most times as a reader one must figure it out along the journey through the book

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

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.

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.

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. I do not need my readers screaming at my characters to not be so dumb. My characters are a reflection of what humanity should be, not of what brainless readers want.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You need to make those points plain to the reader, who is not psychic.

[Lemonvariable72]

. First off you have something here, you use a minimalist style and while you could use a little more showing, characterization, and world building I like it. Your english and grammar are far better then mine. However, your main character needs work:
-He is an idiot for thinking that he is the last person on earth if there is still power, as he is clearly wrong.
-Not having a gun in a scenario such as this set in the south means certain death for him
- We need more about your main narrator, we need to know who he is, and frankly from reading your first chapters I didn't even get that he was a guy. I mean like how old is he even, a teenager? That's my guess, because he sounds kinda like a whiny "I'm so complex and deep" teenager type.
My suggestion (Because I genuinely like what you have here) is start the story off with conversation with his friend, then work into the scenes you have here by showing how he has been surviving and some explanation of what happened. Also do you have any peripheral pieces? Some (Myself included) find it helpful to write character sketches and such before they dive into the writing, for this I recommend a "in character" news piece to help ground the world in your own head.