Hey Wil, I liked this one and it was paced well. Few small thoughts I had:
1) Does Andy need to be named? The punch at the end was a little lost on me because I'd already forgotten who he was. Maybe just go with "best friend"?
2) I think there's more opportunity to probe on "This was it. I would have no other first kiss." You do an awesome job with describing all the things that didn't happen, and how crazy expectations would obviously never be met, but perhaps to Meg's points you could just come out and have the narrator say "I was disappointed" or "I blew it" or whatever you think Walt's feeling. Of note: I remember being disappointed in my first ever real "French kiss" because it happened so abruptly with someone I didn't even really know or like. Kind of a bummer even 30 years later.
3) The end feels a little rushed. Not sure exactly what it needs, but maybe another beat or two would capture the emotion.
All in all, I dug it. These are just some gut reaction thoughts.
1 - Maybe not? Andy was supposed to bring up images of a coach patting the boxer in the ring, encouraging him there at the end after his big K.O.
2/3 - Hopefully next installment addresses some of these recurring concerns about emotion? The reflection bit I meant to be the 'you're choices make you a loser or a winner digression' after the soccer bit at the beginning, which I meant to parallel the kiss (with the watching, with the miss) - but I think I may have whiffed, shooting for atmosphere perhaps instead of clarity.
Me again.😊Here's my sidebar comment, reconstituted for your reader community:
I went back and read your Intro chapter after I had an epiphany about what was missing for me from today's installment - the fabulous voice you gave us in your introduction!!!! Where's that guy?? Grown up, wiser, wittier, finally loved by someone Walt!!! He's telling the whole story, right? Am I right?
Because you could keep some of the distance from "feelings" in chapter one if your plan is to attack this Wonder Years style, where we get to watch the coming-of-age action but are guided by the emotional tone of the voiceover. And if that's the case, you just need more voiceover. A play-by-play from the guy who played the game. Yes? NO? Maybe?
So yeah, the plan is to lead into a junior high is a bunch of vignettes with occasional big voice interruptions, but honestly probably not as much as you'd like, so your comments are very useful in considering how I compile what's to come. Again, thank you for percolating your impressions and pausing to consider how to make Walt Darling better and then sharing your generous thoughts. Truly, I'm genuinely grateful.
I don't know how generous my thoughts were. They were AMPLE for sure. I'll try to condense things better for you next time. 🤏 That's me pinching my comments into smaller bites. There's no sledgehammer emoji. Hang on. ⚒️ Yes, there is.
With true vignettes, I'd actually expect the interruptions to be sparse, because the pictures would be worth a whole bunch of words. Big voice might exist like the person running the slide projector. Remember slide projectors? 🙂
If I may be so bold. This is where I wanted the chapter to start:
"Erica sat beside me. The wind blew her hair. She pulled it back and smiled. I took a big breath and grinned. The smell of lilies was one of the only flower scents I could identify. I was glad to know that if I closed my eyes I would still know it was Erica sitting by me. She traced a smiley face on the back of my hand."
This is the entry point to what (I think) is the most compelling part of the scene. You could sprinkle in the moments that led us to this point, even some of the playground hierarchy stuff, during Walt's distracted moments before the kiss--or even save them for a later chapter! We've all been in sixth grade. And we weren't thinking about swings or soccer or gossip. That's what we were doing, yes. But we were THINKING about "going out" and "kissing". So, drop us right there, friend. We'll know where we are.
You give us lots of action between Walt and Erica. There were plenty of verbs in here, but I didn't always know what was happening inside Walt when those verbs were happening. My favorite thing to practice when I'm writing attraction or crushes is to focus more on what's happening physically inside the protagonist than what they're looking at or doing with their hands, mouth, or body. Yes, those details are necessary so we can see the action unfold, but we only FEEL it when the protagonist gets real with us about what they're experiencing during the action.
Example: "Erica grinned and squeezed my hand. She smelled phenomenal - like hand-soap, but better - like lilies. I pulled at the collar of my shirt. Why do bus windows never fully open?"
Here we have an action - Erica smiling and squeezing Walt's hand. An observation - how Erica smells. Another action - Walt tugging at his collar. And another observation - the bus windows are annoying in that they don't open all the way.
Can you weave in some physical or emotional responses to these things? What happens to Walt's body when Erica smiles and squeezes his hand? Does his neck tingle? Does something else tingle? What is it about lilies that's special to Walt? It's a familiar scent for him and in a good way, so does the fact that she smells like lilies comfort him? Excite him? Make him feel brave? We can guess that Walt is tugging at his collar because he's nervous, but can you show us that? Is he feeling suffocated (because of nerves, hot air, proximity to lily girl) so he tugs at his collar to breathe easier? This way the bus window line makes total sense because the poor kid can't breathe and the damn bus in defective.
Overall, I can SEE everything that's happening to Walt. But I want to FEEL it more. Get me inside his little hormonally overloaded body and make me uncomfortable. I went in caring about Walt because I know you do, and because we're writer pals. But you need to make everyone care about him. So, get in there and make us feel it. Another place to look is the last few lines of dialogue. I don't truly know how Walt feels about what happened with Erica. It sounds like he doesn't care at all, but something tells me that isn't true.
If any of this is useful, I am glad. But toss whatever isn't and forge ahead proudly, Walt Darling. I see many great--and painfully awkward--things in your future.
Feelings? Seriously? OMG. We may be discovering the difference between female written romance and male written romance in this very thread this very moment.
And sorry, are men "thinking" when they get turned on? Doubtful. Or are they "feeling"? I'm not just talking about emotional feelings. Physical feelings, man. They go hand in hand. Or hand in... Whatever. You get the idea. 🤪 😂
ha, it all happened so fast, Walt didn't even know what had happened until he looked up and saw all the laughing mouths and pointing fingers and Erica wiping her cheek. But if I had to guess, vanilla? Because isn't that the taste of every cheek?
I'm thinking in the rewrite of adding a blistering wind, that stills when the class makes their wall and then blows him over when Erica pushes him away and he breaks through their wall to escape, i'll make him fall, scrape his knee, pain, cursing, making the moment a more explicit callback to the soccer game at the start, except instead of everyone cheering, now everyone is mocking laughter!!! hahaha loser.
In my one grown up novel, my protagonist describes her husband's neck as tasting like salty oranges. There's always a little salty in there, I think. Cuz of sweat. 😂 But if you're going for romantic nostalgia, vanilla is nice. Or her cheek could taste the way lilies smell. Something a sixth grader might say. 🙂
Hey Wil, I liked this one and it was paced well. Few small thoughts I had:
1) Does Andy need to be named? The punch at the end was a little lost on me because I'd already forgotten who he was. Maybe just go with "best friend"?
2) I think there's more opportunity to probe on "This was it. I would have no other first kiss." You do an awesome job with describing all the things that didn't happen, and how crazy expectations would obviously never be met, but perhaps to Meg's points you could just come out and have the narrator say "I was disappointed" or "I blew it" or whatever you think Walt's feeling. Of note: I remember being disappointed in my first ever real "French kiss" because it happened so abruptly with someone I didn't even really know or like. Kind of a bummer even 30 years later.
3) The end feels a little rushed. Not sure exactly what it needs, but maybe another beat or two would capture the emotion.
All in all, I dug it. These are just some gut reaction thoughts.
Thanks Amran! Genuinely helpful.
1 - Maybe not? Andy was supposed to bring up images of a coach patting the boxer in the ring, encouraging him there at the end after his big K.O.
2/3 - Hopefully next installment addresses some of these recurring concerns about emotion? The reflection bit I meant to be the 'you're choices make you a loser or a winner digression' after the soccer bit at the beginning, which I meant to parallel the kiss (with the watching, with the miss) - but I think I may have whiffed, shooting for atmosphere perhaps instead of clarity.
Again, very good considerations, thanks.
Me again.😊Here's my sidebar comment, reconstituted for your reader community:
I went back and read your Intro chapter after I had an epiphany about what was missing for me from today's installment - the fabulous voice you gave us in your introduction!!!! Where's that guy?? Grown up, wiser, wittier, finally loved by someone Walt!!! He's telling the whole story, right? Am I right?
Because you could keep some of the distance from "feelings" in chapter one if your plan is to attack this Wonder Years style, where we get to watch the coming-of-age action but are guided by the emotional tone of the voiceover. And if that's the case, you just need more voiceover. A play-by-play from the guy who played the game. Yes? NO? Maybe?
So yeah, the plan is to lead into a junior high is a bunch of vignettes with occasional big voice interruptions, but honestly probably not as much as you'd like, so your comments are very useful in considering how I compile what's to come. Again, thank you for percolating your impressions and pausing to consider how to make Walt Darling better and then sharing your generous thoughts. Truly, I'm genuinely grateful.
I don't know how generous my thoughts were. They were AMPLE for sure. I'll try to condense things better for you next time. 🤏 That's me pinching my comments into smaller bites. There's no sledgehammer emoji. Hang on. ⚒️ Yes, there is.
With true vignettes, I'd actually expect the interruptions to be sparse, because the pictures would be worth a whole bunch of words. Big voice might exist like the person running the slide projector. Remember slide projectors? 🙂
My dearest Wil and my second dearest Walt,
If I may be so bold. This is where I wanted the chapter to start:
"Erica sat beside me. The wind blew her hair. She pulled it back and smiled. I took a big breath and grinned. The smell of lilies was one of the only flower scents I could identify. I was glad to know that if I closed my eyes I would still know it was Erica sitting by me. She traced a smiley face on the back of my hand."
This is the entry point to what (I think) is the most compelling part of the scene. You could sprinkle in the moments that led us to this point, even some of the playground hierarchy stuff, during Walt's distracted moments before the kiss--or even save them for a later chapter! We've all been in sixth grade. And we weren't thinking about swings or soccer or gossip. That's what we were doing, yes. But we were THINKING about "going out" and "kissing". So, drop us right there, friend. We'll know where we are.
You give us lots of action between Walt and Erica. There were plenty of verbs in here, but I didn't always know what was happening inside Walt when those verbs were happening. My favorite thing to practice when I'm writing attraction or crushes is to focus more on what's happening physically inside the protagonist than what they're looking at or doing with their hands, mouth, or body. Yes, those details are necessary so we can see the action unfold, but we only FEEL it when the protagonist gets real with us about what they're experiencing during the action.
Example: "Erica grinned and squeezed my hand. She smelled phenomenal - like hand-soap, but better - like lilies. I pulled at the collar of my shirt. Why do bus windows never fully open?"
Here we have an action - Erica smiling and squeezing Walt's hand. An observation - how Erica smells. Another action - Walt tugging at his collar. And another observation - the bus windows are annoying in that they don't open all the way.
Can you weave in some physical or emotional responses to these things? What happens to Walt's body when Erica smiles and squeezes his hand? Does his neck tingle? Does something else tingle? What is it about lilies that's special to Walt? It's a familiar scent for him and in a good way, so does the fact that she smells like lilies comfort him? Excite him? Make him feel brave? We can guess that Walt is tugging at his collar because he's nervous, but can you show us that? Is he feeling suffocated (because of nerves, hot air, proximity to lily girl) so he tugs at his collar to breathe easier? This way the bus window line makes total sense because the poor kid can't breathe and the damn bus in defective.
Overall, I can SEE everything that's happening to Walt. But I want to FEEL it more. Get me inside his little hormonally overloaded body and make me uncomfortable. I went in caring about Walt because I know you do, and because we're writer pals. But you need to make everyone care about him. So, get in there and make us feel it. Another place to look is the last few lines of dialogue. I don't truly know how Walt feels about what happened with Erica. It sounds like he doesn't care at all, but something tells me that isn't true.
If any of this is useful, I am glad. But toss whatever isn't and forge ahead proudly, Walt Darling. I see many great--and painfully awkward--things in your future.
Yes, be bold! Thanks so much for the thoughtful and detailed feedback 🙏 😊 🙏
💜Send me to jail, emoji police!
That purple heart is for Walt, btw. Just to be clear.
It’s always good to be reminded that in my effort to avoid thought verbs, I should be cautious not to neglect thoughts!
And feelings. Above all, feelings!!!!!
Feelings? Seriously? OMG. We may be discovering the difference between female written romance and male written romance in this very thread this very moment.
😉
And sorry, are men "thinking" when they get turned on? Doubtful. Or are they "feeling"? I'm not just talking about emotional feelings. Physical feelings, man. They go hand in hand. Or hand in... Whatever. You get the idea. 🤪 😂
Ok. I'm compiling you a list of YA books authored by men now...
P.S. Please tell us what Erica's cheek tasted like.
ha, it all happened so fast, Walt didn't even know what had happened until he looked up and saw all the laughing mouths and pointing fingers and Erica wiping her cheek. But if I had to guess, vanilla? Because isn't that the taste of every cheek?
I'm thinking in the rewrite of adding a blistering wind, that stills when the class makes their wall and then blows him over when Erica pushes him away and he breaks through their wall to escape, i'll make him fall, scrape his knee, pain, cursing, making the moment a more explicit callback to the soccer game at the start, except instead of everyone cheering, now everyone is mocking laughter!!! hahaha loser.
we'll see.
In my one grown up novel, my protagonist describes her husband's neck as tasting like salty oranges. There's always a little salty in there, I think. Cuz of sweat. 😂 But if you're going for romantic nostalgia, vanilla is nice. Or her cheek could taste the way lilies smell. Something a sixth grader might say. 🙂