Project I plan to publish

So here's a project I am currently working on and will continue to work on until it is perfectly finished and I have it beta-read, edited and publishing ready to be able to send out to literary agents. But for now I need your help! A simple enough task; all I need you to do is to answer the following question:

Would you continue reading this if you read this from a book you picked up?

Prologue

“Mom…we can’t do this,” Joseph said.


His sister Ashley and he were situated in the backseat of their car. He had just finished buckling his sister in the booster seat behind the driver’s seat when he turned around and saw his mother dash from their former home and through the angry rain. She wrenched open the door and threw herself in before she slammed it with exasperation. Joseph was beginning to attach his own seatbelt when he saw his father walk out of the house and close and lock the door and, as if the stabbing rain didn’t even exist, lazily slouch his way to the driver’s side and sat calmly in his seat as he closed the door and started the engine.

“Joseph, for the last time, we are moving and that’s that,” she said as she touched up her lipstick in the passenger’s mirror, “Get in your seatbelt!”

“You don’t have yours on!” he pointed out angrily.

“Joseph,” his father said in his quit-f**k**g-around voice.

“But!”

“Joseph!”

“Fine…”

He put his seatbelt on with great reluctance. The car jerked forward as if it too wanted nothing more than to stay. He gave his sister a tiny glance to see her looking out the blurred window in excitement. She loved to ride in the car, loved to ride in anything with wheels, more like. A small sad smile swept across his lips as he held her tiny hand. Ashley swung her head over to look at him with a huge smile on her face and after a moment of some private laughing she took back her hand to pick up a children’s book.

The rain was absolutely unrelenting. Joseph couldn’t even begin to fathom how his father could see where the hell he was driving but they all somehow seemed to manage; save a few potholes and nearly hitting a car that suddenly braked in front of them. Yet despite how careful they were going and the many traffic guides standing in the striking rain with their ghastly bright coats; Joseph couldn’t shake the feeling of growing trepidation. Ashley and everyone else seemed excited in their own ways; his sister loudly read her book in a language unknown to the others, his mother chatted excitedly as she peered through the windows, and his father drove while simultaneously giving responses that usually started and finished with the same word.

“Can we stop?” Joseph asked.

“What for?” asked his mother.

“I,” he hesitated for a brief moment, “I think something’s going to happen. Something bad.”

“Joseph…” his mother said in her your-regrettably-annoying-me tone of voice.

“Please,” he pleaded with her, once more out of his seatbelt.

“Joseph, sit back and put on your damn seatbelt!” his father exclaimed when he peeked at him from the rear view mirror.

Joseph threw himself back into his seat but purposefully neglected to fasten his seatbelt. If his own mother didn’t have to wear one then he shouldn’t either. Besides it’s not like wearing it will change anything. The only ones who were actually wearing them were Ashley and his father. They wouldn’t listen to him; he had been trying to change their minds for a couple of days now. He hadn’t even tried asking them not to move but just to move on a different day.

“Joseph, you better have your seatbelt on soon; we are getting to the highway and I swear if you don’t put it on I will-,”

“Pull this car over and make you regret it, yeah I know,” Joseph finished for his father.

“Good, now do it.”

So he grabbed his seat belt and clicked it on; leaving it there for only as long as his mother and father checked to make sure he did what he was told. Then he quietly unbuckled it and replaced it, all while keeping a sharp eye on the even sharper storm outside.

And he was glad that he did unbuckle his seatbelt too.

Moments after they got onto the highway he heard a loud running horn sound immediately to the left and looked just in time to see a large truck swerving violently towards them. All he had time to do was scream his sister’s name before it hit and everything went dark.

Here's Chapter One:

The Greene Mansion

”Green Around the Mansion,

It’s like a plant expansion,

Grasses, Grasses,

We all fall DOWN!”

And fall they did. Both Joseph Hart and his little sister Ashley went straight down onto the grass. His little sister giggled and rolled with the joy of play as Joseph stayed still. He stared up at the blue sky and watched as clouds passed. He forced himself up and chased after his crazy little sister. She ran every which way around the large front yard, hiding behind the fountain (where Joseph pretended he couldn’t see her), behind one of the many white columns that led to their home (where Joseph purposely looked behind all the wrong ones), to the very edge of the forest that surrounded their mansion like some sort of oppressive cocoon.

All too soon Joseph had to steer her away from the forest; his father had told him to keep her out of it. He didn’t have to ask why. A five-year old little girl would quickly lose her way in its dark, leafy expanse. He ran up past her where he swiftly turned and made a scary face at her and, together, they ran back towards the tall fountain that stood as a proud exclamation to those who visited the mansion.

Ashley suddenly jumped like a spark and took off towards the mansion, Joseph followed in close pursuit. He cupped his hand to his mouth and said very loudly,

“Mission HQ, this is Agent Greene, I am closing in on the target!” to which Ashley answered with a silly scream and started to weave through the white columns.

His eyes and head followed her in a very over dramatic sort of way until he became so dizzy he fell over, face first, right in between the first two columns. He gave a small whimper and groaned from pain. From the corner of his eyes he could see his little sister creeping up to him.

“Joseph? You okay? Are you hurt?” she asked, her voice rich with concern.

“Gotcha!” he yelled.

He made to grab her but she ran from him and straight to the great double doors. He walked towards them as she struggled to open it and eventually slipped through. He followed her through and closed the door where he found his father and sister standing right before the grand staircase.

“Good Joseph, you are here, I need you and Ashley to go get cleaned up for dinner.”

“Alright Dad,” Joseph said as he took his sister’s hand to help her up the stairs.

Oddly, she refused to let him help her and kept squirming away from him until she broke his grip and began climbing them herself. He shook his head at her ever growing sense of independence. With slow and reluctant steps he climbed the stairs and to the right where he ignored the doors and hallway and entered the final door of the balcony, and went straight through his room to his bathroom.

He preferred their last home. Sure it wasn’t as big and fancy, it didn’t have a name. Yet he still thought it was a far more endearing home than this engorged box of a house.

His family now lived in Greene Mansion, aptly named for not only was it completely surrounded by a dense, thick forest, but it practically vomited the color to the point of carelessness. Though the house and columns were predominantly white, the shutters and the tiled roof were a stomach-churning, rich green.

He hated it. Though he could recall his last home with perfect clarity there was just somethin-

“Joseph? Honey?” his mother’s voice cut through his thoughts as he lied submerged in his self-made bubble bath.

Though she stepped lightly and swiftly with her usual sway, her steps echoed mournfully off the tiles. Her clear blue eyes, like his own, seemed to be searching through him. She gently set herself on the edge of his bathtub and curled a strand of hair behind her ear. Something seemed different about her. He did think he was way too old for her to be visiting him while he bathed, “I’m fourteen, get out of the bathroom Mom,” he complained.

“You may be fourteen but you are still my baby,” she said, he realized her smile was gone.

“Whatever.”

“How existential of you.”

“What?”

“Are you okay? Gerard said he you were playing outside again today,” she ran her hand gently over his head.

“I’m fine but Ash-,”

“Dinner will be ready soon, are you going to eat in the dining room?” she asked him. He looked at her curiously.

“I guess. What are we having?”

“I guess,” she gave him a completely unnecessary kiss on his forehead, “you will just have to find out!”

She left him to finish his bath, which he did quickly because he suspected that if he took too much longer the woman would be back to pester him. He dried himself off, carelessly rubbing his hair with his pea green towel and wearily pulled his clothes on. The moment he walked out of his bedroom he saw the butler standing at the railing, waiting for him.

Geraldo Velasquez was his name. At first glance you would think him to be an elderly gentleman with some kind of title or prestige. He definitely didn’t fit what Joseph considered the “butler” type, and there was something in the man’s pale grey eyes that reminded him of something. Something bad.

“All prepared for dinner, young master?” Geraldo asked with a nod of his head.

Whenever the man addressed him, Joseph was always highly suspicious of any hint of sarcasm. Of course he never found any but the man was too preened and far too polite to be so sincere. He allowed the butler to guide him to the dining room having learned the hard way that fussing with him would only prolong the inevitable.

There was nothing particularly special about the dining room. Well that wasn’t entirely true, it was special in a sense but that detail lied in its coloring. It was a breath of fresh air to walk into this room with its powder blue walls and the long oak table with a brown, gold trimmed cloth. He liked this room for the sole fact that it lacked the very namesake of his home.

He wasn’t at all surprised to find that he was seated exactly opposite his mother. He looked quickly around to see where Ashley and his father were and noticed they were more towards the end with his father taking the end seat.

“How was your day, hun?” his mother asked him.

“Huh? Oh it was fine,” he said; tearing his eyes away from his sister kicking the table.

“Would you like to go to school next week?” she asked him.

“Sure, doesn’t it start back up next week?” he asked her and she gave a stiff nod.

“Quit coddling the kid. We moved, it’s not like it’s the end of the world,” his father said from the end of the table.

“I think this will be a good school for you. There are a lot of things you can do there,” she continued.

“Like what?”

“Like drawing?” Ashley asked loudly.

“There are clubs and sports, I talked to a few of the teachers so they understand, you know…” his mother said quietly.

“Understand what?” Joseph asked.

He could feel the heat in his skin rising. There was no denying it, he knew what was coming. For weeks now his mother had been saying horrible things; cruel things that he refused to even acknowledge. He grabbed the sides of his chair, preparing himself to leave.

“Joseph,” his mother spoke his name with such a defeated voice, he almost started to tear up.

“Don’t say it,” his words sounded desperate, pleading, not at all the strong demand he wanted.

“Joseph, I know it’s hard but-,”

“Alice just leave the kid be.”

“-this is something we have to work through together, I’m just as-,”

“Mommy? Are-Are you-?”

“-so please honey, please,” his mother pleaded with him.

“No…NO!”

He threw back his chair and stormed out of the room. Fuming he went straight up to the balcony of the grand staircase where he leaned against the railing opposite his room. It was beginning to get late as the last rays of the sun shone golden through the great circle window above the
stairs. Mere moments later he saw Gerard and Ashley both leave the dining room.

The butler was holding his sister’s hand and helping her. It might have been a trick of the light, or perhaps even his own rampant imagination but he swore he saw a very unpleasant gleam in the old man’s eyes as he watched Ashley contemplate the stairs before her.

Yes I would definitly continue reading this. I think your characters looks interesting and realistic. I really like your details, they make us feel the situation. Well I'm really curious about what is going to happen.

Very well done! This really makes me curious about the rest of the book. I wish I had a back cover to read, dang it!

Nice Story. I Likely,sir.

go for it

I updated the first post with the first chapter

very good Sutebenu! I want to see more

I will be honest with you, it needs a lot of work. You need to take a little more time in editing this, because it stands right now an editor will toss it into a trash-can. While I am not the best when it comes to editing, or writing I can see a lot of mistakes you have made which makes it difficult for me to read. Also I read the story I do not hear the voice you would want to convey its spirit. While you do have a grasp of what it is you want to convey through the third person, you have many incomplete thoughts, actions, and dialogue. From what I am reading you use comma's where there is no need for them what-so-ever. However, I will do you a favor and list a few of your mistakes and let you find them for yourself. Mainly to help you improve as a writer so that you can quickly identify what needs to be corrected.


Mistakes I have found:


--Spelling
--Commonly Confused Words
--Ignored Words
--Incorrect use of prepositions
--Verb agreement
--Punctuation within a sentence
--Closing punctuation
--Formal punctuation
--Writing Style
--Vocabulary use


I will also give you a link toward a Wikipedia entry to help you study. And at the same time suggest you buying a Creative Writing textbook.
Otherwise, I hope you are serious and continue on with your desire to become a writer. Mainly because the art diminishing in quality, as well as minds who will work for the prestige. Good luck.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer's_voice

okay Abel.
I have edited this multiple times (prologue on here is as of yet not the current edited version) but I will have to ask that you do in fact do a line-by-line for me here.

The reason I ask this is because frankly if you have found so many errors then it would be great for you to show them to me so that I can see them. Secondly, it will also be beneficial since I can see what my beta readers aren't finding, some of which are professional writers, editors, and even a child psychiatrist.

I'm not trying to come across as snarky or anything; I am seriously concerned if you have found all of that to be so erroneous in my writing and none of my beta readers have said the same to me.

Normally I wouldn't do this, but because you're sincere in your pursuit I'll go over it and give you a list privately next week. Probably toward the weekend at the latest. The reason for this is because normally occupied with work, and my own studies with English Grammar. It's not a large secret that I am studying to become an author myself someday. But I will give you fair warning like someone who is a better writer than I once said; Becoming a published author is no small wonder in the world since 90% of submitted materials are rejected.