Ping!
In my Christmas stocking I found a bag of jalapeno flavored peanut brittle from my wife. I have yet to try it out.
You gave me impetus to try it.
BTW, your memoir is off to a great start. Good reading and you have me yearning for more.
The writing style seems ok, if a bit choppy—too many short verb-free sentences. Can’t tell much in such a short snippet.
But the content kind of grabbed me. You’ve gotten me curious already about this guy. The dog—not so much.
The New Mexico desert needs more detailed description. Also, the sun in New Mexico is spectacular, especially among the clouds. You could describe the sun more. It doesn’t sound like you’ve actually been there. Also jalapeño peanut brittle must be something you bought in a gas station in Texas.
I just started a novel about Laz..... Chapter 1:
The Great Hot-for-Teacher Debate....I’d tap that!
It was a typical Tuesday evening on the digital battleground that was The Patriot’s Soapbox, an online forum where avatars and aliases danced with keyboards to the tune of First Amendment freedoms. The forum’s reigning champion of irreverence, Lazamataz, perched in his digital lair with a cup of lukewarm coffee and a keyboard that could tell stories of its own. Tonight, however, was no ordinary night. Tonight, Lazamataz was on fire.
“Breaking News,” he typed with deliberate flair, his words dripping with the kind of sarcasm only years of online combat could hone. “Another attractive high school teacher caught seducing a student. Cue the feminist outrage machine and the inevitable double standard. If the genders were reversed, the guy would already be making license plates.”
The post appeared in the “Hot Topics” thread within seconds, where it immediately began to accumulate replies like moths to a flame. Lazamataz leaned back, savoring the moment as his fellow digital warriors joined the fray.
“You’re not wrong,” replied RightWingRanger, whose profile picture was an eagle holding an AR-15. “But let’s be honest. Society’s priorities are all screwed up. We’re out here arguing about morality while China’s building AI assassins.”
“Focus, Ranger,” Lazamataz shot back. “We’re dissecting the societal hypocrisy around attractive teachers. Stay on topic.”
The thread quickly spiraled into what could only be described as a digital cocktail of indignation, gallows humor, and unsolicited legal analysis. But amid the chaos, one thing was clear: Lazamataz had struck a nerve.
“Here’s the real question,” he continued, typing at a pace that would make Mavis Beacon proud. “Why are all these teachers suddenly supermodels? Back in my day, Mrs. Crabtree had a unibrow that could bench press a Buick. Now they’re hiring Victoria’s Secret rejects to teach geometry. Coincidence? I think not.”
The post elicited a wave of emojis, from laughing faces to the obligatory American flag gif. For Lazamataz, this wasn’t just a conversation; it was a performance art piece. And tonight, he was the undisputed maestro.
But as the thread grew longer, so did the pushback. “This isn’t about looks,” wrote LibertyLass, a forum stalwart known for her fiery rebuttals. “It’s about abuse of power. These women are criminals, not objects for your amusement.”
Lazamataz paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He respected LibertyLass, even if their digital sparring often left both parties exasperated. Still, he couldn’t resist one more jab.
“Of course it’s about abuse of power,” he replied. “But let’s not pretend the media isn’t salivating over these stories because the teachers look like they walked off a Sports Illustrated shoot. It’s clickbait 101. And don’t worry, Liberty, I’ll make sure the unibrowed offenders get equal coverage.”
The thread devolved into a mix of outrage, agreement, and everything in between. Lazamataz leaned back, satisfied. This was his arena, his Colosseum. He didn’t need to win the argument; he just needed to keep it interesting. And in that regard, Lazamataz was undefeated.
As the night wore on and the forum buzzed with activity, Lazamataz’s phone pinged with a notification. It was a private message from LibertyLass.
“You’re incorrigible,” it read, followed by a winking emoji. “But you do make a point about the double standards. Maybe dial back the snark next time.”
He chuckled, typing a quick response. “Dialing back the snark would be like asking the sun to stop shining. But I’ll try. For you.”
Satisfied, he closed the thread and opened a blank document on his laptop. The title glared back at him: The Great American Soapbox: Tales from the Digital Frontlines. If he was going to write a novel, it might as well be about the one thing he knew best: the glorious chaos of freedom, fought one post at a time.
keep it all in first person… show us, don’t tell us… and use some m dashes—the super commas for dramatic pauses.
great start… show us whatinspired you to sing…
And "color to draw from" could be changed to "color from which to draw" (or maybe simply remove everything after "color"), to avoid ending the sentence with a preposition (a hat tip to my dear Mother for making me sensitive to the use of prepositions).
Intriguing. Here are a few of my thoughts:
It was either take a leap of faith and live, come what may. Or die alone and unfulfilled in certain bitter regret. And the man did not want that.
You'll know them when you see them :-)
Writers ....
Bttt.
5.56mm
I tried marking up my opionions on part of your post here. It turns out I can't write or mark up text well with a mouse! Just my suggestions or thoughts.
I was drawn in by the story and as this is your first book, it is a little raw. As you write, you'll settle in to your style. For now, I'd say to see if you can condense text a bit so that the reader covers more of your terrain in less text. I made a mess marking up the statement about the packed car, suggestion it could move to become a compound sentence with the other remark about the interior of the car. I have never written a book so my example will have raw problems of it's own.
The car was packed with his belongings, including a mini daschund asleep on his lap.
As it stands now, as another said, it's a little choppy and I noticed it when the interior of the car is in one paragraph (packed car) and more about what's in the car in another paragraph. Just my 2 pesos.
I think you meant that the volume was maxed on the radio?, otherwise it may not seem to 'frame' epic impact and something you've waited so long to do, if you roll the windows down and turn up a song you like. I think the paragraph is perhaps too separate from the next paragraph - I miss the emotional impact of the moment you want to convey. But that's just me. :}
Decades ago, in a writing class, the instructor urged us not to try first-person because the reader would be less likely to 'buy' your emotions etc. because they are reading "I wanted to kill him..." when in fact they never wanted to kill anyone. But, that was long ago and maybe that advice has been refuted by now.
I looked at two articles, excerpted below, for a few more opinions and just found the discussion interesting.
If yours is autobiographical, you may want to skim some pages of autobiographies to get a feel for how first-person and third person draws you in best.
~~~ First online opinion
https://arvin.chat/blog/first-person-vs-third-person/
Each POV offers unique advantages. Therefore, understanding these benefits is key to picking the right one. Let’s start with the first person.
Key takeaways on first person vs third person:
~~~ SECOND ONLINE OPINION
How do you choose between writing in first or third person for a novel?
First person is easier to do badly. (People tend to overuse "I" in a distracting way).
Third person is a little more flexible. You can also do almost anything in third person that you can in first, with the exception of unreliable narration.
You can get any degree of emotion or interiority from third person. It is a mistaken belief that first person is more emotional. It's possible that third person limited with free indirect can be more impactful than first person, because it allows you to use contrasting psychic distance to highlight emotional moments.
I would say use third person limited unless you have a specific reason for doing otherwise, like you want your narrator to be lying or hiding something from the reader. It is a safe default.
~~~
I recall reading research that indicated new writers use portions of their brains linked to watching a movie, and with experience, practiced writers transition to using other parts of their brain. Makes sense to me - I know I've written from the movie view part of my mind. I think you're going to progress like all writers and won't even notice (much) how you change over the writing of your book. The first start doesn't have to be as good as you'll be at the end of the book. It's a great start and as you grow in your skill, you can come back and refine it with greater ease.
Are you familiar with novels by Tony Hillerman about that region, Navajo tribal police? etc — maybe you can work in the better known characters.
