Would Appreciate Your Thoughts

[Tom-Pen]

Recently I've been spending a little bit of my time working on a story that I hope to eventually turn into a novel - God willing - and was wondering if some of you would be kind enough to give me your thoughts on it so far. So, with no gilding of the lily or long ado, here it is.


Note: This is just a sample of the work.

Chasing Dreams

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Another night had come and gone and with it, so too, had this girl; this girl seemed to dwell solely within the confines of my clouded dreams, no more than a dream herself really, but why? I believe this was the fifth night, fifth of that month anyway, that I'd dreamt of her. I got a good look at her face that time and I could've sworn I'd never seen her, at least not while I was awake anyway, I must have seen her in fifty dreams or more that past year while I was asleep. is it even possible to dream of someone you don't know?


I read once, in a magazine or maybe in an online article - somewhere - that you only ever dream of people you've seen before, I don't remember all the details but it said something about the human mind not being capable of creating the full image of another human from scratch. It makes sense, but then again, if the human mind can create so many great and wondrous things from scratch like art, music and more in full, why not the image of a person? I suppose it didn't really matter - whether her image was one I'd seen before or one my mind had created - because that wasn't what really bugged me. What really bugsged me was her personality, her speech and her touch; I didn't think a dream should've had any of those things yet, she did.


It was so early the sun had hardly begun to rise but already my mind had been long at work. The image of that girl was all I could see, and my thoughts were of her alone. I had more questions than answers, a nagging headache from lack of sleep, and work in less than an hour.

End Of Sample

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That's all I want to post of it for now, what do you guys think? I'm not too concerned with grammar and spelling, though feel free to point out any mistakes if you wish. I'm more interested in what you thought of the piece artistically and structurally.


Thanks for reading!

 

[Bone2pick]

To be honest this failed to hit the mark with me. You featured someone's inner thoughts, but imo, that someone didn't express a distinct voice. The character was lacking, and his continual questioning of the "woman of his dreams" read as repetitive and not as thought provoking as I believe you were going for.


If you want to keep the character (and the readers) in a state of confusion as to the nature of the dream girl by the end of this—and you want to make it have some level of payoff for the reader—then you need to increase the quality of the self reflection, and by extension, your prose.


At least that's my perspective. I applaud you for seeking feedback, and I wish you the best with your future novel.

 

[DreamBeat]

The first thing I noticed about this was the number five. I wonder if that number has any significance in this novel. Anyway, I've never really read stories that was told from a first person's perspective, but then again, I don't really read that much. Usually, the works I read use third person narrative, so I thought using first person was interesting.


Just from reading your sample, I don't feel a tug that makes me want to read it. I am curious about it, but I don't know what it's really about. What's this about a girl in the speaker's dreams? What is this about? If I knew what was happening, why he was so interested in the girl, then I might be more interested.


This is an opinion of an occasional reader. Writing a book can be quite hard and taxing, but I hope you get through it. Good luck with your novel! ^.^