Once, We Were There Ch 2

[justin1023]

Well, I guess I'm up. This is the second chapter of the new novel. As a quick refresher from my last submission, chapter one: 

-Nathan is dealing weed to help his dad pay the bills
-Nathan's dad, Joe, is a sheriff's deputy, who also moonlights for a bad dude
-We left Nathan after his father picked up from a high school party and after his father pulled over a man just for being brown (and that man was ultimately handed over to ICE). 

I'm very interested in how the shifting POV and perspective feels. In the shift to Joe's POV, I also shift into third person. I know it's probably hard to tell after just two chapters, but if you have an initial impression, I'd love to hear it. 

I also want to know how Joe comes off after this chapter. What's your impression of him? I'm not going to tell you my intention because I don't want it to cloud your perception, but knowing how he comes off will be plenty for me to decide what (if anything) I need to change to nail him down. 

Any other general feedback would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Attachments:

OnceWeWereThereCh2.pdf (71.99 KB)

[Charlie Allison]

Chapter 2

Quote Specifics:

“He shook his head, looking at the floor. He’d promised Nathan that he wouldn’t do anything that hurt people as long as he was working for Benny on the side. This sure as hell felt like he was hurting people.”

This is the first time we hear Joe internalize anything like regret. Up to now, he’s kinda seemed like a consummate professional. Sure, he has a side-hustle to a drug lord to make ends meet, but he tries to be collected about it. Showing him thinking about his son on the job give him a bit more depth (which we need in his establishing chapter or else he becomes a cut-out) than I had expected. One of the ways you reinforce the fact that Joe is good at his job is by making Rylie and Jorgen spectacular fuckups. Its like they say: if you want to look good, surround yourself with idiots. Their initial introduction shows us Joe is in control as much as they are out of it--but both sets of actors spiral.

General Feedback:
Joe’s first chapter does a lot of work to establish a different tone from his son’s. The movement into third-person, for example, when contrasted with Nate’s first person, gives us a literary method to distinguish their chapters—we could flip open to any chapter in the book and know in a couple of line which character we were reading without having to try too hard. It can also be seen as a metaphor for insight—Joe is a reserved, prideful, and has a greater depth of experience—so he’s in third-person. Nate is brash, impulsive and emotionally charged—first person, the ‘me-first’ form of narrative.
The trigger of a small-child being in the trailer with the tweakers works for an emotional reaction and to set the charges rolling, plot-wise. It also has the role of showing that there are lines that Joe won’t cross—at the moment—involving children.
This is hilarious for several, later reasons and can act as a measurement for Joe's morality at the beginning of the novel.
Overall, I'd say that this chapter has a different feeling from Nathan's as a whole. Joe is more deliberative, and tends to not communicate well--something that comes to bite him later.

Great job, Justin! I'll send you my feedback on this chapter with the novel proper!

Charlie

[Julia]

sorry Justin! I'm getting later and later every week but I should have it done tonight.

[abi]

Aug 7, 2017 18:56:08 GMT justin1023 said:

Well, I guess I'm up. This is the second chapter of the new novel. As a quick refresher from my last submission, chapter one: 

-Nathan is dealing weed to help his dad pay the bills
-Nathan's dad, Joe, is a sheriff's deputy, who also moonlights for a bad dude
-We left Nathan after his father picked up from a high school party and after his father pulled over a man just for being brown (and that man was ultimately handed over to ICE). 

I'm very interested in how the shifting POV and perspective feels. In the shift to Joe's POV, I also shift into third person. I know it's probably hard to tell after just two chapters, but if you have an initial impression, I'd love to hear it. 

I also want to know how Joe comes off after this chapter. What's your impression of him? I'm not going to tell you my intention because I don't want it to cloud your perception, but knowing how he comes off will be plenty for me to decide what (if anything) I need to change to nail him down. 

Any other general feedback would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

I don’t really have a lot to say about this chapter because it’s so hella good. We get the information with the action, and we get just the right amount of description, so there’s this nice consistency with how fast everything reads. Joe has a very distinct way that he carries himself and interacts with the other characters, so I already root for him and want him to succeed. Ah, Justin. I just really love this chapter. There’s not a whole lot else I can say about it.

I did feel bad for Joe, though probably not as bad as I’ll feel for him in the future when I get more info about what happened to his wife and why exactly he had to turn to the life a drug lord's gopher, but I’m sure that info will come later as the novel unfolds. So, what more can I ask for here? The only issue I can think of is that this chapter is so good, it really stands out from the chapter that came before. Justin might have to go back and rewrite that first one now that this jewel is going to be around to compare it to. The first chapter doesn’t read as clearly and concisely, so I think there’s going to have to be a balancing act. But one thing in particular I’d like to point out, the violence in this chapter did not feel out of the blue and unjustified. You’ll remember that in the first chapter, Nathan snaps and lashes out in a way that he can’t remember what he’s done afterwards. But on top of that, he snaps for reasons as simple as having beer dumped over his head. I’d like to contrast that with the violence we see in this chapter, where Joe lashes out at Jorgen for having a kid on the premises. In this scene, while the punch does come out of the blue, it’s not unbelievable or unjustified. Joe is a man that has been pushed into a dishonest role, looking out for these baddies. But throughout it all, he still has a few moral laws that he clings to, and endangering a child pushes him too far. What can I say? It’s just a damn good chapter.

Ok, so, I really don’t have anything else constructive to say. It’s a pretty tight piece of writing, nothing that needs to change too much. There are a few minor things here and there that I’ve mentioned in my line notes, but that’s about it. One of the scenes I liked best, because it disgusted me but made it so I couldn’t look away was the scene where Joe pulls the paper towel off Rylie’s arm. It was so gross, I was cringing as I read it. Ew, ew, ew. But at the same time, it was also kind of fascinating in a disturbing way. Which is a sign the writing is doing exactly what it’s supposed to. In case any of you forgot which scene I’m talking about, I’ll just put it up here again to remind you: 

They were five miles away from Saint Mary’s—the nearest hospital—when Joe pulled the paper towels off Rylie’s arm. Rylie cried out as Joe tossed the paper out the window. The skin had melted clean off, leaving charred muscle, white pus bubbling on top of brown scabs, and bits of flesh where the chemical burns hadn’t spread to yet.

There you go, you’re welcome. That’s a fine description there, that it is. I’ve never seen skin come off, apart from how they portray it in horror movies, but I was picturing it too vividly for comfort.

Anyway, that’s my lame lack of opinion on Justin’s second chapter. I hope it can be of some use, though I doubt it. Sorry, guys. I got nothing.



APs Line Notes_OnceWeWereThereCh2.pdf (99.92 KB)

[abi]

Aug 9, 2017 14:06:23 GMT Charlie Allison said:

Overall, I'd say that this chapter has a different feeling from Nathan's as a whole. Joe is more deliberative, and tends to not communicate well--something that comes to bite him later.

I'm glad you pointed out the contrasting elements to the characters here, because I'm on the verge of saying that maybe it would be better to just tell the whole thing from Joe's perspective, just because I liked this chapter so much. I think maybe I understand Joe's motivations more than I do Nate's, which might be a problem later on. But if Justin brings out those contrasting elements more, I might be fine with it. 

[Julia]

Aug 7, 2017 18:56:08 GMT justin1023 said:

I'm very interested in how the shifting POV and perspective feels. In the shift to Joe's POV, I also shift into third person. I know it's probably hard to tell after just two chapters, but if you have an initial impression, I'd love to hear it. 

I also want to know how Joe comes off after this chapter. What's your impression of him? I'm not going to tell you my intention because I don't want it to cloud your perception, but knowing how he comes off will be plenty for me to decide what (if anything) I need to change to nail him down. 

Sorry again, I am so late! And as Abi said, this chapter is so good that I don't have a lot to add.



The tone of this chapter felt different than the first, which was more dreamy and personal. This felt more action/thriller. The contrast of seeing Joe help drug dealers after appearing in his son's chapter was interesting. It would definitely make me keep reading.



I felt very intrigued by Joe. He's the kind of character you reserve judgement on till further in the book. He does have principles and reacts very strongly when he feels someone is wrong. Unfortunately that doesn't necessarily lead to good results, as in beating up Jorgen in front of the kid.



There are a lot of good plot points set up. I'm already wondering how Joe got involved with Benny, what happened to Lyle's