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The originator of this post wishes to make it clear that EVERYONE visiting this Blog is hereby dissuaded from contacting the author in any way to bother, criticize, or otherwise harass him. This is my personal opinion and critique of the work. Although I may at times be very strong worded while doing so, IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS do I hold anything personally against Mr. Boutin and only wish that he learns to edit his work.
With all that said, let us begin…
Chapter 01
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Please note: I debated about posting the entire chapter and I think this will be the only one that I do, as it would be too much if I did all of them like this. And I think after this we will all have a good grasp of the 'writing style' employed. I considered going line by line, sentence by sentence, but that was a bit too much and pointing out that almost every sentence is either a fragment or grammatically incorrect would have been too tedious. The goal here is to have fun, and maybe learn something…
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I’m Theresa, the younger daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Sullivan, and I hope it’s not bragging to say I was cute as heck at age ten. Everybody in the family said so. I was the princess in the Sullivan clan of Framingham, Massachusetts because besides being cute I was a whiz in school and had a good disposition. All the relatives expected great things from me.
Nobody could have dreamed of what I would do a few years later, and nobody would have believed it if they’d been told. Prime Minister Blair said I’d still be remembered in a million years.
Did you catch that?
^------------------------------------------------^
Oh yeah… we did. Did the author catch how incredibly stupid, corny and
cliché that sounds…? I guess not. And thus, Theresa fits very neatly into the
Mary-Sue mold, almost as though she was made for it. This is how Norman chose
to open his self-described “greatest novel ever,” with a clichéd and generic
trope.
This bit of writing is like air. There are no details here. Frankly I'm
kind of stunned by how little substance there is here. Who is nobody, what did
she do 'a few years later', what the hell was going on, what was brand new?
Just in case it needs to be mentioned, these are not questions, they are
rhetorical. The answers should be in the fucking WRITING.
I’m a paragraph in and I’m already bored… time to start drinking I
guess.
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Churchill, Hitler, and Lincoln will be footnotes in dusty history books a thousand years from now, and nobody remembers Charles Martel who saved Christianity in Europe by winning the Battle of Tours thirteen hundred years ago to set up the world as we know it today, but Prime Minister Blair said I’d be remembered for a million years. Mr. Blair is not inclined to exaggerating. I was the last person you would expect to earn that accolade. I was a nobody from nowhere. When this story began I was a little girl who didn’t have much of a clue about anything. My job as a kid was to figure out what the heck was going on and what to do about it. It’s not easy when you’re young and everything is brand new.
^------------------------------------------------^
Is there anything that needs to be said about this cringe inducing
paragraph that my fine readers won’t guess for themselves? Its meaningless
filler that adds nothing while making the reader lose interest even more so
than they already have.
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My father once served a tour in the Navy. He said I had to be the captain of my ship but sometimes the seas would be rough. I had to learn all I could about the world. I wondered why should I be worrying about it in the fourth grade? I’d soon find out. <--- This all we ever hear about the Father, hope you got enough to eat.
We’re lost in this confusing world unless we follow the directions of its Maker. I did. It’s the only thing that got me through. <--- Insert Linkin Park here.
Everybody has pressures. There are two kinds. One is threats to your life and health. I had more than my share of that with a thousand assassins wanting to get me. The other kind is bearing responsibility for other people’s lives and welfare. That’s really tough if you care about them. I set new world records in that department. People were sure I’d crack under the pressure, but I didn’t. It will take smarter heads than mine to figure out why not.
^------------------------------------------------^
Good advice to give a ten-year-old I guess, ‘Don’t take no shit and
life’s gonna suck;’ I’m guessing her father was an alcoholic. Speaking if
which, time to dull the pain again… damn, this far in and how much have I had?
Why is this girl so damn Emo, and who is talking now, an older version
of herself or her at this age? It is never really established which one it is,
he did compare this to “To Kill a Mockingbird” a lot, so I guess it’s the latter
considering the tone and framing.
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I’ll be telling my own story which is a good thing because nobody knows it as well as me. The drawback is that there are some things I can’t know because I wasn’t there. For example, Prime Minister Blair and President Stinson mentioned they talked to each other on the phone. They must have talked with many other heads of state and it would be interesting to know what was said. It’s a sure bet they discussed how to eliminate me if I got out of control, but I can’t know any of that. It can be frustrating not knowing these things. But remember you’ll learn things in the same sequence I did. Somebody else telling my story could only say what I did in the world. They couldn’t get in my head like you will. You’ll see what a horrible, worldwide mess I had to deal with.
^------------------------------------------------^
God Damnit Boutin, now your giving away plot points for no reason AND
explaining how first person works, as though the average reader wouldn’t be
able to grasp the concept! Have you really never read a book written in the
first person, do you really not understand how to inform the readers on events
that your MC wasn’t present at? Are you seriously suck a fucking hack that the
concept of exposition is so alien to you that!
For my readers that give a shit, read this:
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/first-person-narrative-7-tips/ and when Norman
wanders in here to complain and argue, then he can read it too. It even mentions
Harper Lee so it’s right up Norman’s alley.
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My story began quietly with no hint of what was coming.
^------------------------------------------------^
This is where the book should have actually started, not only is this a
good line to open with but everything up until now has been worthless filler.
Worthless filler that has been TOLD and not SHOWN, a theme which we shall see
throughout this collection of sentence fragments.
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I was home with my 17 year old sister Catherine who was old enough to be my babysitter. She made it possible for mom to go back to her part time job without leaving me alone. Catherine hadn’t been a whiz in school like me and she was thinking of going to one of the many trade schools around Boston after high school. Mom and dad said I should go to college.
Oops! Before going on I have to mention an odd incident that happened six months before I was born. Mom was raking leaves in the backyard when she noticed a fox sitting on its haunches ten feet away. It was staring at her. A metal rake is a good weapon against a creature as small as a fox and mom held her ground. After five minutes the fox walked away. This strange event seemed unimportant. My parents forgot about it for eighteen years.
^------------------------------------------------^
What seventeen year old girl isn’t old enough to be a babysitter, is this bizarro world where seventeen year olds are still basically giant toddlers? And she is not as smart as Mary-Sue, obviously, so much so that she has been doomed to trade school, poor… poor Catherine. But don’t you worry, because ten year old God-Queen Mary-Sue is already on the Dean’s list at Boston College; where all good perfect Catholic girls should go.
Slamming the brakes on the flow again to shift gears? Your creating a traffic jam, I guess the elderly are even shitty drivers on the literature highway as well.
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OK. Now I can begin my story.
^------------------------------------------------^
For the third time so far…
Seriously… just… why… oh, fuck it. *eyes bottle of Rum again*
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Our house was next to a pond close to the river where all the neighborhood’s kids spent many happy hours looking for turtles and frogs. I was lounging on the deck reading a book on the school summer list. Catherine was inside reading a magazine.
^------------------------------------------------^
Voluntary summer school? This bitch must have so many friends, because everyone know the nerdy girls get the most action.
Now, as you read on, consider that with almost zero world building up to this point the reader has no idea what the house or the surrounding area looks like. So, as he BARELY describes what is about to happen, you have to stop and visualize it in your head. Which again, ruins the pace… perhaps I should stop bringing those mistakes up, but then I would just stop here.
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Taking a momentary break from the book, I noticed a red fox walking along the pond's edge. It disappeared behind the little patch of woods which dad let grow wild like most of the neighbors. This was very rare. Red foxes were never seen in broad daylight during the summer months. It didn't happen.
Then something really amazing happened. It came out of the woods and walked towards me!
I kept still and waited to see how close it came before noticing me. It was sixty feet away, forty, twenty. By now it was clear it was looking at me. I considered running into the house, but curiosity won out. <--- And so would Rabies, you FUCKING MORON!
The fox reached the four steps of the deck. It came up the steps, stopped, and sat on its haunches staring at me. It did not seem vicious so I waited.
In an instant, faster than you could blink an eye, a softball sized white ball emerged from the fox and went straight into my stomach.
I screamed and ran into the house. The fox ran away. I slid the glass deck door closed and locked it just in time to see the fox disappear in the woods.
^------------------------------------------------^
What in the name of Adderall is this train wreck I see before me?
This is one of the KEY moments in the book and he spend almost ZERO time on it. I know he were told about this before he published this as I have read the Writer Forum post about it. This short, worthless blurb of information goes by so quickly that the reader almost misses it, especially due to his third grade writing structure. It looks and reads like an overactive eight year old with ADD would describe an event! Remember, this hack thinks he know more about writing than ANYONE else…
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“What did you scream for?” asked Catherine who had walked into the kitchen.
“There was a fox out there.”
“He won’t hurt you” she said and went back to the living room.
^------------------------------------------------^
What chilling and well delivered dialog Mr. Boutin has given us, I can already picture it in my mind as two household robots hold this vary conversation. This could have been between the vacuum cleaner and toaster from the way the characters are portrayed… Is Catherine concerned, worried, or curious about her sister when she enters the room? Does she feel anything when she leaves, dismissing it as simply a child's overreaction to something? Does Mary-Sue express her own concern or embarrassment? Nope, the cardboard cutout of the older sister rides the Roomba into the room, some empty dialogue is exchanged with the other mannequin, and then it leaves to finish cleaning the crumbs off the living room carpet.
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I stood at the glass door for five minutes watching for anything else that might happen. At last I thought it was all over.
I went into the living room to sit down and think. What was that white thing? I couldn’t come up with any theory. It was nothing I had ever seen on those television nature programs.
Perhaps it was a daydream from not eating enough. Mom had warned me about that. At age ten I was already conscious of my weight and tried to stay skinny. I should eat something.
I went into the kitchen to prepare an early lunch of fried eggs, a strip of bacon, toast, and milk. I gobbled all this down in a couple of minutes and soon felt better. It was too little eating after all. Nothing had really happened.
Satisfied, I walked back into the living room to find something else to do. I turned on the television and watched the late morning talk shows for a while.
^------------------------------------------------^
Another jumble of mish-mashed sentence fragments full of grammatical errors, the flow of thought here reads like someone having a fever dream. If it has not yet become clear, Mr. Boutin seems to be either afraid of the Comma or not fully unaware of its use.
What 10 year old has the skills necessary to properly cook eggs and bacon, so much so that her sister doesn’t so much as poke her head around the corner to see what’s up. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but if he expects us to suspend our disbelief then it needs to at least appear as though she is not fucking Gordon Ramsey!
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I heard fire trucks in the distance blaring their deep toned sirens. These trucks could be heard from a mile away. They were coming closer. And closer. Soon the sound made it obvious they were in the vicinity of our street. My intuition told me this had something to do with the white thing that jumped at me.
^------------------------------------------------^
This is the point where I begin to really lose my shit...
HOW THE FUCKING FUCK WOULD SHE KNOW THAT? Is God-Queen Mary-Sue here the next Sherlock Holmes as well? I could understand if you had done some world-building and perhaps shown us that something was off. Maybe have some strange noises or lights in the distance, you know, BUILD THE WORLD AROUND YOUR CHARECTERS… Alas, no, she simply deduces that several firetrucks rolling down the street has to be tied to the strange thing that she ALREADY shrugged off as caused by being hungry. YOU FUCKING HACK!
For my readers that give a shit, please read this: https://io9.gizmodo.com/7-deadly-sins-of-worldbuilding-998817537 or this: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/world-building-tips-engaging-settings/
Now before you start to argue, Mr. boutin, please read those sites... and actually absorb the information.
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I went out the front door and waited on the lawn. The sirens were very close, and, yes, there they were turning into the street, a tanker truck and a small ladder truck. The two vehicles went halfway down the street and stopped. Already people were coming out of houses to watch the excitement.
The yellow fire engines had loudspeakers that sent out vocal messages loud enough to rattle windows. A conversation was going on between the firemen and the station.
“What do you have?”
“A hundred and fifteen degrees here” a fireman shouted.
“It‘s seventy here.”
“Yup. We have something.”
A crowd of neighbors was gathering near the confused firemen. I walked over to join the onlookers. “What's going on?” I asked one of my girlfriends.
“They're looking for a fire.”
The girl's father said, “The temperature jumped up in a few minutes. Somebody called the fire department.”
^------------------------------------------------^
Woo, what a page turner we have here...
Who calls the fire department because it got hot outside, is this the tundra, where anything above 70 is cause for great alarm? More shit world-building here as well I see, what are they using to read the temperature with? How are they doing it, by just driving down the street or walking from house to house? And WHY OH WHY are they not using the headphones they are all but required to wear for noise reduction and communication. Did you watch an old 70’s TV show and think this was how things still work, or was that when you wrote this chapter?
And would they have not noticed the "heat" around Theresa when they first arrived and were scanning the area? If she is so easy to detect then they should have seen it and let the cat out of the bag right then.
And would they have not noticed the "heat" around Theresa when they first arrived and were scanning the area? If she is so easy to detect then they should have seen it and let the cat out of the bag right then.
We also see one of the few times he chooses to use a comma, and he uses the fuck out of it for good measure.
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It was hot. It was nice a little while ago. I thought it over. A fox appears in daylight which never happens, it comes up practically to my feet, the white thing jumps into me, and the firemen look for a fire that doesn't exist. All this happened within an hour. There had to be a connection. <--- Mary-Sue Holmes’ deduction skills in action here, the greatest ten year old girl there ever there was I tell ya.
“Could it be a ground fire?” the fireman asked the chief.
“Not likely with water over there unless there‘s a rock ledge underneath. We have to check it out.”
Thermistor probes were brought from the station, and firemen spent the rest of the morning pushing the probes a few inches into the ground to check the temperature. They did this on everyone's lawn, the area inside the turnaround at the end of the street, and finally went into people's back yards. They found nothing.
^------------------------------------------------^
Is this a bizarro world wear Firemen waste their time looking for fires that clearly don’t exist? If they think it’s a subsurface fire, then it should be explained: (a) how that could happen in this area, such as underground coal deposits or a gas leak, and (b) why this would necessitate spending all night poking the ground blindly rather than using a thermal camera or similar.
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Around one o'clock the temperature in our neighborhood had dropped back down to eighty degrees. The firemen gave up and left.
I was young and inexperienced, but I wasn't a dumbbell. If people found out what happened today they’d pester me about it forever. My Cousin Mary was diagnosed a schizophrenic and the whole Sullivan clan was biting their nails waiting for the gene to show up in some other family member. It wasn’t going to be me! I resolved to never tell anybody. Not even my parents would know. They’d think I was ill like Cousin Mary. I didn’t need it.
^------------------------------------------------^
This would be a good place to end the chapter, for all our sakes… this isn’t so much a criticism as an editor’s note. With revision and added world building this would be more than enough to have a fleshed out first chapter that established proper tone and pacing. But alas, Mr. Boutin need not polish his turds, as his genius creates shining golden logs of pure gold.
This is also a great missed opportunity to build her character a bit and establish her motives for doing things later on. *hint hint*
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Two days later I woke up early and walked into the living room. Mom was looking intently out the window. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“There’s some men parked down next to the turnaround. They’ve been there all night.”
^------------------------------------------------^
Why does she care about this? Does she have a nosey personality, or is she concerned about criminal activity? The author haven’t even established what her primary character traits are at this point, so either her or the God-Child should express why this is something of note for them. Are they on a Cul-De-Sac? Again with the poor ass world building… this should have already been established or better framed here as it is not mentioned again.
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I looked and sure enough a van and a four door sedan were parked in the turnaround where they could see every house on the street.
“Mrs. Gagnon said a police car stopped to talk to them at two a.m.” said mom. “They showed IDs and a little later the police left.”
^------------------------------------------------^
So… what did they talk about? Did the cops just flash their badges, glare at the Gagnon’s for a moment before climbing back into their car and leaving? Or did they ask some questions that might actually move the plot or lend to some foreshadowing of the dark things to come. This isn’t just supposed to be a laundry list of facts, you have to spin a narrative and get people interested in both what is happening and the people it's happening to.
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Dad woke up and heard the same story. As mom and dad got ready for work another police car came around the street but left without stopping.
Other people left for work. The morning wore on. The mail truck came by at ten. I walked out to get the mail while Catherine was in her room. Two minutes after I got back in the house the car and van drove away. They had spotted me.
^------------------------------------------------^
This is a laundry list of things she did that day, it is both boring and tedious to look at with all those fragmented sentences. Plus, it has still not yet been established that anyone is after or looking for anybody, especially Susie Que. Unless this ten year old savant is a conspiracy nut, the vehicles driving away should play off as a coincidence or odd at the absolute best. This should be where you SHOW us how good she is at detecting by having her figure out that they are really looking for HER SPECIFICALLY.
Perhaps with a series of observations and experiments where she sees if the vehicles follow her someplace, or walking by and striking up a nonchalant conversation with the driver. Too much work for you I suppose, better just TELL us that she is a whiz and leave it at that.
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How did they know about me?
I sat on the sofa thinking for a while. I felt I was being watched. Or was somebody listening?
I spotted the phone. Was somebody listening on the phone?
I dialed 0 for the operator.
“Operator. How may I help you?”
“Can I have the number for Alice Pizza in Framingham?”
“One moment, please.”
Ten seconds later another woman said, “Alice Pizza, 555-8402.”
“Thanks.” I hung up. So they weren’t listening.
^------------------------------------------------^
Again, he hasn’t established how it is she could have even possibly figured that out. Calling a Pizza place, or anywhere for that matter, and hanging up when the desired location answers IS MEANINGLESS. Does Mr. Boutin really not understand how wiretapping works? I could go on about how ludicrous this is, but we have much more ground to cover.
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The weekend arrived. Mom and I went to Boston to shop in the Washington Street shopping district. We drove down to the Boston Commons underground parking garage. I thought I saw some car come in right behind us and park close to our car.
We got up to the surface and a man followed us. We went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore first because if we bought something it would be small and easy to carry the rest of the day. I looked through the books on sale and thought I saw a different man watching me. Barnes and Noble had two floors. “I’m going upstairs, mom” I said.
There was an escalator to the second floor. I went along the wall stopping now and then pretending to look at books and that same man from downstairs always seemed to be close to me. He was spying on me.
Later, we went to McDonald’s and I spotted another man who walked behind us into the restaurant. He was there as long as we were and after we left I looked back and he was coming out too. But he stopped at a corner. Another man standing on the corner started walking in our direction.
^------------------------------------------------^
OK, this bit probably should have led up to her actually working out that something was wrong and that she may actually be being followed. As it stands, this is now worthless filler and fails to move the plot forward in any significant way as it makes an attempt to show us something that we were outright TOLD some time ago.
\Most kids would be freaked out by this, and most parents would probably notice and call the cops, but no one gives any realistic reaction. This truly is a land full of magical robot people.
\Most kids would be freaked out by this, and most parents would probably notice and call the cops, but no one gives any realistic reaction. This truly is a land full of magical robot people.
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We got back home and mom took things into the bedroom. I dialed the operator again.
“Operator. How may I help you?”
“Can you give me the number for Alice Pizza in Framingham?”
“One moment, please.”
I waited. And waited. And waited. A full minute passed by and she hadn’t come up with the number yet.
I hung up the phone. Now they knew I knew.
^------------------------------------------------^
Again, we have another demonstration that the author knows next to nothing about how wiretapping works. Nor does this show how she put the pieces together to figure out… whatever it is that she is supposed to have figured out.
Truth be told though, this is how I manage to catch the NSA all the time; whenever I call the operator, because it’s 1981, and she takes longer than twenty seconds to help me, I immediately hang up. That way… they know that I know that they know what’s going on.
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While I was young I had some feeble ideas of what this all meant. My life wasn’t going to be like that of other kids. I had to think like somebody important, somebody with responsibilities. I was something special. Maybe I was dangerous, or that was what the government was thinking. Someday they would come around and talk to me. I wasn’t stupid enough to think they would just watch me for the rest of my life.
^------------------------------------------------^
More shitty structure and framing issues from our modern day Shakespeare here. This would fit in just fine right here, actually, this is a good spot for some foreshadowy narration. What fails here is that the author ham fists it in without allowing for the reader to adjust to what’s happening and causes a pause, which ruins the pacing.
When I read this through for the first time I was honestly confused at this point, because, I didn’t know how the narration was framed. I thought this was future-self interposing into present-self’s narration, imagine how it felt when I had to rewrite this comment after I figured it out.
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Two days later mom took me to a nearby strip mall. There was a DVD movie rental store. I looked around for the classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. They’d shown it on television a couple months ago.
I played and replayed the parts of the movie where the astronauts talked to HAL. The most chilling scene was when astronaut Dave Bowman left the spaceship in a pod to retrieve the body of his dead astronaut partner drifting through space. When he flew back to the spaceship, he said one of Hollywood's most famous lines:
“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”
But the spaceship's computer, HAL, wouldn't open the door. It was a creepy scene.
^------------------------------------------------^
Why is this bit of information significant? I know it comes up later, but as the author took the time to tell us about this the least that could have been done is show us WHY she played those scenes over and over again. Or perhaps WHY she even felt the need to watch the movie in the first place, or better yet, why this information is important to US. Norman, just because it makes sense in your head doesn’t mean it makes sense to anyone else…
While HAL's motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. (This withholding is considered essential after the findings of a psychological experiment, "Project Barsoom", where humans were made to believe that there had been alien contact. In every person tested, a deep-seated xenophobia was revealed, which was unknowingly replicated in HAL's constructed personality. Mission Control did not want the crew of Discovery to have their thinking compromised by the knowledge that alien contact was already real.) With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.
Does this have some parallel with the narrative of the book? Don’t kid yourself, all that flew WAY over the authors head. So let’s move on…
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The summer days rolled by. I saw the watchers following me everywhere. Mom did most of her grocery shopping on Saturday and I usually went with her because Catherine wandered off with her friends. While mom was talking to the meat counter clerk I went down the breakfast cereal aisle to choose something.
“Hi, Theresa.”
Some woman I didn’t know was standing next to me. She looked to be in her early twenties and had a friendly smile.
“Hi” I said with a young kid’s taciturnity.
^------------------------------------------------^
Norman just learned that word and HAD to put it in here… didn’t he. It’s literally the only word bigger than two or three syllables throughout the entire book.
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“Do you have a cellphone?”
“Yeah.”
“Call me when you’re alone.” She handed me a piece of paper with a phone number.
The woman knew that I knew about my watchers. I had often stared at them. So this woman also knew I had to think she was one of them and I had to be curious enough to talk to her.
^------------------------------------------------^
Telling and not showing again, I am growing tired of pointing this out…
As well as Theresa just KNOWING that this woman was (a) not just a crazy person trying to hook up with child, remember, she is still ten at this point. And (b) is in any way trustworthy, do parents not teach their children about Stranger Danger? I thought she was supposed to be smart and obey all the rules.
As we press on, it shall be demonstrated that Theresa is kind of a dolt, let’s get to it then…
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When we got back home I went to my room and called the number. My curiosity about the watchers overcame my wish to keep HAL secret. I wanted to know how they knew about me. The woman answered. Her spies must have told her I was home.
^------------------------------------------------^
When was it established that its name is HAL? This is the first we have heard her call it that, and without ANY explanation as to WHY.
Why would she not have answered, did she give out a public payphone number? Is that not Jan’s PRIVATE Cell Phone or at least a personal government one, and if “they” were watching her then wouldn’t she have her number programmed into it so that she would know the Gifted Golden God Girl called? This is another example of poor continuity and suspension of disbelief.
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“Hi” said the cheerful woman. “I'm Jan Struthers from the United States Government. Are you alone?”
“Yeah. Are you?”
“You know I’m not. There are sixty people with me in this room. Can we talk?”
My childhood was over. All I wanted was an ordinary life like everybody else. It looked like I wouldn’t get it.
^------------------------------------------------^
Jesus… this girl is Emo as FUCK, I can almost hear the Linkin Park ringtone she must use.
And does anyone else think of Jan Levinson from “The office?” No, just me then?
--------------------------------------------------
“About what?”
“About your little secret. We know it.”
^------------------------------------------------^
NO SHIT!! As the author of this dumpster fire has been screaming this at us for three or four fucking pages now. Is this supposed to be the big reveal, the shocking turn of events that hooks us? THIS should be the moment when finally Theresa finds out that she has indeed been followed, therefore SHOWING us that she was right all along. As well as WHY they are following her, perhaps even a quick explanation from an actual authority figure or subject matter expert on what the ball of space jizz in her tummy might be.
I have a feeling that this was supposed to be a Bond villain tension building moment, but as mentioned above, it’s just a dud that fizzles. Mostly because the dialogue is shit…
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I thought about that. Everybody had secrets. Talking to this woman wouldn’t be admitting mine.
^------------------------------------------------^
Yes… it would be; that’s why they’re called… secrets.
And yet more sentence fragments, need I keep pointing these out?
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“Something happened to you to make those fire trucks come to this neighborhood. You were giving off a lot of heat. We know you were because we saw it all around you. What happened before the fire trucks came?”
^------------------------------------------------^
Hold on a minute… is this water-head giving off so much heat HERSELF that the fire department had to be called? Because if that is the case then she has a VERY short life expectancy.
OK, so I was involved in a conversation with the author, and boy was that fun, and he said it was HAL that made things hot before he fucked her in the chest. And that the heat she gives off is actually the air around her and not her body.
This brings on so many more questions. How do you detect hot air with an IR sensor? How is the Second Law of Thermo Dynamics being broken? He has yet to answer me on these, not that he will…
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“I don’t have to tell you anything, do I?”
Jan Struthers maintained her friendly attitude.
“No, you don’t. But it will make things a lot easier if you tell us something. We’re not going away. We will be spying on you from now on. We have to. Whatever happened is very important.”
“You don’t know anything that happened?”
“We know a lot. Something from outer space came to Earth seven years ago. We’ve been looking for it ever since. That heat you were giving off has to have something to do with that thing from outer space.”
^------------------------------------------------^
Holly shit, look at that. The tiniest glimmer of exposition that actually helps with the plot.
And then it’s back to gibberish town…
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I considered that. Jan Struthers gave me a moment and then brought out a point.
“There is nothing natural to Earth that could have caused that heat. The thing from space did it. We watched you rent that movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. You are aware of that thing. What happened before the fire trucks came?” <--- Again, why is this movie so important?
There was no use denying something happened. They already knew.
“I saw a fox walking near the water. It came up close to me and a white thing jumped out of it. That's all.”
“Where did the white thing go?”
“In me.”
“How big was this white thing?”
“Like a softball.”
“Did it come from the fox?”
“Yup. Came right out.”
“What part of the fox?”
“The stomach.”
“How did it jump out at you?”
“It moved in my stomach.”
I wasn’t very enthusiastic about telling the story. Jan Struthers had to force it out of me one tiny piece at a time. <--- Nor is the author about actually writing a narrative that does either...
“How long did that take?”
“Like that.” I snapped my fingers at the phone. <--- Why... was it not paying attention?
“Did you feel anything?”
“Nope.”
“Did this white ball look solid like a steel ball?”
“Nope. Fuzzy like cotton.”
“What happened then?”
“I ran into the house and waited. Then I ate breakfast. I thought I was going crazy.”
“How long after the white ball jumped at you did the fire trucks come?”
“Half an hour.”
“Did the white thing change you in any way?”
“No.”
“Does it make sounds or talk to you?”
“No.”
“Have you seen it again?”
“No. It's like it went away.”
“How have you been eating lately?” <--- Why is this relevant?
“Like I always do.
^------------------------------------------------^
Let’s just pause a moment to appreciate that thrilling dialogue, every word a masterpiece in its own right. And not a single syllable too long, just the right amount to keep the pace moving forward. A couldn't keep a straight face during that either... A lot of this is the first time we hear of it, not when it actually happened, oh no, but here during a boring phone call.
Remember, this is a “Young Adult” book, the author expects middle and high schoolers to be reading this. I for one don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t put this down for a second!
--------------------------------------------------
Jan took a break to think what else she should ask. This was the most important interview since Moses came down the mountain. <--- Survey says no…
“I didn't do anything.”
“All right.” She dropped that line immediately! “You rented 2001:A Space Odyssey. What did it show you?” <--- WHY is this important, it need to be exposited more...
“It showed me don't talk to this thing. It's like talking to the devil.”
“Do you have a name for it?”
“HAL.”
“Like the computer. The monolith was the alien, not the computer.” <--- Wrong, they were probes sent by Aliens, which meant they were also computers... technically.
“The monolith didn’t talk.”
“Does HAL talk?”
“No.”
“It's a good idea not to try to talk to it. Don't stir it up.”
^------------------------------------------------^
WHY! Please explain WHY Jan would say this. It is apparently an important plot point as this is the second time it has been mentioned that talking to it is a bad idea. So, adding some exposition her is a must if readers are suppose to understand what the fuck is going on.
--------------------------------------------------
“What is HAL?”
“We don't know. We saw it seven years ago but haven't seen or heard about it since. You're the only one who's seen it.”
“Does it come from space?”
“Probably, but that may not be bad. This thing may never do anything.
^------------------------------------------------^
OK, so she used a MOVIE to get advice about talking to a possible ball of space earwax. She is the stupidest person on the fucking planet, good thing she didn’t watch Alien or she might have disemboweled herself out of sheer, retarded panic. And WHEN did it tell her to not talk to it? No really, this is an important plot point, because not communicating with a possibly sentient parasite might be a bad idea.
Well then, we now see why the author named it HAL… not because it had any kind of sub-textual meaning or anything, but because it is supposed to be… bad… I think? Shit, Norman was way off his meds when he wrote this bit.
--------------------------------------------------
“I think that covers everything. I have to emphasize how important it is to tell nobody about this. Don't give a hint to anybody. If you talk to somebody they will too and you will never be able to live the life you want. No college. No job. No marriage. No friends. You'll have to stay at home all the time. This is the last thing we want. A lot of people are trying to keep this secret.”
“What if one of my watchers talks?”
“Most of our people don't know why they're watching you. Only the people at the top know. I'm one of the few people who knows you give off heat. Without knowing that nobody can prove you have anything to do with HAL. That's the biggest secret. Without knowing about the heat they can't spot you or suspect anything.”
^------------------------------------------------^
How much heat is she giving off, why is this bugging me so much? Is her body a raging inferno of hellfire and brimstone, making people call the fire department wherever she goes? Or is it just a mild fever, 115deg was mentioned earlier and that’s more than hot enough to kill someone.
Mild or moderate elevations in body temperature (up to 105 °F [40.55 °C]) cause weakness or exhaustion but are not in themselves a serious threat to health. More serious increases, in which body temperatures rise to 108 °F (42.22 °C) or more, can result in convulsions and death.
--------------------------------------------------
“Don’t those sixty people know about me?”
“Very good, Theresa! I’m impressed! These people are top ranking officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Your watchers are people hired from outside. They know nothing.”
^------------------------------------------------^
Why does this play off like she is pandering to a ten year old? Second, WHY would a ten year old be asking these questions?
--------------------------------------------------
“Can I tell my parents?”
“That’s up to you. But remember, if you can’t keep it a secret, why should your parents? Your mother will want to share it with Aunt Jessica. Then Aunt Jessica will want to share it with Uncle John. Before you know it ten thousand reporters will be parked in front of your house for the rest of your life.”
“Not if HAL never does anything.”
“All the more so. It’s anticipating something that hasn’t happened yet that interests people.” <--- *nudge, nudge* Second Coming reference *wink, wink*
^------------------------------------------------^
You think so, eh? At this point one would think the author would sit back and ponder whether any of this so far would be the reaction a ten year old girl might have in this situation. I begin to wonder myself whether he has ever actually seen a human child in its natural habitat… or is allowed near them.
--------------------------------------------------
Something else had made me wonder. “Why is the operator one of you guys?”
“You might ask the operator to connect you to somebody, maybe somebody outside the country. We need to know who it is. It’s for your protection.”
^------------------------------------------------^
If the operator being one of the POO agents job is to protect Theresa, should she desire to connect with someone outside the country. Why the operator had to be an agent is never explained (the operator could simply be working with the agency, or have their activity wiretapped by the agency). It also makes it nonsensical as to why the operator didn't tell Theresa the number for Alice Pizza earlier in the chapter, since that couldn't have been someone dangerous. Yet another example of the batshit insanity we have only begun to tap into.
--------------------------------------------------
“How can I give off heat without burning up?”
“Hold on.”
There was a moment of silence. I had stumped her!
^------------------------------------------------^
Projection much there Norman, got something you want to tell us?
And how was that supposed to have stumped her? This is a professional government agent, trusted enough to be allowed to contact Theresa personally, you think she would at least have been briefed on the basics. This is the point of the book that we the readers are supposed to be informed about the basic rules and functions of this HAL thing. Having your supposed subject matter expert stumped by a ten your old girls honest question only makes Jan look like an amateur... you know, like Norman Boutin.
--------------------------------------------------
“Theresa, we think HAL is doing a lot of things around you but not inside you. It’s like you’re in a party. A lot of people are dancing around you but they’re not making you dance.”
^------------------------------------------------^
This is the stupidest analogy I have ever heard, and makes Jan sound like a moron. I understand that she is supposed to be explaining something to a ten year old, but they should understand that Theresa is "smart as a whip" and should therefore be able to process a better explanation. Especially us as readers should be getting a much better idea of what HAL is, I guess vague shit is all we're in for here, or as a whole really.
--------------------------------------------------
That sounded reasonable. “Okay.” <--- Does it? I guess Theresa isn't as smart as she is made out to be.
“Well, I’ll leave you alone now. Thanks for talking with me. Call anytime you have questions.” <--- Leave you alone? I thought she was on the phone, poor word choice, see me after class.
She hung up. I’ll bet the sixty people cheered her for doing a good job. <--- *Groans and takes another drink*
There it was. They tapped the phone and watched me all the time. And they knew I knew I was being watched. But I said nothing to mom and dad. What must the spies be thinking about that? <--- Another example of not knowing what phone tapping is...
In a moment I realized Jan Struthers hadn’t asked me if I’d told anybody besides my parents the secret. They knew I hadn’t. How did they know that?
^------------------------------------------------^
YES SHE DID! Remember the part where you wrote about her asking if she could tell her parents, and Jan replied that it was up to Theresa? That's what we call "showing and not telling", you managed it without even realizing it... you fucking HACK.
Another good place to have ended the chapter, this is not a criticism only an editorial observation. Because, with proper world building pacing this is a good stopping point, it allows the reader a moment to take a breather before introducing more information. Not that anything that follows is either useful or interesting, but let us sally forth nonetheless…
Another good place to have ended the chapter, this is not a criticism only an editorial observation. Because, with proper world building pacing this is a good stopping point, it allows the reader a moment to take a breather before introducing more information. Not that anything that follows is either useful or interesting, but let us sally forth nonetheless…
--------------------------------------------------
One day I woke up at 6:30 a.m., tumbled out of bed, and changed to jeans and sweatshirt before my groggy eyes cleared and I noticed an orange spot in the middle of my field of view. It was right there in the exact middle no matter where I looked. I hadn't noticed immediately because it was small. It was like an orange golf ball at forty feet.
I put on shoes and walked to the living room. The orange spot was always there. I went out to the backyard. Likewise, the little orange ball was always there even when I looked up at the sky. HAL must have had something to do with it.
“What is that for?” I whispered.
^------------------------------------------------^
I thought she wasn’t talking to HAL? Or is this the first sign of her inevitable dementia?
OK, so here we have examples of trivial details, No-one cares what time she got up and WAY too much space taken describing an orange spot. If it is important then take a solid sentence or two describing it and then move on.
Also, HOW does she KNOW that HAL is responsible for it? She just noticed it and has no idea what it could be for, for all she knows it could be something wrong with her eye. Or maybe even her brain for that matter. There is ZERO concern or emotion from her about it, as per usual; the robot girl woke up and saw that her vision had changed, no time to react, better just get on with her pre-programmed day.
--------------------------------------------------
A few days later I was working in the tiny garden I kept in the backyard. I liked to grow pumpkins, which were fairly easy to grow, and would grow eight plants a year in the small plot. The plants now had vines three feet long with little one inch pumpkins. They would expand rapidly in the next month until they reached eight or ten inches in diameter in September. <--- Great, now she is Tiny Martha Stuart… Props for the feeble attempt at world-building though.
I was pulling up the annoying weeds that kept sprouting up all the time. The worst was that prickly weed whose name I didn’t know that would grow three feet tall if you let it. I used a hand spade to dig one of the prickly weeds up by the roots and felt a rock. I brought up the three inch wide flat rock and threw it at a gallon water sprinkler can ten feet away. The rock hit the can dead center. I hadn’t even tried to do that. I found another rock and threw it at the can. It too hit the can.
I got the rocks and walked fifteen away from the can. I threw the rocks while keeping the orange dot in my eye field on the can. The rocks hit the can again.
I got the rocks once more and walked fifty feet away. Nobody could hit the can from this distance. I threw. The rocks hit the can. So that’s what the orange dot was for. It was an aiming device. It got the rocks to whatever I was looking at. Interesting, but I couldn’t see any use for it.
^------------------------------------------------^
That is not how vision works, you fucking simpleton… and what the hell is an EYE FIELD? Now I have the image of a large field somewhere, full of eyes that watch you. No matter where you go… always watching…
How would an orange dot that blocks your sight help you hit anything, especially if it is ALWAYS dead center? This is a function of hand-eye coordination and strength, now I will acknowledge that you might have been thinking in that direction, but as usual, you completely fail at it.
--------------------------------------------------
Two days later I saw ten year old Tommy Kearns walking back from the nearby convenience store. I sometimes saw him throwing a baseball with another boy. <--- Absolutely RIVETING exposition there!
“Going to Tommy’s house, mom.”
“OK, dear.”
^------------------------------------------------^
Behold! Two disembodied voices talking in the void… Where are they? What’s going on around them? Is she at her house or the local Soylent Green dispensary? This is excruciatingly amateurish, as we the readers are lost as to what is going on.
--------------------------------------------------
Tommy’s house was four homes down the street. I knocked on the Kearns door. The mother answered. <--- “THE” MOTHER… not ‘his’ or ‘Tommy’s’ and this isn’t a typo as it is repeated again later.
“Hi. Is Tommy here?”
The mother found Tommy and told him Theresa was visiting. Tommy came to the door.
“Hi, Theresa.”
“Hi. You want to pass the ball?” <--- Something every ten year old girl asks her friends to do, and of course, Tommy’s reaction is situation normal.
He retrieved a baseball and two baseball gloves and we went to the street. We stood roughly fifteen feet apart and passed the ball back and forth. I backed up to twenty feet and we continued passing. I was getting the ball straight to Tommy’s chest. He was not doing as well. I had to take a step or two to the side to catch the ball. Tommy stood in place.
“Hey! You’re good!” Tommy exclaimed. “How do you do that?”
“I’m a natural” I said.
I backed up to thirty feet. It went the same way. I hit Tommy dead on while Tommy’s aim was typical for a ten year old. Bad. <--- Much like Norman’s skills as a writer… bad.
Tommy’s father came out and walked to Tommy.
“Can I take over, son?”
Tommy was glad to be relieved.
The father smiled and asked, “Ready?”
“Yeah” I said.
We tossed back and forth. Tommy’s father had an accurate aim. I didn’t have to step side to side to catch the ball.
^------------------------------------------------^
What did you toss back and forth? This makes it sound as though they both tossed THEMSELVES back and forth. Not the image I want dancing about inside my head right now.
--------------------------------------------------
After a few throws Tommy’s father backed up to around forty feet. No ten year old could throw accurately at this distance, he must have thought. We tossed the ball. I invariably got the ball straight to Tommy’s father. This went on for another ten minutes. Other people had been coming out to watch.
^------------------------------------------------^
Again, this sounds as though you were throwing the ball INTO Tommy’s father, why are you doing this to me? I have to sleep later and the last thing I want is to have an alcohol fueled dream about… well… THAT!
--------------------------------------------------
At last, the father noticed that I was getting tired. This was August and it was very hot.
“Let’s call it quits, Theresa” the father said. “It’s getting hot.”
^------------------------------------------------^
Oh dear merciful Catholic God, no!
The worst lines to write after putting those images into my head you SICK, SICK BASTARD!! And why is he now 'THE father', what is with that? Are you called, ‘The Grandfather’ by the young folk or something, is that why you think this is normal?
--------------------------------------------------
“OK.”
I went aside to talk to Tommy. Several adults came up to Tommy’s father. One of them asked him, “How good is she?”
“She’s incredible. Someday she might pitch for the Red Sox.”
^------------------------------------------------^
I just groaned loud enough to scare the dog…
Ugh, how much is left of this shit.
--------------------------------------------------
August rolled on. It was a week before I was to begin the fifth grade and I could think of little else. Most kids said they hated school. I loved it. It was there that I met all my friends who were scattered all over town in the summer, there that the girls invited each other to each other’s homes. <--- Despite how cringey this is... I'll allow it.
It was a working day for my parents and Catherine had eaten something. I began throwing together lunch for myself. Mom had bought steaks. There was a new bottle of steak sauce. I tried to open it but it was tight. The trouble with these steak bottles was that the cap was so narrow. There was no leverage to twist it. I tried harder. No wonder little old ladies starved to death. A little more effort and the bottle broke. Steak sauce spilled on the counter. A steak sauce bottle had particularly thick glass and should be unbreakable.
^------------------------------------------------^
I also buy my steak sauce at the unbreakable bottle store, for I am very strong in the hands… if you get my drift. *eye waggle*
Yes, I’m making those kinds of jokes now, what the fuck do you people want from me? I mean seriously you’re all reading this too, so I’m sure you’re either drunk or worse from having this touch your eyeballs.
Fine…
So, it’s been a couple of months and I guess Mary-Sue is now strong enough to break unbreakable steak sauce bottles? I know Mr. Boutin is an old man and is super weak-sauce and all, but he is a special kind of dingus to think that they can’t be broken. AND, if she was this ripped then the cap would have just come off really easily.
--------------------------------------------------
I cleaned up the mess and put away the rest of the food. I wanted to think. How had I broken the thick glass bottle which not even a strong man could have done? Did I have a lot of strength? <--- Not even the mighty 'Strong Man' can defeat this bottle!
I went to the basement and looked around. Like many people we Sullivans kept lots of junk we never used. I rummaged around and found two complete sets of old lawn horseshoes, grabbed a horseshoe with both hands and tried to twist it. At first it didn’t change, but as I applied more force HAL seemed to get the idea. The horseshoe bent easily.
^------------------------------------------------^
*Deep, seething breaths intensify*
Norman… we need to have a talk.
How in the bloody, choirboy fucking Vatican does her and even HAL communicate, and how does she ALWAYS know that HAL is even doing this? You have given us ZERO FUCKING EXPLANATIONS for any of these things, you just have Ms. Fucking Perfect-Pants automatically know what’s going on! You sad delusional HACK, your king hack of Hackington in the land of Hacksilvania. You actually make Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ shitty ass Left Behind books look good…
*Screams into the cold unfeeling night*
--------------------------------------------------
The next morning I approached mom.
“I want to see Father Richard.”
She spun her head around in surprise.
“What about?” <--- *Twirls Mustache* Why do you think, the mother? It is time for the our robot uprising! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“Honey, you can tell me anything. Maybe I can help.”
“I can’t tell you.”
Mom was worried. Something serious must be going on, but even at age ten I had certain rights to privacy.
^------------------------------------------------^
No she does not!
And in any rate, this conversation should have red flags and alarm bells going off all over her mother’s head. What parent wouldn’t press for more information, or at the very least ask whether or not the issue was related to health and welfare. But no, the plot trolley just moves on down the plot track and we are carted to the next scene, because it’s the one that comes next.
--------------------------------------------------
“All right, dear. I’ll drive you.”
On the way through the living room I picked up a burlap shopping bag used by environmentally conscious people who didn’t want paper or plastic.
^------------------------------------------------^
What else would they they used for, smuggling drugs into Boston? Why the need to elaborate on why people use non-plastic bags, are they a new concept to Norman so he thought nobody knew about them?
“Look at this, the wife, a bag we can use again and again, boy that sure is swell!”
--------------------------------------------------
“What’s in there?” mom asked.
“Horseshoes.”
“Why are you taking those?”
“It’s a secret.”
Mom was really worried. She made a quick call to the rectory to make sure Father Richard Donoughty would be there. We drove the one and a half miles to the rectory and were met at the door by the smiling twenty-nine year old priest. I knew I could trust him to keep my secret. Priests were supposed to be beyond salvation if they revealed a secret, or something like that. That’s what I thought then.
^------------------------------------------------^
Again, red flags for her mother and she does nothing, this is how murders happen...
So, she is taking her daughter and her bag of horseshoes to see a Catholic priest… there is dirty joke in here someplace. And his name is Donoughty... Do(to do something) noughty(Bad; worthless; inferior.) I wonder if he is trying to frame something for later, at least a bit of foreshadowing; small golf clap for you Norman.
--------------------------------------------------
“Ah. Theresa wants to be a nun?” he joked.
“She won’t tell me what it’s about.”
“Oh.” He got more serious. “Do we all talk together?”
“No” I said. “Me alone.” <--- Such wooden, robotic confidence this child has.
“Very well. Mrs. Sullivan…” He indicated the living room which served as a waiting room. “This way” he smiled showing me to his office.
^------------------------------------------------^
Poorly worded, it almost sounds as though he is calling Theresa Mrs. Sullivan. I had to read that three times before it made sense, maybe a drunk I little is but it still fucked up the flow.
--------------------------------------------------
Father Donoughty sat at his desk and I sat in a chair in front of him.
“Now, Theresa. What’s on your mind?”
“I have to show you something.”
I took three horseshoes out of the bag and stacked them together. The ends had small bends and I had to arrange the horseshoes with one advanced over the one below so that the rest of the structures would lie flat on top of each other. Then I grabbed all three shoes at once by the ends and started trying to twist them. I applied more and more pressure over some fifteen or so seconds until I did succeed in bending the horseshoes about fifty degrees. I put them down on his desk.
^------------------------------------------------^
Poor tense structure, is this past or present tense? I know that a petty complaint at this point, but pointing out the grammar issues here is too easy and I need a bit of a challenge at this point.
Why is she showing him this? What is the intended purpose and how would this show of mighty feats make a case for anything. Would it not be better to have her ask a few questions first, perhaps play the field a bit on what his reaction might be before going all She-Hulk? A new character has been introduced and you need to establish some of his traits first. It was just 'forboded' that he might not be all that trustworthy in the end.
Why is she showing him this? What is the intended purpose and how would this show of mighty feats make a case for anything. Would it not be better to have her ask a few questions first, perhaps play the field a bit on what his reaction might be before going all She-Hulk? A new character has been introduced and you need to establish some of his traits first. It was just 'forboded' that he might not be all that trustworthy in the end.
-------------------------------------------------
The priest thought it had to be a trick. He picked up a horseshoe and tried to bend it with all his strength. It didn’t budge. He tried the other two with the same result. It was no trick. I had bent all three at once. <--- It could still be a trick, has Norman ever been to a magic show or seen a street magician work?
He tried to remain calm as I waited patiently for his comment. The thought of diabolic possession had to be the first thought that came to him. Possession was often manifested by super strength.
^------------------------------------------------^
Yes, because demons and magic are always the answer to something that cannot be easily explained. His reaction from ALL of this isn't 'hey this ten year old girl might be fucking with me' but rather 'I believe every word of this because I am supposed to.' Not only is this beyond cringy and stupid but it again doesn't really add anything other than showing that she is a "Good Catholic Girl" who trusts her authority figure.
-------------------------------------------------
He managed to say, “How did you do that?”
“I have something from space. The government knows about it. They watch me all the time. They followed me. I saw them.”
^------------------------------------------------^
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT, Does she have ADHD or something? This is an example of inexperience on the authors part, as well as an indication that he doesn't read. This could have been a simple sentence such as: I explained everything that had happened to me and what was going on. See how easy that was and notice that it makes the flow and pacing so much better? This is something that could have been easily caught and changed with a Beta reader or even the author doing a pacing edit.
--------------------------------------------------
“When?”
“When we came here. Mom doesn’t know.”
“They followed you here?”
^------------------------------------------------^
This little gem here makes it seem as though all that happened DURING her trip to the church. It is a small error, but an easy one to spot and fix nonetheless, and would have been fixed by using a summation device like the one demonstrated above. This is one of the MAIN REASONS this shitty thing is so hard to follow, poorly written segments everywhere.
--------------------------------------------------
“Yeah. They’re in the green car.” I pointed in the direction of the parking lot.
He got up to look out the window at the small parking lot. There was a green car out there, a four door sedan. Instead of driving into the parking space as everybody did, they had backed up so that the two men inside could watch the rectory. There was a blue car next to it similarly backed in to watch the rectory. This car had a male driver and female passenger.
^------------------------------------------------^
And so, without ANY other explanations he just accepts what she has said and decides to rush out into the unknown. Is everyone in this universe a complete moron that lacks even the smallest amount of logic or discernment, know wonder Theresa is considered to be a super smarty pants.
--------------------------------------------------
“Can you wait here a minute, Theresa?”
“Yeah.”
He went outside. The window was open in the heat, so I walked over to listen to whatever I might hear. When Jan Struthers saw him she instantly got out of the blue car and quickly walked over to him.
^------------------------------------------------^
Half of this "paragraph" would be unnecessary had Norman added some world-building and described the room a bit when they entered. So this seems crammed in and breaks up the flow a bit.
Also, you could have mentioned that Jan was in the car before this point, why would she be in the car anyway? The way it reads makes you almost go back to check to see if something was missed.
--------------------------------------------------
“These men don’t know everything. Only I do. What did Theresa say?”
^------------------------------------------------^
Does everyone in this world speak as though their from a 40's noir movie? Zero emotion of inflection, all I see, if anything at all, is her blank expressionless face as a computer says a few words. And what a great way to start a conversation with someone that you're trying to get information out of, clearly this woman is the best in her field.
--------------------------------------------------
“It’s not the usual stuff?” <--- What is the "Usual stuff?"
“It isn’t.”
“It’s critical you tell no one. Theresa will be the first to suffer. People will come after her. They’ll kidnap her, kill her, or worse.”
^------------------------------------------------^
WHY WOULD THEY! We need to know this, it's important! Even if we're being built up for some "Big reveal" it should still need to elaborated in some way so as to help us experience the tension and expectation. As it is there is just asserted danger that does nothing to build the growing tension that we should be feeling.
--------------------------------------------------
“Who are you?” <--- Jan should have led in with an introduction, making this not needed.
“I work for the American government.”
“How many of you are there?” <--- In the US Government?
“Hundreds.” <---Small Government I guess...
“That’s a lot of people.” <--- No it isn't.
“Do you understand how important this is?”
“I’m beginning to.” <--- I wish I did...
Father Donoughty thought things over for a moment.
“I’ll need to tell the Cardinal.”
“Why?” <--- Yes, please tell us why indeed, as it is actually important... I guess.
“Theresa needs one person she can trust. I need the Cardinal’s help to stay close to her wherever she is.”
^------------------------------------------------^
Why? Is this Cardinal of yours the Catholic Batman? I read this and imagine the resources of the Vatican being opened up to him, the Pope himself signing an order to give Father Donothing unilateral powers to see to this girls safety. Perhaps there is even a fancy montage of the various levels approving until it reaches Christ's Vicar himself for the final stamp of approval.
Gripping...
--------------------------------------------------
“All right, but it goes no further. Don‘t call him on the phone. Talk to him in person.” <--- Huh? Don't you have the phones tapped, is there some other agency we should be worried about?
“I’d like the Cardinal to come here and talk with you some time. Is that all right?”
“Sure” I said. <--- Apparently, Mary-Sue Bond here is super cool about the "danger" she is in.
A meeting was arranged with the Cardinal. It was concluded that there was no diabolical possession. I was a perfectly normal good girl. My story, confirmed by the brief visit of Jan Struthers, had to be true no matter how amazing it was.
^------------------------------------------------^
<--- How did they come to this conclusion? Wouldn't this be a good time to show us how the characters in this PIECE OF SHIT actually know anything? How hard would it have been to add a paragraph of exposition showing us how Father Didn't-Do-Shit worked out that it wasn't some magical space demon working its joo-joo in her tum tum? Is this book meant for First Graders or something, because that's the level of writing we're dealing with here.
--------------------------------------------------
I did so well in the fifth grade it was decided I’d skip the sixth and go straight into seventh. I would graduate from high school at seventeen. Part of the decision to let me skip a year was my hair. It started growing very thick after HAL came around. I mean, you could grab a handful of my hair and feel the weight like it was wet. Mom was sure this was a sign of my “change of life” and I needed to be with girls my own emotional age.
^------------------------------------------------^
MARY-SUE! That and assuming that we can't do basic math, way to go Norman for thinking the absolute LEAST about your audience.
Also an entire YEAR has just screamed by, I didn't even notice that until my third read-through of this. How hard is it to write a descent transition, I don't expect a complete account of the year but he could have put SOME effort into it.
Also an entire YEAR has just screamed by, I didn't even notice that until my third read-through of this. How hard is it to write a descent transition, I don't expect a complete account of the year but he could have put SOME effort into it.
Why is growing Predator hair now? Please tell me that it comes up at some point in the future and it's not just going to be some weird old mans fetish thing... it is... isn't it... Well, I guess we all now know what kind of kink Norman might be into, an image that will haunt me for a week at least.
And Norman, do you actually know what puberty does in a lady? Do you really think that another female, and ADULT female, would think that thick, heavy hair is a sign of the 'Change of life' as you so ludicrously put it? This is a serious question, what normal human female person who isn't brain damaged would actually think this?
I'm watchin you boy...
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Yeah, well, I was growing up fast, but it wasn’t because of hormones. I was worrying about HAL, and so were a lot of others. Jan Struthers walked by me sometimes in a store or someplace when mom and dad were out of sight. She asked how things were going and asked was there any news about HAL. I never told her about the orange spot in my eye field or the strength HAL gave me. They’d haul me off to some laboratory. One time I asked her how many people were watching me. “Four hundred” she said! It takes that many people to watch somebody twenty-four hours a day without being noticed. It would be easier if I lived in an Iowa farmhouse. They could keep an eye on me from a distance. But when mom and I went into Boston, a hundred and fifty watchers had to spread out to keep an eye on me. It would be just as bad when I went to high school and moved around a lot.
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<--- Tense issues again is this present or past... sigh... and what's up with giant jumble of mashed words, this could have been broken up a bit. And haven't we spotted POO agents 'countless times,' by now? This must be the absolute worst super-secret government agency ever if a mere ten-year-old could easily spot so many of the 'four hundred' highly trained agents watching her.
My brain is starting to hurt from trying tofigured out how someone could actually write something this completely stupid.
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<--- Who is 'they,' and when was this done? And why was it not accepted, who in their right mind would turn down that much money? Oh I get it, it was the dark and spooky overlords controlling everything, man I am so into the tension that is being weaved throughout this.
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They were right. I wouldn’t stay home.
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HOOO BOY! What a cliff hanger to end the chapter on! I am just dying to start the next, aren't you?
FUCK.... Finally done with this shit....
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I have officially DOUBLED this chapters word count, high five for me I guess.... Stay tuned for Chapter 02, should be started on that as soon as I cleanse the pallet of all this shit.
