I've been posting pieces of this project sporadically here for years, but the bike novel's finally shaping up into a final draft. How's this excerpt looking?The novel is a day-by-day account of a cross-Canada bicycle journey between two friends told in person first present. It's basically a retelling of the same bike trip I did with my buddy in 2019. This scene appears about 1/3rd of the way into the novel. Themes include mental health, modern alienation, masculinity, and it explores existential themes arising from the character's shame and search for purpose in life. It's about the complexities of human connection in a disconnected world, and how new challenges and obstacles appear and repeat forever, giving us cause for hope and redemption. I'm going for a modern watered-down spin on Zen and the Art. Is the writing style palatable for a mass audience, or should I consider this more a niche project? Any feedback welcome — thanks for your guidance and encouragement so far.1/5
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>>23981113>>23981114>>23981119>>23981121>>23981124Here's the full copy-pasted plain text version:>https://ctxt.io/2/AAB4ITZ-FgSwitching "we're doomed" to "we're all fucked", or something similar as the closing line.
>>23981137We're doomed is definitely better.
>>23981188thanks brother
Looks very promising so far. I'll get back to you about this later
>>23981137I liked this. I think you set it up with stuff like the missed phone call and the busted bike. Dialogue feels pretty natural, which for most people is a stumbling block. Style feels right for what you're doing; definitely palatable for most, though I don't feel like you should be restricting yourself for that (you're writing about something slightly outsider anyway). Pretty clean apart from maybe a handful of typos ("But there were any" is the only one I remember, though I wasn't looking hard), but I think you could tighten it up a bit.Re: doomI agree with >>23981188 that you should keep it, but I think you softened the impact by saying>I feel doomedearlier. Reword that line so "doom" kicks in for the first time at the end. And I'm not sure if it's because my expectations were that it would end literally on "we're doomed" because I read the thread, but I think you could interrupt the diary entry with your line>I fall asleepso that it's>What we want is infinite, but anything that can give it to us is finite. >I fall asleep as Richard’s laughter drifts from a room muffled by a wall between us, pen in hand.>We’re doomed.with the first and third lines in your diary font.Anyway, I'd read more. Not sure if part of my enjoyment comes from driving through that long stretch of Trans Canada. Old Woman Bay in particular was incredible coming around the bend in the boreal after the hours of monotony before it coming from the west. I wrote a short thing about it in a thread earlier this year https://warosu.org/lit/thread/23257695#p23257747 But either way, whether it's because I've had experiences in that stretch or whatever, yeah, I'd read more and you set the story up nice.You got an email?
>>23981425Thanks man, yeah, LFA(dot)hunt at gmail.
>>23981113>should I consider this more a niche project?The pace is slow and it reads more like a diary, which means few people are going to be interested. Without a strong story and plot pushing things forward, you're not going to find a mass audience.
>>23981113I can't really speak for a mass audience but I think the style is good
Thanks guys, much appreciated!
Needs more sex and jokes. Zzzzz
