Exposition or infordump

[AnyaKimlin]

I know this is a rough draft but I think I've edited it to readable.. I'm trying out a new style for this book now I have the new POV I don't need to hint too much at the fantasy in Ian's POV. I'm particularly wondering about the first couple of paragraphs. Are they too much and would you skip them?

Ian and Wilf were resistant to change and nothing highlighted that more than the small terraced house they shared. In 1962 Ian had carried his heavily pregnant wife across the threshold. Nine years of a disastrous marriage later she left both Ian and her five sons for a window cleaner two streets over. The next day Wilf moved in with his son. It was like Moira Glass had never existed. Every five years they repainted the house in exactly the same colour and only replaced items when they were broken beyond repair.

Beanie snored and Ian tiptoed out of the bedroom still clutching a copy of The Gruffalo. He stopped at the top of the stairs and caught his breath. Maybe he was coming down with something. He almost hoped he was getting sick and it might explain why he couldn't escape the gnawing fear in the pit of his stomach. Or maybe it was something more mundane and closer to home that he was refusing to acknowledge. It was an effort to get to the back room and sink down into his putty leather armchair on the side of the fire nearest the door. He smiled a little at Wilf who was playing with Little Tyke. Yet again there was no sign of the demon baby Harley and his wife kept complaining about.

"Wonder where Harley is?"

"Probably forgotten he had children. Ahh Boo." Wilf managed to address both Ian and Little Tyke at the same time. "Ahh Boo, Little Man." He shook a rattle in front of Little Tyke.

"I wish you wouldn't talk about him like that."

"It's hard not to. We raised most of our children pretty damn good but Harley like his father before him is an arse. Ahh Boo isn't that right? Your daddy and grandaddy are idiots aren't they?" He'd kept the usual edge out of his voice whilst he was talking in front of the baby. "You look like sh*t warmed up and served up as stew."

Tyke gurgled, smiled and tried to grab the ends of Wilf's moustache. Wilf distracted him with the rattle.

"Talking to me or Tyke?"

"You, you old git, you've aged twenty years in twenty four hours." He managed to continue the soothing baby voice as he spoke. "Going to tell me about it?"

"No. Not until he's gone and I've had a malt anyway."

"Fair enough."

"Grandpa, my key doesn't work," Harley's voice came from the hallway. "Let me in for God's sake it's late."

Wilf stood up and handed Little Tyke to Ian. "It would work if he'd visited in the last month and picked up the new one." He held his hand out. "No, Ian, you sit there and I'll deal with the brat."

"Wilf, play nice."

Wilf sighed. "I always do. I always do. But right now I want to kick his arse up the stairs to bed and lock him in the house."

Ian settled and cuddled Little Tyke close to his neck, the baby snuffled and he revelled in the calm it gave him.

Outside the room: "Get in there and speak with your grandfather. You can stay for for a cup of a tea. Uhuh that was not a request. Get in there."

"Sarah..."

"I don't bloody care about Sarah right now. Man up... and think about your sons. You know the children you sired."

The door opened and it was obvious Harley had been shoved in. He plonked the carseat down and showed no interest in Little Tyke. Instead he thunked down on the putty leather sofa and sulked. "Wilf says George is staying here. Sarah won't like that."

Ian tried to ignore the expertly covered bruise on the side of Harley's face. "It was late he needed to go to bed. To disturb him now would be cruel. Why don't you say hello to Little Tyke -- he's not seen you all day." He held out a complaining Little Tyke.

Harley took him and immediately strapped him in the carseat.

 

[pambaddeley]

Not sure how ungrammatical you want to be - if it's in POV I mean. Otherwise, strictly speaking it would be 'It was as if Moira Glass...'

This is American? Because 'Two streets over' would be 'Two streets away' in UK english. I thought the later 'old git' and 'arse' indicated it was British.

Does this refer to Little Tyke - "Yet again there was no sign of the demon baby Harley and his wife kept complaining about." because I did find it confusing.

Got very lost with Harley's relationship to the characters - "but Harley like his father before him"

So the baby is Harley's son, I presume. Don't know who the granddad is, not Wilf it seems. Though Harley is talking to 'grandpa'. So is Wilf calling himself an arse? Oh, it is Ian, so this is banter presumably. Grandpa definitely sounds American.

Extra 'for' in stay for a cup of tea
A comma after You know would clarify it

I don't think you need to say he showed no interest - if he just thunks down, it's shown. I don't get the references to putty leather by the way, sounds like something you fix windows with gone wrong.
Is George the real name of the baby? Ah, I think it's another of Harley's sons?

If the bruise is expertly covered, I wouldn't expect it to really show.

My main issue was it being rather unclear what the relationships were - the info dump at the beginning didn't help, I'm afraid.

 

[J5V]

OK, I read the first few paras, because I'm only supposed to be here a few minutes, but I'll share thoughts...

At "Nine years of", my attention wilted a little, after a creeping suspicion beforehand, feeling the onset of a story that was not about the immediate. My subconscious was thinking, "I just need to get past this bit, then I'm into the meat of the story."

It's possible to introduce the notion of 'I&W never changing' LATER, to break up the info, e.g. by making reference to the unchanging house, immediately after the Gruffalo sentence. Just a quick mention, possibly explicitly linking with "still clutching..." (if that's what you had intended).

Basically, it can survive re-jigs to shake the info down into the story, to avoid the sinking feeling of 'ramble coming / infodump'. It might become more relevant when mentioned alongside the present happenings. It makes the past 'dovetail' or 'interleave' with the present, and keeps it moving. When you stop mentioning the past, you're flowing faster.

Also, I picked up a lot of colloquial narrative, which might not translate well, and makes the narration seem trivial and off-hand, perhaps even gossipy?

[I re-edited this after posting]

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Sorry for taking so long to respond - I had the migraine from hell less than an hour after posting this and I'm only just over it. It was probably why I was struggling so much with this. Thank you both for your comments I agree with most of them. I'll rewrite it and get the up. This isn't an opening and I think I also needed to supply some info but it needs to be clearer.

 

[Martin Gill]

Is this meant as the beginning of the book? If so it didn't work for me.

I like the way the characters speak - they feel authentic - but the first 2 paras don't do it for me. I'm a bit confused over who's who, how old the characters are and what the relationships are. If its important that Ian's wife left then I'd point that out later. Also, if its your intro, nothing is really happening. I think you need to be stronger in establishing the relationships between the characters and also give us a little of what they are doing. I also don't understand who's POV this is.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Is this meant as the beginning of the book? If so it didn't work for me.

No it's chapter five. The relationship between Ian and the children is already established. It needs a rewrite. I didn't realise I was ill when I couldn't get it right I'll post the rewrite in the next hour or so.

 

[Martin Gill]

No it's chapter five

Ok that's not so bad then. If you've already established relationships, etc then ignore most of what I said I'm still a bit lost as who is the POV character though.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I think this shows most of what I need:

Ian put the phone down and sighed. He needed John here right now -- just to bounce thoughts off. But he knew John was fighting his own demons. Should he tell Harley that he couldn't have the boys back until he left Sarah? It would be difficult to convince social services that there was anything wrong with the respectable, professional young couple in their lovely home. Had Harley been beating Sarah he knew it would stand a better chance of being taken seriously. It wouldn't help Beanie and Little Tyke to have Greatpa arrested for kidnapping them or to have Sarah to ban him from seeing them at all. Back in the kitchen he smiled at Little Tyke who was playing with a rattle in his car seat and gurgling away.

"I don't know why your parents say you're such a difficult baby." He took flowery china plates from the yellow Formica unit behind him. "Now your great-uncle Pete really was a demon baby. He screamed so much I thought his head would spin round..." On trays with linen napkins on them he laid the plates. "...you know like in that film... oh ..." Brandishing a fork in Little Tyke's direction he tried to remember. "... I took your Greatma, have you ever met her, to see it."

"Poo." Little Tyke's arms and legs kicked with excitement and he grinned at Ian.
"No it wasn't called Poo... I'd have remembered that. I know it was The Exorcist. She actually held my hand home from the cinema that night." He laughed. "I think that was the one and only time me and Moira showed affection in public." Ian pulled a face. "Well except for that rather awful kiss we were forced into at the wedding. Has your daddy ever taken you to meet her? For that matter I don't know if he's even met her. I haven't spoken to her since the boys could arrange their own contact."

"Poo... Poo... Poo."

"New sound huh? Or are you describing your Greatma? I'm fairly sure we'd describe each other as poo. I can't really say anything about her affairs not when I was carrying on with your Greatpa Wilf for most of our marriage." He opened the delicious smelling, warm foil containers. "These smell good. Shame you're only allowed that yucky formula. If it was up to my ma you'd be on porridge by now. I'm pretty sure we didn't leave the boys until they were six months old." The sweet and sour sauce coated the pork balls and covered the rice. "I'd better get this into Beanie then we'll do something about your supper, little man." From the undercounter fridge he took the bottle of lemonade and poured it into a plastic beaker with some cartoon character or other on it. All Ian knew was that it wasn't Mickey Mouse or He-Man.

He carried the tray through to the back parlour where Beanie, with damp hair from his bath, was sat in pyjamas watching some show with a polar bear and a cat pirate. Beanie, for one night only, had been allowed to sit in Ian's putty-coloured leather armchair. Nobody else was allowed to sit in Ian's chair unless they were really sick or upset.

Ian placed the tray on the little table in front of Beanie. "Make sure you eat that if you want ice-cream and popcorn. Your daddy should be here soon to pick Little Tyke up."
"So? Don't want to see him." In the manner of an automaton, Beanie shovelled sweet and sour into his mouth. "Tell him I hate him."

Even when his boys had been teens they'd at least pretended to want to see him -- it may only have been a grunt but there was an acknowledgement of sorts. It bothered him that Beanie didn't think or care much about Harley. He went back through to the kitchen, pausing in the hallway to shout up the stairs. "Wilf, you want your dinner?"

"I've got to go up to the hall. There's a horse in distress and the vet can't get there as fast as I can." In his oldest shirt and khaki fatigues, Wilf came running down the stairs. Over his shoulder he wore his shotgun in its case and in his hands were the keys to his ancient Land Rover.

"That bad?"

"Lady Vivenne is not a woman usually given to distress so I suspect it's what she wants me for. He's her favourite stallion so she probably can't do it herself. See you later." He kissed Ian on the cheek. "Keep the Chinese warm for me although not sure I'm going to want it."
Before Ian could reply, Wilf had gone out into the porch and was exchanging his slippers for his boots. When he went out the front door, Ian's sense of security left with him. Never before had he felt so nervous in his own home. He put the chain across and the stared at the door wondering if he could put something across it. "Don't be daft, old man," he said to himself. As a compromise he pulled the bolt at the top and the one at the bottom over. Rust spilled onto the ground and he tried to remember when they had ever been drawn before.

Ian went back into the kitchen and put the cartons with Wilf's egg foo yung into the oven to keep warm. He went about serving his own chow mein.

"Poo.. Poo... Poo..." Little Tyke shook his rattle, laughed and threw it on the ground.
"You really are full of poo tonight aren't you kid." As he bent over Ian felt old, older than he ever remembered feeling before. "And if you talk to your great uncles, uncles, cousins they will tell you I don't play 52 pick up. Twice is my limited. Get it, kid?"

"Poo..."

"Yourself."

A knock on the door disturbed the moment and Ian held on to his back as he straightened up. His heart pounded and he took several deep breaths to calm himself. "Tell you what, I feel like poo." He padded down the hallway. "Who is it?"

".... the rest with Harley is too long to put up

 

[NbDawn]

In general, I liked it--both the initial piece you posted and the one you posted on Saturday. The dialogue seems real and I was able to imagine myself in the scene. I think it was a bit confusing about who was who, but it was pointed out that this was taken out from chapter 5. If I'd read this from the beginning, I'm sure I'd be able to follow better. In regards to your initial question about the first two paragraphs - I think the first paragraph is out of place. It seems to be written in a general point of view instead of Ian's point of view. The second paragraph is fine, though.