Reply With QuoteI don't fit your criteria - however congratulations on doing this and the very best of luck.
Right. Not sure how I feel about this but, as the title says, I wrote a novel.
Now I'm looking for proofreaders to check for the plots for holes, contradictions etc. and the writing for speling (sic), grammar etc.
Ok, you might say, what is this book?
“The Burners” is a black comedy set in a municipal crematorium near Birmingham, England, during the second half of 1964. Three single men in their twenties work there: Cyril Cohen, Billy Reid and George Featherby. Cyril, the boss, is a Belgian Jew whose family fled the Nazis; Billy is a Glaswegian womaniser, drinker and gambler with a criminal past; George is a devout Christian and a sensitive poet. They are joined part-way through by a fourth man: Horace Beckford, the organist, who is a Windrush generation immigrant from Trinidad. Horace is older than the other three: he’s married to an English hospital doctor with whom he has two daughters. Later on the local clergy and police enter the action. The story begins on Monday June 22nd – just after the longest day – and ends six months later in late December, on the shortest day. The generally worsening weather, with increasing darkness and cold, forms the backdrop to a story that also becomes colder, harder and darker.
Cyril, George and Billy have dealings with the local undertakers, clergy and council — all of whom provide ample opportunity for mishaps and misunderstandings. Behind the thin veneer of decorum that the crematorium presents to the public the three get up to all kind of less than respectable antics. These take place in a series of increasingly chaotic escapades and episodes. The novel ends with murder and mayhem, culminating in the accidental death of Billy and Cyril. George leaves for London on the shortest day of the year.
----
To be fair, it's funnier that that makes it sound. Or at least I *hope* it is. And watches do feature! So that's something.
I'm looking for people who want to read it. Especially the following types: 1. those who were alive in 1964 (and can remember it!) and/or 2. Jewish people and/or 3. Scottish people and/or 4. Windrush-era black British people. The novel *is* supposed to be a comedy (at least in parts) but is isn't supposed to be racist.
If you fancy trying the first two parts, drop me a PM with your email address. If you like it (and you may not) you can then request further instalments. There are, I think, 11 in total but they are of uneven length. (They just happen to be the documents I wrote it in and then kept that split. There's no logical or narrative reasons for the breaks.)
Anyone fancy giving parts 1 & & 2 a go?
I don't fit your criteria - however congratulations on doing this and the very best of luck.
To be honest Rev-O, you want an editor, not just a proofreader.
I would think the smartarse who had the temerity to highlight the only grammatical error in Wimm's tour de force summary of The Friday Thread should put his pencil where his finger is.
I'm not only looking for people who fit into those categories. Anyone willing to read would be fine.Originally Posted by jwillans
"Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?"
Yes, but before I get that far some "eyes on" would be a welcome start.
Well, I am in between issues of the car magazine that I edit & publish, so I could take a look.
Be warned that my total editing experience lies in the technical genre though.
I did write some poetry in my earlier years, but the janitor made me wash it off.
Last edited by unclealec; 10th January 2021 at 21:12.
Thanks! There's a tasty Jag in it for you (as it were.)
Congrats on the achievement - we've all got a novel in us. Apparently, the trick is getting it out!
I've written 19 novel-length manuscripts and had a small number published, and one of my biggest struggles was to find an editor I trust to do a decent, reliable job. I'm still looking...
After that, the task of finding agents and publishers is child's-play!
I'd be happy to swap messages on the delicate subject of what to do with a manuscript once you are happy with it.
I hope that you write better than you navigate.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
How many pages are the two parts that you want looking at..?
I might give it a go but I don’t have loads of spare time...
Rev, I'm snowed with various things at the moment relating to family and I have a list of work to do which is going to take me months.
But if you get initial comments in, update the draft and then post on this thread again, I may be in a better position in a few months' time.
I'm not in your criteria but I know my way around a sentence.
Hello Rev-O (I am a poet).
I’m happy to have a read through.
I’m am not Scottish, Jewish or old enough to have been around in 1964 but I am a frustrated writer - children’s fiction - so can hopefully give you some constructive comments. Feel free to PM me with details if you want.
Have you considered joining your local writing group? Mine meets once a week - via Zoom at present - and it has proved invaluable in moving my writing along.
Septuagenarian Hamish Steinberg here, writing from my plot in Barbados .
Although I fit none of your criteria, I’d love a go please .
PM inbound .
Ha! No.
The story sounds very interesting and I can see the huge potential for dark humour. I’m currently proofreading the first part of a friends novel, with the second part following in the next week or so, so I shan’t proffer my services but will say congratulations and the very best of luck!
That's easy.
11 "parts" (i.e. separate docs)
1: 14k
2: 9k
3: 5k
4: 7k
5: 7k
6: 4k
7: 5.6k
8: 4.4k
9: 4.7k
10: 2.3k
11: 3.6k
Total: 64.6k
Synopsis (main plot)
Early on we learn that George’s mother died just over a year ago and he lives with his father, with whom he has a difficult relationship. Billy knows George’s dad from the pub and the bookies; both Billy and Cyril feel sorry for George.
Meanwhile, Billy himself makes astute observations and smart comments despite being proudly working class and avowedly anti-intellectual. He mocks George and Cyril for their grammar school education and bookishness but he has a quick brain and a natural, native intelligence. Behind and within his massive size and muscular physique, Billy hides his own hurts: brought up in a children’s home and then sent to Borstal he’s on the run from shady underworld associates in Scotland – a past he doesn’t care to dwell on and won’t speak of.
Cyril is one we learn least about. He’s a little older than the other two and lives with his mother. Cyril and George share a love of literature in general and poetry in particular.
As George’s domestic situation deteriorates he becomes increasingly volatile and withdrawn, much to Cyril and Billy’s shared concern. His poetry also becomes more “modern”. He starts to take his Christian faith more seriously and has some helpful conversations with a newly ordained local Vicar, The Rev Don Jackson, who was a wartime RAF pilot. Don becomes something of a father figure to George. Billy (a lapsed Catholic) and Cyril (a not-very-observant Jew) are bemused by this development. However, Billy and George are equally bemused by Cyril’s mother’s attempts at matchmaking: a series of eligible young women who are invited round for strictly kosher Friday night dinners. When she dies we discover that she was in fact his grandmother and his parents perished in the holocaust.
Cyril and George have an unusual and unusually close relationship. They share a love of literature in general and poetry in particular. George invites Cyril to his house and shows him a box of gold coins. He says he wants George to have them if anything should happen to him. He also give him keys to both his house and the locked treasure chest.
Eventually, in early December, the mild-mannered George snaps and kills his abusive father with a hammer. The unflappable Billy deals nonchalantly with it and cremates the body late one night, with Cyril as an unwilling accomplice. They are pulled over by the police on the way to the crematorium. Due to a misunderstanding, the police come to believe that Billy are Cyril are gay, at a time when homosexuality was illegal. The two men themselves know nothing about this.
The three men agree on a story that George’s dad has gone to Ireland to escape gambling debts. Cyril feels guilty and anxious about having helped Billy dispose of the body. He announces that he is resigning and going to Buenos Aires in the new year. One of the girls he was set up on a date with now lives there and they’ve been long-distance penpals. He will also be glad to go to a place without an extradition treaty.
A week or so later Billy privately admits to Cyril that he got drunk and told some of his former friends in Glasgow about how easily he disposed of a body. They tell him they will cancel all his debts and allow him back to Scotland if he can get rid of one for them. Cyril is horrified but agrees on the condition that George knows nothing about it. Cyril and Billy meet the two gangsters with the corpse at the crematorium late one Saturday night.
George is asleep at home and is woken up by loud knocking on his front door in the small hours of Sunday morning. Two police officers inform him that there’s been an explosion at the crematorium and several bodies have been recovered. George knows nothing about what the other two have been up to and agrees to accompany the police to the scene.
Arriving at the crematorium while it’s still dark, George finds it almost completely destroyed. It is cold, so the police lend George a regulation issued overcoat. As a result he is mistaken for a constable and overhears the theory that Cyril and Billy were lovers.
While he’s still there it is discovered that three other bodies at the scene were two well-known Scottish criminals and a wealthy businessman who had recently gone missing, presumed kidnapped or murdered.
The police take George home. He still has keys to Cyril’s house and goes there, forging a note that confirms Billy and Cyril’s homosexual relationship and admits to them killing and disposing of his father. It also implies that George knew nothing about either fact. George then takes the gold and leaves Cyril’s home just before the police arrive with a search warrant.
George is called in for questioning by the police, who produce the note that he wrote at Cyril’s house. They show it to him; he feigns shock and surprise at its contents. The police believe him and are convinced of his innocence. Before he is released without any charges they tell him that explosion was caused by a brand new device fitted to the dead man: a heart pacemaker. This caused the mains gas supply to ignite, which in turn destroyed the building.
The story ends on a dark, rainy night with George leaving for London. He stops to call in on Don and Horace before leaving town. On the way out of town George picks a hitchhiker, a girl. She tells him her name is Nikki; he tells her his name is Billy. He is tired and she gives him some of her pills:
“George took one and put it in his mouth. Before he swallowed it he was aware of the bitter taste.
“So, Billy, what line of work are you in?”
“Eh?” George wondered why she was talking to Billy, then remembered. In the time this took she asked again.
“What do you do for a living?”
“Oh. Well, that’s kind of a long story.”
“That’s OK, we’ve got a long journey.”
They drove on together, through the darkness and into the rain, he bearing the name of one friend and the gold of another; she with her amphetamines and her pearls. Ahead lay the bright lights of London, Christmas and the new year.”
Sounds like a 'box office' story which could be adapted for TV or radio ... I'd like to help but currently have too many projects. I'm aware you must be a very busy man but you might find some willing readers via a U3A writers' group in your locality ... all U3A members are over 50 years of age ... you'd have to join U3A yourself to take advantage of their writing groups' expertise
Good luck
dunk
"Well they would say that ... wouldn't they!"
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