Edited to say: This is my first fragment posting here, so if you must be brutal, please be brutal in as nice a way as possible...

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I’ve heard it said that if you put a frog into a pot of hot water, he’ll jump right out; but if you put him in a pot of cool water, and set it on the stove to heat, you can boil him before he ever realizes that the water’s getting hot. Insanity’s like that.
I imagine that if you woke up one morning, barking like a dog and wearing no pants, except on your head, someone would notice. But what if it were more gradual than that? You talk to your cat or your dog (after all, who doesn’t?). Maybe you say "Good Morning" to your Ficus when you water it. Stuff people do every day, and no one thinks twice about it. And then, one day, maybe the Ficus answers. And you’re not surprised. And to everyone else, you’re just a little more solicitous of your houseplants than most. Life goes on.
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Summary of the premise: A series of murders, all identical in circumstance, are occurring in the town of Nokesville, Virginia. Married couples are waking to find a woman standing at the foot of their bed, screaming at the man, calling him "David" and accusing him of cheating on her, and then shooting him multiple times. But none of the men are named David, and nothing appears to link any of the men together.

Meanwhile, Patricia Barnes, an IT worker who lives in nearby Manassas, is having nightmares, and before long she realizes that in her dreams she's seeing the killings as they happen, through the eyes of the killer. She offers her aid to the police, but soon becomes a suspect herself.

Soliloquy are not a bad way to begin a first person POV work but First person POV requires alot of depth and context to pull it off.

My take:

quote:

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I’ve heard it said that if you put a frog into a pot of hot water, he’ll jump right out; but if you put him in a pot of cool water, and set it on the stove to heat, you can boil him before he ever realizes that the water’s getting hot. Insanity’s like that.
I imagine that if you woke up one morning, barking like a dog and wearing [your pants] on your head, someone would notice. But what if [insanity was] more gradual than that? You talk to your cat or your dog (after all, who doesn’t?). Maybe you say "Good Morning" to your Ficus when you water it. Stuff people do every day, and no one thinks twice about it. [And then, one day, maybe the Ficus answers.<--Funny.] And you’re not surprised. And to everyone else, you’re just a little more solicitous of your houseplants than most. [Life goes on.<--this kills what you've just built up.]

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I think a little more explanation of how I've structured the book may answer some of these concerns; each chapter begins with a brief first-person soliloquy, and the reader does not (and isn't supposed to) know which specific character is doing the speaking. Over a couple of chapters it becomes evident that the first-person bits are being written by the killer as a retrospective. The reason the killer is writing it becomes clear later, through further first-person segments. So in that regard, part of it is a frame story, but most of it is not.

The balance of each chapter is told from a third-person limited viewpoint. The third-person part of chapter one begins the morning after the first murder, and follows the investigation and Patricia's involvement with it. (Matt -- you're absolutely correct; you don't know whether the speaker in the 13 lines is a woman, because at this point in the story, you don't know who the first-person speaker is at all).

InarticulateBabbler: I can take a beating as long as it's to a purpose.

I see what you're saying about the "Life goes on". I can probably do without that.

What do you mean about the title being a stumbling block? (This is not a challenge; I'm asking for clarification). Is it that the pronunciation is difficult, or that the meaning of the title itself is unclear? What I was going for with it was the idea that it relates to "poltergeist" in the back of a reader's mind. It translates to "Dream Spirit" or "Dream Ghost". Perhaps I'm overthinking it and missing the mark.

I'm not actually married to the title, but it's what came to mind when I began, so it'll likely remain as a working title.

I personally avoid chapter prologues like a plague because their usually too heavy handed in the foreshadow department.

Your tone and style is clearly not yet it still strikes me as odd because it does so little to actually advance the story and I can't use it to get attached to a particular character's POV.

G. RR Martin often get bashed around here for writing really long and to some pointless books. I personally like them because I don't feel he wastes words in building characters. (he might have too many but thats more a structure point than stylistic one).

When I read a novel I want everything I read to add to the story OR I want to know why what I am reading is out of place.

To reiterate we should have been told up front that this was a "anonymous" first person POV soliloquy prologue and to which I would have said "This isn't the part that will hook anybody because its too short and is amputated from the rest of the story."

This isn't to say your novel sucks but it is to say that this prologue does nothing for me.

I am much more flexible towards novels because I hold a different reader mindset towards them then I do shorts. Its basically the difference between a 22 minute sitcom (which is what we have after commercials are taken out) and a 110 minute movie.

However good never use disjointed scenes and/or waste words unless the scenes/words are slowly converging to actually add to the story.

My take on the text:

quote:

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I’ve heard it said that if you put a frog into a pot of hot water, he’ll jump right out; but if you put him in a pot of cool water, and set it on the stove to heat, you can boil him before he ever realizes that the water’s getting hot. Insanity’s like that. <-- nice set up

I imagine that if you woke up one morning, barking like a dog and wearing no pants, except on your head, someone would notice. But what if it were more gradual than that? You talk to your cat or your dog (after all, who doesn’t?). Maybe you say "Good Morning" to your Ficus when you water it. Stuff people do every day, and no one thinks twice about it. And then, one day, maybe the Ficus answers. Like IB, I liked this And you’re not surprised. Maybe not necessary but I can live with it And to everyone else, you’re just a little more solicitous of your houseplants than most. Life goes on. This paragraph while cute is a bit much. I'd loose it. I'd definately cut the "life goes on."

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I'm a bit concerned about some plausibility issues though. If the wives are left alive Patricia should be cleared pretty instantly since they wouldn't pick her out of a line up. If she is physically close to the killer, she would be identified and charged pretty quickly.

I'm not sure the killer would think of him/herself as insane. Even the people in mental institutions don't think of themselves that way. If he/she is implying that someone else is insane, tell me that.

You said:

quote:

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(Matt -- you're absolutely correct; you don't know whether the speaker in the 13 lines is a woman, because at this point in the story, you don't know who the first-person speaker is at all).

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This is the worst kind of withholding. The POV knows if he/she is male or female. You can't withhold the information without paying a HUGE price.

I've used this example before but it works very well here. I was reading a murder mystery by a well established author. She did the same thing you are trying to do. Had a prologue with the killer in it (who is referred to as a male). The killer's POV then surfaces throughout the story. The Killer withholds information which forms the "twist" - ie "he" is really a "she." Not only did I throw the book across the room but I will never read another book by that author. If the POV knows it, so should the reader.

Check out these threads:

Just Tell me:
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002716.html

Why the problem with the first 13 isn't that it's too short.
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002662.html

I can post the first 13 lines of the actual chapter, if that would be helpful to people. Would that be a violation of site policy, since there would be 26 lines of my story out there for a publisher to get into a legal snit about?

I know what you mean about G RR Martin. I had one of his books recommended to me by an avid fan, and I made it 2/3 of the way through before I realized that I should have been taking notes all along. I gave it up for a lost cause and never finished it.

For what it's worth, the chapter prologues are meant to give the reader an inside look into the mind of the killer, and to provide the "Why" (while the 3rd-person part covers the "how" and "when", and eventually the "who") and will converge with the rest toward the end. In chapter 2 and 3 prologues you learn that she's been betrayed by someone, and in 4, the prologue talks about her meeting David. So thereafter, there's little about the prologues that is mysterious other than the actual ID of the speaker. Is this too much lag time for the reader to know that the prologues are the killer?

Looking back, though, I see that I don't ever make it clear that the speaker is female. I'll work that into the prologue to chapter 1.

KF, Tyson's to Catlett? That's a heck of a commute. You probably drive within rock-heaving distance of my house. Joe's is not yet in the story as a location, but there's no reason it can't be.

Feel free to hit the envelope next to my name and it will let you email my yahoo account. I'll reply from my day job email. Nokesville is a great place to set it since it's pretty squarely caught between the city and country ways of life. It also has Nokesville Days. Happy to be of help.