How interesting does this sound?

Question

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:15 am Post subject: I wrote a first chapter, Could someone critique this?

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Bill Matthews sat in the waiting room of the Oak Hill group home with his mind rambling through thoughts. Thoughts about how different Toronto was from Los Angeles , thoughts of how tired he was from hauling his big, plasma screen television in his home on moving day.

“Mister Matthews, could you come in please? I’m ready to see you.”

Sam, who stuck his head out of the door to the left of the room said.

Bill sighed and walked into Sam’s small office that only had enough room for two chairs and a long, tan desk. Bill sat in the plush chair in front of the desk and watched Sam scramble through numerous papers in front of him. Perspiration began to fill his forehead as it felt like a sauna in the room. The small window behind Sam gave Bill no relief from the heat that seemed to saturate the room.

“I’m sorry for having you wait here in silence,” Sam said. “I’m just trying to get things ready for you.”

Sam pulled out a brown, manila folder underneath the papers on his desk and placed it in front of Bill.

“Ok, Mister Matthews, we have decided to hire you for this position.”

Bill smiled and wiped his forehead.

“Ok great, when do I start?”

Sam stood to his feet.

“Well, first before we get into that, I want you to tour the facility, meet the children that are here and introduce yourself ok? So come on.”

Bill felt a swift breeze of air brush his face as he stepped back into the waiting room with Sam.

“We’ll go to the first floor—in the gym, that’s where the kids are now.” Sam said. “Then I’ll take you to where your office will be.”

“Does my office have air conditioning?” Bill asked.

Sam looked at Bill, patted him on the shoulder and laughed.

“Oh I’m sorry about my office. Someone is supposed to be coming tomorrow to fix my air conditioner, but yes your office has one and it should be working fine.”

Bill smiled as he walked to the elevator with Sam. Even though social work wasn’t too far fetched from what he did at his old job, he still felt nervous about starting over at a new workplace. Sam lead Bill to a dimly lit hallway and into a large gym that looked to be almost the size of a football field. There were several bleachers on each side of the gym and bright track lights covered the ceiling. There were two basketball hoops at either end of the gym on the court, where several black kids were yelling and shooting ball at. Rap music was playing loudly on a stereo sitting to the left on the floor. As soon as the kids saw Bill, they became quiet and stared at Bill. All that could be heard was the loud music from the stereo.

“Listen up kids, this is Mister Bill Matthews.” Sam yelled. “He is going to be our new Social Worker here so I want you to respect him, welcome

him and respect him ok?”

“Man, you said that twice playa.” One boy shouted out amongst laughter.

Sam laughed.

“I know, it’s the one you all never remember the first time.”

Bill waved and smiled at the kids, as they all looked at him in confusion. He observed some of them with their baggy pants, white shirts and caps that were turned backwards, some of them had tattoos that covered almost all of their arms. Bill noticed some of them grit their teeth and motion for him to go away. Some rolled their eyes at him but when none of them waved back to him, his smiled faded. He looked at Sam and sighed.

“That’s a um—nice bunch there.”

Sam laughed and watched the kids go back to playing ball.

“Yeah, they’ll grow on you eventually. Come on, I’ll show you your office now.”

“So, those kids are—troubled youth?” Bill asked as he stepped onto the elevator with Sam.

“Well, we like to call them at risk youth.” Sam said. “Some of them are secretly in gangs, some come from broken homes, some come from parents who either prostitute and or do drugs and some of them have actually been sexually and physically abused.”

Bill nodded and glanced over at Sam and laughed nervously.

“Yeah, well they really welcomed me, some white guy coming to say hello to the. They didn’t look too happy at all.”

Sam laughed.

“They just have to get to know you. Once they do, you’ll be just like—one of their boys.”

Bill laughed. He walked into his office and smiled. The air was filled with the scent of polished wood. There was a medium sized desk in the room with a laptop computer sitting on top, and a plush black chair sitting behind the desk. There was a name tag with Bill’s full name inscribed on it in gold. A tall, gray, two-shelf file cabinet sat against the wall in the left hand corner of the room. An air conditioner was attached in the wall in the upper right hand corner of the room and was blowing out a cold breeze.

“This is your office Bill.” Sam said.

“Wow, this is nice, cle

Answer 1

You start by having Bill Matthews waiting to be seen. While he's waiting, he's thinking about how tired he is from moving to Toronto. Once he's seen, he's offered a job. So does that mean he moved before he go a job? I would expand this part and instead of saying he had thoughts about being tired from moving, share those thoughts. Why did he move before getting the job and why is he job hunting so soon after moving? Is that part of the story? Even if it's not, set the background so it makes sense to the reader.

Example:

"Bill Matthews sat in the waiting room of the Oak Hill Group Home thinking over the last few days. The move had gone smoothly, but it had left him achy and tired. Toronto was so different from Los Angeles; it would take time to get used to things here. Bill couldn't afford to just ease in, though. He needed a job as soon as possible. He looked up hopefully as the door to the director's office opened."

The above doesn't say why he moved before getting the job, but it makes it clear that that's what he did. It also creates some suspense, because now the reader wonders why he did it. Did he leave a broken love affair? Is he on the run from something?

Also, you can't end your chapter in the middle of a sentence.

That said, you have some nice dialog and description in it. You need make the description a little less exact, so it flows better. For example, unless it's critical to the story, no one cares that the air conditioner is in the upper right-hand corner. Just say it's in one corner or in the wall.

By the way, the convention is to abbreviate "mister." So it should be "Mr. Matthews."

For a first draft, it's fine. It's better to get the whole thing written than to endlessly polish the first chapter, so keep going!