Siobhan's sporking: Billy and Me, Prologue

I'm going to dive right in:

When I was four years old, all I ever wanted was to have a weeing Tiny Tears doll. 

This is how Giovanna has decided to start her novel. So we know instantly it's going to be first person narrative. It's going to have flashbacks. Lots and lots of flashbacks.

This one goes into a description of the doll and why the main character (we don't know her name yet) wants one. Her nameless best friend had one, and envy set in. The main character had a tantrum or two and got her way, only to abuse the poor thing about a week later.

I'm not having great thoughts about our protagonist already. Self-centred, a little shallow, and flippant about material goods that cost way more than a child can potentially realise. Good start, Giovanna.

She goes on to talk about how her life follows this pattern, where she wants something (the next story is going onto Live and Kicking and dancing with Mr Blobby) and whether she gets her way or not. I'm still not totally in love with this protagonist.

And then, we get a slight change:
 

At some point that extrovert little girl who used to sing to anyone who would listen and dance without a care in the world, became painfully shy and bashful.

 1)"Extrovert little girl" is clunky and poor English.
2)Run on sentence. I should know, I'm pretty good at them.
3)I know I've glossed over the singing/dancing bit, but I don't like the whole 'overnight I changed' bit. This might end up one of my counts, for just being so derivative and having a big, bad secret. Why does it always have to be a secret that acts as the catalyst in these things for conflict?

Big, bad secret: 1

And in the same paragraph that the above starts, we also get this wonderful nugget:

I suddenly became less confident at school and around other people - preferring the company of a good book to an actual human.

And so begins count two.

Look at all the books I read, Austen, and Bronte ... and Austen ....: 1

Look, I love to read, Giovanna. I've always given books slightly more attention than people, but that doesn't mean I want to believe my protagonist has fallen into the trap of replacing people with books. I hate that stereotype. Also, I chose that count name for a reason, I don't mean make obscure references; but the bookish in the world can tell a reader in a writer. Twilight gets stick for clinging to whatever Bronte or Austen novel caught Stephenie Meyer's attention. Fifty Shades is renowned because EL James has messed up Thomas Hardy and tried to sell it as a romance (...) I'm not saying don't love these books, but show you read more. Say something positive about recent novelists maybe, throw in comparisons to Helen Fielding and Sophie Kinsella. Talk if you must about Edward Dante and what his love drove him to. I personally think Sarah Dessen is the Young Adult equivalent of all these books (and The Moon and More is out now, get in!). Expand your book knowledge in story to show that your character truly is a reader *end rant*

Anyway, this is one long paragraph on exposition as to why this nameless girl is now shy and quiet. She had one friend, apparently (and the first name we get, Mary Lance! Never to be heard of again, no doubt) but they weren't really friends, just bodies that happened to gravitate towards each other at lunch.

Nameless then gives more exposition (is this a prologue? Is this chapter one: exposition? It just says "Me" on the title of this section) about forgoing A levels for a gap year. But not a gap year to travel, just to live in her village and work. And then we get the first of many exclamation marks that are going to bug me (I've only read to the end of chapter three, I know they're going to bug me).

I started my job hunt by dropping off my CV in the village shops - there weren't and aren't that many to target. We have a bank, a library, a post office, Budgens, a florist, a few clothes shops, a hardware store, a cafe and a teashop ... hardly the most riveting high street ever!

Excited?! Me?!: 1

She's talking to me like we're friends. Since I don't even know her name, this just really sticks out for me. Also, that's a fairly varied, and populated high street for a village. In this era of economic decline with email being free and easy and faster than post, it's the post office that makes this stick out for me. You have to be reasonably sized, have enough people and things going on within the town to have one these days. Especially as it's not tacked inside a chemist or corner shop. Also, why is the high street supposed to be riveting in the first place? Oh, I know why she put that, but seriously ... are the clothes shops boutiques, or chain stores? Would it be more exciting if the Austen-only bookstore happened to be there? Do you expect streamers and a parade every time you go down it? Because that doesn't tie in with your three-kindle-pages worth of woe-is-me exposition.

We then hear about how this nameless girl entered the teashop, and what it looks like, and smells like and sounds like. Which is brilliant, because I don't know what this girl looks like. Maybe like Kiera Knightly, she does all those period romances, right? Anyway, we also then get a description of the owner of the teashop, as she zips around serving the customers and sounding like an elderly tornado.

Flying around the room was a woman who I guessed was in her sixties. Her grey hair was set in a big rollered quiff at the front, with the rest of her curls held in underneath a net. I watched her dart in between customers - taking orders, bringing out food and stopping briefly for a little natter here and there. She continued to keep a calm smile on her face, even though it was clear that she was running the shop alone.

You want a job here, and you're watching her mount her broom and sweat it out for how long before you intervene? Oh, you don't, you sit there in a corner until she gets bored of being stared at and comes to you.

She hands over her CV after a paragraph of how she's done that before but this is different somehow, and then she basically gets an interview, right off the bat. During which, she lies about her experience. And then we get this exchange:


"And - one last thing - do you like cake?"
"I love it," I said, giving her a nervous smile.
"Good to hear! You're hired. You've come in at a very good time actually, my last waitress unexpectedly quit yesterday - with no explanation!"

Excited?! Me?!: 2

If only cake was a real requisite for getting a job ...

Also, new count,

How convenient, Mary Sue: 1

Because who just gets a job, just like that? After the person who's position you're now taking just upped and left without explanation? Also, what if that person had played hooky for the day, or had laryngitis so bad they couldn't get out of bed without their head spinning? I've been there, so this person might have lost their job on an assumption. Wow.

Anyway, we finally get names! The teashop owner introduces herself as Molly (what kind of job interview is this? "What hours will you work? Like cake? Great, you're hired! I'm Molly") and Nameless finally christens herself as Sophie.

So Billy and me is actually Billy and Sophie, peeps.

Anywho, Molly hugs Sophie, because this is just how job interviews go in rural villages too small for the high streets to be open-air nightclubs twenty-four-seven, yet big enough to apparently have its own stand-alone post office, and when Molly asks if Sophie had anything by way of a social life happening that day and gets a no, she makes Sophie work.

Oh. I get what you did there, Molly. Lure her in, then make her work like a dog. Sophie serves some people, mainly old ladies who will provide gossip and typical Mary-Sue-Supportership. Then there's some more exposition about Sophie's mother being a librarian and wonderful so obviously Sophie will be wonderful, sprinkled with some nice, blatant foreshadowing.

How convenient, Mary Sue: 2

Because isn't it just so typical that one Sue begets another? Anyway, we're then treated to the mother of all time jumps:

My gap year flew by before I'd even had a chance to think about what I wanted to do next, and so I extended it to two years ... then three years ... then four, until I suddenly realized that I had no desire to go to university at all; I was happy where I was, and am still just as happy eight years later.

If Mervin and the rest at Das Sporking saw that, I think they'd have a hernia. They criticize Twilight relentlessly for the crazy time jumps, but that is ridiculous. The smoother way would have been to continue the exposition, then have an insert page declaring it eight years later. Especially as Sophie then goes back to how she and Molly started a routine of baking then waiting, and it throws me that she jumps forward, then back in time.

We're treated to one more Mary-Sue before the end of whatever this is (the next page just says Part One, so ... what was that, exactly?) and it's a doozy, hitting a few Mary Sue elements of being amazing, and misunderstood, but surrounded by whatever tools will help her grow into a beautiful butterfly:

Looking back now, I know Molly had an inkling of who I was as soon as I walked into the shop. I also believe that, knowing who I was, there was no way she would turn me away without helping me, because it's in her nature to help those in need of healing; and I certainly needed some of that.

How convenient, Mary Sue: 3

Big, bad secret: 2

Molly just knows, OKAY?: 1

Yeah, I just added that last count, because this will happen as well. So that's the end of ... the prologue? Can I also just say, that last paragraph has some bad grammar. "it's in" is present tense, but "looking back" implies past tense. I know what she's done, she's shortened "it was" instead of "it is" because I do that too, but this makes me cringe extra because I know how awkward that one is.

 

END OF CHAPTER TALLIES:

Big, bad secret: 2
Look at all the books I read, Austen, and Bronte ... and Austen ....: 1
Excited?! Me?!: 2
How convenient, Mary Sue: 3
Molly just knows, OKAY?: 1

So far, this is reading like a typical romance set up, isn't it? The next couple of chapters will be proof as to why it's not a typical romance, but is a typical fanfiction. This woman is married to a musician, a fairly successful one at that. Stayed tuned for the count on him ...