Novel-1918 Dublin. First chapter

femur61

Hi if someone would read below and give me their opinion on it. It is about a girl who goes to Dublin to learn to type, ends up typing for Sinn Fein and DeValera gets involved with the war of Independence. Trying to put a love confliction where she meets an English soldier gets pregnant. Somewhat true story but as I am new to writing I would love to hear what people think firstly of the style of writing and then the beginning of the story.

First Chapter
Vera was beginning to get breathless. Pulling up her skirt, she kept running there was no turning back now. She didn't care that her dress was getting ripped, catching it on the briars and branches. She was oblivious to the pain of her shoeless feet. The higher she pulled her skirt, the more scratches she got on her legs, but she kept running.
She could still hear her mother shouting ‘Vera, comeback - NOW.’ When the voice stopped, Vera slowed. She knew it was due to the distance she had covered and not that her mother had stopped shouting for her to come back - her mother never gave up.
She had become immune to the pain the scratches from the briars on her exposed legs. She could see small droplets of blood on her legs, but she didn't care. When she left the wooded area, it didn't take long to reach the large field in front of the lake. Vera could feel the morning dew beneath her. As she approached the lake, she could see the morning mist swirling. It was like an argument – the cold air of the morning fighting with the heat from the rising sun. She knew the heat of the day would win as the sun rose higher in the sky.
She spent many of the hot sunny days of summer enjoying picnics on the shores of Lough Ramor. On occasion, while alone, she stripped down to her undergarments and ventured into the lake for a paddle. She always envied the boys that they could go in anytime, but as she was constantly told, ‘she was a lady, and ladies do not swim.’
She loved being in the water even though she could not swim. She felt alive as the ice-cold water touched her skin awakening all her senses. She was transported into another world, a world where she was equal, a world where she was not tied down by her male counterparts. A world where she was not tied by the expectations of her mother or even by other women who were happy to be servants to their husbands. When she got out of the water, she lay in the sun to dry off her undergarments, watching the morning sun dancing on the water as it filtered through the trees surrounding the lake. The dawn chorus now complete with just a few birds remaining, singing and chirping keeping guard in case the cranes came back to take their territory.
Slowly, she got dressed, even though, her undergarments were damp she wasn't in a hurry, and had no intention of returning home yet. God, she thought, would they all just leave her alone; her life was so dull, and she hated being the eldest. Why did she have to work all the time? School was where she wanted to be. She loved her time at school, a few years before, she discovered books. While reading, she would get lost in her own head for hours, even the simple act of choosing what to read, or when to read to her was an act of independence. Any book would suffice if books were far too advanced for her she would look at the black, white drawings in them and make up stories. She hoped that one day she would go to boarding school like her cousin Joseph, then she wouldn't have to help at home; she could read all day at her leisure.
When completely dry, she ran towards the woods – her sanctuary. In the depths of the forest now, she slowed to a fast walk; she was nearly at the ice house. She had to lift her dress to climb up a small incline to get into the house. The ice house couldn't be seen from the path, the only person who knew it was there were the servants from the hunting lodge who left meat there to dry for the winter. On entering there was a long dark cold tunnel into the house which went underground. She knew she should have been afraid as there was no light inside, but she loved the blackness and silence. There were days she would sit in the dark savouring the solitude for hours before lighting the candle. Vera could smell the wax from the candle she had lit yesterday. Darkness enveloped the room, but from memory, she knew every stone, every bump on the uneven floor, she walked to the far end of the room to find the candle and matches. Lighting the candle, light flooded the room revealing her safe secret house, of coursef the servants knew about the house, but the servants didn't know about her. She now moved the loose stone in the wall of the ice-house exposing her books. Just the act of seeing her books, holding her books, rubbing her fingers rhythmically around the edge of the books put her into a meditative state. She could forget all about her mother shouting at her, her chores, about her mundane, boring life which she ran away from.
Content now with her books, she went out of the house to sit on a tree stump. As she was looking through the pages, a wave of guilt came over her. The poor chickens would go hungry now; all her mother asked her was to feed the chickens, but it was so bloody boring. She thought of her brother Ernie and the gun she saw him hiding. She wondered what he was doing with the gun? Did he want to kill the chickens too? But it was a bit different than the gun her father had for hunting and why was he hiding it the shed at her father's work yard? She had only found it by accident in the shed as she hid watching the men in her father's yard huddled, heads locked together talking furiously. She assumed it was about the constant rationing due to the war. A war that she felt wasn't theirs but belonged to someone else in some far-off land, she couldn't understand why Irish men were expected to go to France?

km85264

Sounds like you have some good material for a story there, but if you're new to writing you may need to give some focus to structure. The opening of your novel will need to grab the reader, kick off the action and give some reason to love or loathe the character and start to grow the tension. Vera running off because she had a spat with her mother doesn't really pull me in. Her finding her brother's gun is far more interesting, maybe start there?
A general hint: avoid exposition, i.e. telling back story. If you're new to writing you'll find yourself doing it a lot as your characters come to life, but you need to keep 90% of it in your own head and focus on just telling the story.

Das Kitty

I'd start with her seeing her brother hide the gun too.

In fact I'd nearly open with her holding the gun and then say that she had seen her brother find it. Have her paint the picture from her point of view.

You can come back to her books later, and you can show her desire to escape lots of small ways. She doesn't need to run away from her mother to go swimming. I'm guessing she's a teenager at this stage, so she'd be more likely to sneak off to swim and read rather than flying out barefoot after a blazing row.

femur61

Thanks I agree with you, The first page needs to grab a readers attention, I wrote that about the chickens last year and I hope my writing/story telling has improved since then.