A Stunning Reality

I'm working on a story, hopefully it'll evolve into a novel. I'm on page two after seconds of typing, so it's coming along quickly. This is in projects because it isn't just a story, it's something I'm going to work on for a while. I'm trying out my new writing stlye which is kind of a combination of Heinlein and Vonnegut's satirical yet tragic style. The book is about an old man writing his autobiography. He's lived a long and odd life, and is constantly followed by voices in his head. He recounts all the flaws with the world that these voices have helped him change in his biography. I can't really explain it, so I'll just post what I have so far. Don't steal it peeps.

A Stunning Reality

My name is Floyd Williams. I’m eighty-seven years old. I have chestnut skin, chestnut hair, chestnut eyes, and a chestnut voice. I’m not schizophrenic. I am not schizophrenic. I’ve been told it time and time again. But I’m not. A schizophrenic person’s hallucinations do not affect his life. He can’t see into the future. His paranoia does not pay off and save his life. He can’t tell what a person is thinking based on social and environmental factors. He hasn’t time traveled, let alone been observed by time travelers. Aliens never abducted him. The voices in the man’s head don’t guide him through life. He doesn’t manipulate the universe in a way he can’t understand at all.
This is my autobiography. This is the autobiography of Floyd Williams. I’m going to write about everything that’s happened to me. I’m going to point out important thing I’ve learned. The plot will not be chronological. I may be simple at times, I may be friendly, I may be an ass, I may be discouraging, I may be comforting. This is my autobiography. If I sweeten it up at all, I will only use terms that, when read by even the most extreme of simpletons, will reflect the true tragedy. This is my autobiography. This is the autobiography of Floyd Williams.

I was born in Wisconsin, in the United States of America. My year of birth was 1942. I wasn’t born in a hospital. I was born in my family’s bathtub. No doctor would assist my family. We were African-American. I later learned that Christopher Columbus, a great explorer and hero, was the first human being to ever set foot on a continent called America. That’s what my country was occasionally called for short, as if they owned the entire continent. Columbus brought my people to America as slaves. Us and Columbus were the only people ever on the continent, as taught in early-stage schools. No one else had ever been there. I was later taught, though, that that was a lie, A rebellious race of people, incorrectly called Indians, lived there. They had copper skin, I had a darker shade, and Columbus had a pale pigment. They were all enslaved, except the lighter shades. Then three hundred years later the slavery was still occurring. Some men, called the founding “fathers” created a document known as the Declaration of Independence. It stated “all men are created equal.” The slavery continued.

“This is a horrible book you’re writing,” A voice in my head told me.
“I know.” I replied.
“It’s barely an autobiography.”
“I’m just mixing in some opinions. My opinions.”
“Well if you’re trying to prove to the world that all people are equal, it won’t work. You’re going to die before you finish it.” The voice should have laughed a sinister laugh, but not all of the voices I hear can express emotions. Some speak in a monotone voice, some speak poetically. They speak in a way that you know things will be okay or bad.
“I know I’ll die before it’s done. Maybe someone will find a copy of it on my ComPad. Maybe they’ll finish it or spread it around.”
“I’m not a romantic, but I’m going to stay true to myself and not tell you what happens to the book. That way I’m still abiding by my personality, right?”
“I don’t know. You can decide what’s right for yourself.” Whenever I say stuff like that to a voice in my head, it gives me a headache. They have a hard time thinking for themselves. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re made that way.

My parents took me into another room into a makeshift nursery which was also my older sister’s room. She was seven when I was born. We had no second story so I slept in her room the rest of my childhood. Once when I was seven I drew a picture of a car. We had a car. The drawing I made looked nothing like it. It had no wheels, but small jet engines. The headlights were floating orbs of light that circled the car. It was very boxy. My mom looked at it once, laughed, and showed it to my dad. They crumpled it up, then flattened it and put it on the fridge. The wrinkled vehicle of the future stayed on the fridge for three years. Then I took it down and brought it to school. My teacher studied it for a long time when I showed it to her. After minutes of intense focusing on it she said, “Floyd, I’m not sure why you’d draw this--but it can’t be a healthy thing for a fourth-grader to do.” All I did was draw a floating car. She forced her long fingernails through it, then ripped it into pieces by merely spreading her fingers. That didn’t make me happy, but I didn’t say anything.
When I got home Boston was sitting by the front door. Boston was my dog. I liked him, and he liked me. He was only eight months when my drawing was destroyed. He looked up at me. His mouth looked like he was smiling. A voice told me to hurt him. Another one told me to cherish him with all my heart for eternity. I ignore bad voices. I dumb down their orders.
Of course, by the age of ten, I had been getting voices for a long time. They had been such a normal part of my life that I thought everyone had them. I was raised to believe Christianity was the perfect religion. Because of this I dismissed it as angels and demons talking to me. I listened to the angles because I was told it was right. I was also told it was right to kill people, just as long as they’re a threat. I’ve been told lots of stuff.

“This is where your masterpiece begins to pick up.” A voice told me.
“What?”
“You write about middle and high school.”
“What do I write about them?”
“You’re a silly one, Floyd. You write about yourself and those around you. You write about your life. It’s an autobiography.”
“What happens in my book when I get to my teenage years? Well, I know what happens, but what kind of stuff do I write?”
“Great stuff. Really great stuff.”

Mega Bear's writing tips:

• Use short and long sentences next to each other to make the reader think.
Example:
"I gazed into the eyes of the unruly rebel, so full of hate and racism, homophobia and pestilence; he was a monster. The Confederacy's monster."
I gave a brief but imagery-filled description of a Confederate soldier from the Civil War, then told you that he wactually was a soldier. It made you think about how a Confederate soldier would act.
• Use the "--" and ";" marks at the right times and you can't lose. They help stress points and invoke deep thought in the reader.
Example:
"I was driving the Cadillac down the highway near my house. It was always full of cars, and the sun never stopped shining. Sometimes I'd catch a bright glimpse of light off someone's mirrors and have to look away. This was always dangerous, I get scared when it happe--I crashed and died. Darkness then; nothing.
• Irony. It's a wonderful tool to use. I've used it to compare two things together and cause a reader to smile, sometimes cry.
Example: In a short story I list good things in the world this way - "Lenny looked at good stuff like children and friendship and love and animals and families." At the end of the story I said "Lenny looked at the bad stuff in the world like pestilence and war and racism and discrimination and hate." Since I ended the story with a negative listing that parodies the positive listing, it creates a dramatic source of irony. It made one of my actual readers sniffle a bit. Another fun way to create irony is to point out a major flaw that most people are completely blind to. Example:
"There was once a robot with horrible breath. He was programmed to drop bombs on cities from airplanes, but had all the characteristics of a normal human. He could dance, hold a conversation, date other humans, etc. No one disliked him for his constant murder; he was programmed to do that. It was his breath everyone hated. Once he got rid of it, society accepted him and came to love him. He became a local celebrity." That is one of my favorite quotes from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Evidently, that isn't an exact quote, but you get the idea.
• Be a sadist. No matter how likable the character is, no matter how friendly the name is (ie Billy Pilgrim), kick him around. Make bad things happen to him. Make the reader feel for your character to build up a following. When the climax occurs, and whatever happens to the protagonist happens, they'll be impacted deeply because they feel for him. I learned this from Ender's Game. The main character is pushed around, is forced to do things he doesn't wan to, and it makes us like him.

Wow really nice job. It gives you kind of that eerie feeling. I love it.

I especially like the way that no one directly is talking to him, but it is himself. does that have to do with his mental illness or...?

Gothboy77 wrote:Wow really nice job. It gives you kind of that eerie feeling. I love it.

I especially like the way that no one directly is talking to him, but it is himself. does that have to do with his mental illness or...?

He's talking to himself as a plot device. Without someone to socialize with I'm exposing the reader to examples of hypocrisy, loneliness, and insanity, all while invoking thought. I make up my tales as I go along, so I'm not sure why EXACTLY he's talking to himself. That's further down the road. As for the eerieness, I'm going to change paths a few times. There will be points in the book when Floyd is ecstatic (playing with Boston) and times when he is miserable (witnessing bullying, Boston's death, etc.).

I also updated the reserved first post with writing tips. Good for anyone who'd like to try writing.