You requested comments on Chapter One, but I read through the first four chapters to see if patterns I’d noticed continued. They do.

This is not the first iteration of this piece I’ve encountered. One pattern that I believe I’ve mentioned before is the quality of your prose. Too often overlooked are the sound and form of the words, the way sentences flow one to the next, forming paragraphs that, in turn, flow one to the next.

Your prose passes muster on this score. It is mature and polished and reassures the reader that they are in good hands and that they can safely settle in for a good read.

Alas, other patterns also persist. I recall an early version of this piece that contained an extended passage set in your main character’s support group, that was essentially a long speech where he told us his life story. As you’ve imagined it, that story continues to be a compelling one. Yet, the point I made back then was that no matter how dramatic the events being narrated, for the reader, it’s just some guy talking.

By now, you’ve populated the support group with several more identifiable characters and you’ve spread the narrative responsibilities around, but again and again, you’re left with folks talking.

Prime Rule #1: stories happen NOW. Readers have an instinctive sense of where the moving point of the present action is located, and if they encounter too much back story, at the expense of present action, they’re not going to be fooled. As a writer, you want always to strive to trigger this thought in your audience: “Gosh; I wonder what’s gonna happen next.” If they at some point determine that the response is “Not much,” they’ll stop reading.

To be sure, your scenes come packed with a wealth of potential—threats of violence, opportunities for romance and some hot sex, life lessons resulting in personal growth. To say nothing of the myriad daily problems faced by your characters both in and out of prison.

Problems. They are the coin of the realm for a storyteller. They are the spark that gets your characters on their feet, forcing decisions, prompting actions and confronting them with the unintended consequences of those actions. You know—all that plot stuff.

Considering that your characters find themselves in what appears to be a maximum security prison with inmates all serving hard time, your boys seem to be getting along ok. The scene where they attempt to educate the new guy is a painful example. While reference is made to the various gangs with whom each is affiliated, the conversation is fairly congenial and whatever issues are in the air get handled with a minimum of fuss.

Hey, I like it when things work out, when everyone gets along. In my own life. In the lives of my friends and loved ones. In the real world. In fiction, such situations are death. It’s the warts, flaws, bad luck and bad judgments that crest the mix that will keep things interesting. Notice that the reason for this scene in the first place was the new guy’s “initiation” at the hands of some hard customers. Apparently he got worked over pretty good. I say apparently, because we never see it. It takes place off stage, and, in fact, it has already happened. But at least your guys have something to talk about.

I don’t know what the story is here. In a novel this long you can get away with taking a little time setting the mood and context. But while you’re taking your time getting the larger story under way, you need to craft each scene, each chapter, even each paragraph, with a narrative arc of its own. Everything that happens needs to be some form of story, driving the narrative forward and making your readers hot to find out what happens next. Otherwise they’ll never become your readers.