Apples Never Fall
First Chapter/Prologue: 553 Words
Description: A novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest.
Tagline: The Delaney family love one another dearly―it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other . . .
Central Question: If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?
Prose and Practice:
Read the first chapter of Apples Never Fall
What is the setting of the first chapter, and how does it set the tone for the story?
What is the initial conflict or problem that arises in the first chapter?
Did you find any particular passage or sentence in the first chapter that stood out to you? Why?
Annotate your copy for grammatical features
Review the sample annotations and compare notes.
Review the Technique Takeaway
Select a technique and leverage it in your draft/work.
Select a new book and practice again!
Technique Takeaways
Compare the state of one location to another
Six regional towns have “evacuate now” warnings in place, but here in suburban Sydney, the only danger was to asthma sufferers, who were advised to stay indoors.
Leverage the power of specificity:
Four green apples lay scattered on the dry grass beneath the tree as if they had spilled and rolled from the bike’s basket.
The smoke haze that draped the city was a malicious yellow-gray, as thick as a London fog.
The discarded bike was shiny-new, advertised as a “vintage lady’s bike”: mint green, seven-speed, with a tan leather saddle and a white wicker basket.
Leverage/personify animals to reflect the mood or tone:
A family of black blowflies sat poised at different points on the bike’s silver spokes, so still, they looked dead.
The flies buzzed, suddenly alive and worried.