Chapter 1: The Wrong Inbox

A Chapter by Neha agrawal

If one were to examine the anatomy of a modern-day plot twist, it wouldn’t begin with a gunshot or a scandal �" but with a single, misplaced email and a girl too curious for her own good.

Enter Ira Sen, age twenty-three, whose life, at the time of this story, resembled a chaotic blend of ambition, clutter, and artistic caffeine dependency. Her flat in South Kolkata �" a curious paradox between aesthetic intent and accidental entropy �" set the stage perfectly. Think peeling pastels, forgotten laundry, paperbacks with spines so cracked they could qualify as survivors, and a mug on her desk that read Writer’s Tears �" equal parts joke and biography.

On the day it began, the weather was indecisive �" the heat clung like an unwanted plot device, and the fan above her spun half-heartedly, like it, too, had lost faith in the narrative.

Ira, donned in an oversized T-shirt that proclaimed Plot Twist Pending, sat before her blinking cursor with the defeated energy of a writer wrestling her own expectations. The manuscript �" her literary labor of love �" was going nowhere. A love story set during a political uprising? Romantic in theory. Chaotic in execution. Even the words refused to cooperate.

Then it happened.

The ping.
The inbox.
The subject line that would change everything:

> Subject: Transcript �" Session 12 �" Confidential
From: dr.rehmtherapy@securemail.in
To: ira.sen91@gmail.com

It could’ve been spam.
It should’ve been deleted.
But this is not a story about what should have happened.

This is a story about what did.

---

As the reader, one already senses that Ira’s decision �" to click, to read, to keep �" is less about nosiness and more about the kind of dangerous empathy that writers possess. Curiosity didn’t kill this cat; it merely dragged her into a story that wasn’t hers �" yet.

Transcript �" Session 12 (Confidential):

AARAV:
It’s like… I’m watching my life through glass. It looks fine from the outside �" work, dinners, polite laughter at the right times. But inside, it’s noise. Constant. Like a buzzing in my head that won’t stop.

I wake up exhausted. Not physically �" mentally. Like I’ve been running in a dream I don’t remember. Everything feels performed. The charming architect. The good son. The reliable friend. The date who knows how to smile without letting anyone in.

And then I go home. And it’s quiet. Too quiet.

DR. REHM:
Have you thought more about what happened in Shimla?

AARAV:
I’ve thought about nothing else.

It’s strange. How you can bury a memory so deep it forgets how to breathe �" and then one small thing, a smell, a sentence, a name �" and suddenly it claws its way back up.

I still don’t know if what happened was… my fault.

No. That’s not true. I do know.
I just don’t want to say it out loud.
Because once I do, there’s no undoing it.

DR. REHM:
You’ve mentioned “her” before. Did you ever tell her?

AARAV:
No.
She thought I was cold. That I didn’t feel things.
But the truth is �" I was terrified if I told her everything, she’d look at me differently. Like the silence inside me wasn’t just distance... it was danger.

DR. REHM:
Do you still think you’re dangerous?

AARAV:
Not in the way people expect. I don’t break things. I don’t shout. I don’t leave scars you can see.
But I know how to disappear emotionally �" while sitting right next to someone.

Shimla was the last time I was honest. And it ended with her walking out into a snowstorm. She never looked back.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever came back either.

> [End of Transcript]

Ira blinked. Because that city was not just a place to her. It was origin. Memory. Home.

One might imagine any rational adult closing the document then and there. But Ira Sen is not a creature of pure rationale. She is instinct and impulse wrapped in literary impulse control disorder.

She Googled him.
And of course �" he existed.

Aarav Verma. Age 29. Architect. Brooding jawline. Social impact work. Basically the human equivalent of a Goodreads recommendation titled Men Who Feel Deeply (But Don’t Talk About It).

She printed the transcript.

Folded it with a level of reverence usually reserved for sacred texts or old love letters.

Slipped it between her manuscript pages like a secret chapter waiting to be written.

Was it wrong? Probably.

But that’s the thing about stories �" they never ask for permission before entering our lives. They arrive uninvited, just like this email. Just like this man.
If you’re wondering whether this is the part where Ira finds herself… you’d be mistaken.

This isn’t a story of immediate transformation. It’s not even about romance �" not yet.

It’s about something quieter, more dangerous:

The moment a girl realizes she’s holding someone else’s pain �" and decides, against reason and rules, to carry it.
---
And so, the story begins �" not with fireworks or
fate �" but with a blinking cursor, a mistake, and a writer whispering:

> What if this is the story?

It was.

And this… was Chapter One.

next chapter

© 2025 Neha agrawal

My Review

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Reviews

JayG

You've been caught in the single most common trap for the hopeful writer: You're trying to tell the reader a story by transcribing yourself talking to the reader.

This chapter works for you, because you, uniquely, can hear the emotion in the voice of the storyteller; you begin reading with an image of the scene in your mind; you have the full backstory on the situation and the characters; And, you have full context before you begin to read. So it works...for you.

But look at it as a reader must:

• It was a Tuesday drenched in heat and boredom "

1. Who cares what day it was? Would the story change were it Friday? No.
2. Heat? As in summer in Philadelphia, or as in a steel mill in winter in Sweden? You know. And in the end, who cares? Nothing in the scene relates to, or requires that heat. So all talking about it does is delay the beginning of the story.
3. Boredom? As in doing a boring job? As in having nothing to do? As in waiting for something? You know, but the reader? Not a clue.

Why do I make such a big deal about this? Because were this sent to a publisher, here is where it would be rejected. Why? because this is you, someone not on the scene or in the story talking TO the reader about irrelevant to the story things, like what a viewer COULD see.

I support the idea of your writing fiction. But you’ve missed some critical points:

1. Verbal storytelling is a performance art, where HOW you tell the story matters as much as what you say. But not a trace of that performance reaches the reader. They get your storyteller’s script with no idea of how you want it performed.
2. You’re thinking cinematically in a medium that does NOT present vision, and TELLING the reader about things that the protagonist is ignoring. And in fairness, it’s HER story. And HER life. So what matters to HER, in the moment she calls "now," matters to the reader. No one cares what matters to you.
3. Writers have been refining and expanding the skills of fiction for centuries. They’ve been finding out what works and what doesn’t. Learn that and you avoid the traps and make the reader NEED to turn the pages. Skip that step and...

It’s not a matter of talent, it’s one of owning the necessary skills to practice the profession. The writing skills you were given in school are great for writing reports, letters, and other nonfiction that our employers need us to create. But they only inform, as you do here. Fiction’s goal is to entertain the reader by making them feel that the events are happening to THEM, moment-by-moment. And to do that takes emotion-based writing.

For example: Had you been aware that, to provide context, we must orient the reader quickly, and unobtrusively, as to where we are in time and space, what’s going on, and whose skin we wear, your opening would have been very different. Had you been aware of the necessity for the reader to be aware of the protagonist’s short-term scene-goal, you would have had one.

The short version: To write fiction you need the skills of the fiction writer. There is no way around that. There’s no reason you can’t acquire them, but you do need them.

Try this: Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict, is an excellent first book on adding wings to your words. So try a few chapters for fit. I think you’ll find them both interesting and eye-opening.

https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/gmc-goal-motivation-and-conflict-9781611943184.html

And, you may find my articles and YouTube videos a helpful overview of the traps and gotchas that catch so many.

So...after all your work, and the emotional investment that requires, this is anything but good news. I know,because I've been there. But, the problem that caught you gets over 90% of hopeful writers, so don’t let it upset you. Every successful writer faced the same problem and overcame it. Why not you?

So, whatever you do, hang in there and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

. . . . . . . . . .

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

“In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
~ Sol Stein

Posted 6 Months Ago

You've been caught in the single most common trap for the hopeful writer: You're trying to tell the reader a story by transcribing yourself talking to the reader.

This chapter works for you, because you, uniquely, can hear the emotion in the voice of the storyteller; you begin reading with an image of the scene in your mind; you have the full backstory on the situation and the characters; And, you have full context before you begin to read. So it works...for you.

But look at it as a reader must:

• It was a Tuesday drenched in heat and boredom "

1. Who cares what day it was? Would the story change were it Friday? No.
2. Heat? As in summer in Philadelphia, or as in a steel mill in winter in Sweden? You know. And in the end, who cares? Nothing in the scene relates to, or requires that heat. So all talking about it does is delay the beginning of the story.
3. Boredom? As in doing a boring job? As in having nothing to do? As in waiting for something? You know, but the reader? Not a clue.

Why do I make such a big deal about this? Because were this sent to a publisher, here is where it would be rejected. Why? because this is you, someone not on the scene or in the story talking TO the reader about irrelevant to the story things, like what a viewer COULD see.

I support the idea of your writing fiction. But you’ve missed some critical points:

1. Verbal storytelling is a performance art, where HOW you tell the story matters as much as what you say. But not a trace of that performance reaches the reader. They get your storyteller’s script with no idea of how you want it performed.
2. You’re thinking cinematically in a medium that does NOT present vision, and TELLING the reader about things that the protagonist is ignoring. And in fairness, it’s HER story. And HER life. So what matters to HER, in the moment she calls "now," matters to the reader. No one cares what matters to you.
3. Writers have been refining and expanding the skills of fiction for centuries. They’ve been finding out what works and what doesn’t. Learn that and you avoid the traps and make the reader NEED to turn the pages. Skip that step and...

It’s not a matter of talent, it’s one of owning the necessary skills to practice the profession. The writing skills you were given in school are great for writing reports, letters, and other nonfiction that our employers need us to create. But they only inform, as you do here. Fiction’s goal is to entertain the reader by making them feel that the events are happening to THEM, moment-by-moment. And to do that takes emotion-based writing.

For example: Had you been aware that, to provide context, we must orient the reader quickly, and unobtrusively, as to where we are in time and space, what’s going on, and whose skin we wear, your opening would have been very different. Had you been aware of the necessity for the reader to be aware of the protagonist’s short-term scene-goal, you would have had one.

The short version: To write fiction you need the skills of the fiction writer. There is no way around that. There’s no reason you can’t acquire them, but you do need them.

Try this: Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict, is an excellent first book on adding wings to your words. So try a few chapters for fit. I think you’ll find them both interesting and eye-opening.

https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/gmc-goal-motivation-and-conflict-9781611943184.html

And, you may find my articles and YouTube videos a helpful overview of the traps and gotchas that catch so  many.

So...after all your work, and the emotional investment that requires, this is anything but good news. I know,because I've been there. But, the problem that caught you gets over 90% of hopeful writers, so don’t let it upset you. Every successful writer faced the same problem and overcame it. Why not you?

So, whatever you do, hang in there and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
Articles:  https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos:  https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
 ~ Mark Twain

“In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
~ Sol Stein

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