Thanks to today’s aspiring author for sending in this action/adventure excerpt for feedback. It’s called, “Heavies.” Please take some time to help this writer by offering constructive criticism.
Heavies
Action/Adventure
‘Write your name here please.’
A cross marked the spot she indicates. Glancing over my shoulder I scrawl my name hurriedly across the page. The boat is pulling out of the dock but she doesn’t seem concerned, instead she takes her time to process my paper work.
She reads aloud the warnings, paragraph after paragraph. Rules and regulations that I must adhere to if and when I finally get across the border.
My passport is secured under her stamp and she waves me through. I sprint for the dock but it’s a wasted effort, the boat is long gone and it’s the last one of the day. Twelve hours, fourteen minutes and 32 seconds until the next boat; a night spent in the derelict terminal looms ahead of me.
Each passing minute makes it harder to relax, the hands on the big dirty clock face tick off my crimes. Tick, the penalties I will pay. Tick, the time I will spend behind bars if caught. Tick, tick, tick.
Word of the day toilet paper. This morning before I left the secure pod and ventured across the city to the docks, the last words on the roll before my last attempt at escape: ‘impending’. Smeared with my crap ‘impending’ was flushed down the loo.
In and out, that’s what Frank promised. The job was supposed to be clean, supposed to leave no trace of suspicion. I should have been sitting pretty.
This, it turns out, is what he meant by clean: I have to get my arse of the platform and clear of authority before day break.
Potential Feedback Prompts
When you respond, you might consider:
- your immediate reactions
- likes and dislikes
- anything that seems unclear
- language issues
- point of view
- voice
- inconsistencies
- general encouragement
Thanks!
Hey, thanks so much for your excerpt. You have an interesting scene happening here–definitely intriguing. But, there are a few things that are unclear, and a few ways to improve this excerpt.
-You’re writing in first person, present tense. While there are exceptions to the rule, agents and editors generally say it’s really difficult to pull off well. Just something to keep in mind.
-I don’t know if your protagonist is male or female, so if this is the beginning of your book, I’d try to find a way to make it clear.
Paragraph 1
-“A cross marked the spot she indicates,” should be “A cross marks the spot she indicates,” to maintain present tense.
-A comma should come after “Glancing over my shoulder,” but this type of sentence structure is weak, anyway. You might want to rearrange it.
-There should be a comma after ‘dock’, and a period after ‘concerned’. Start a new sentence with ‘instead’. “The boat is pulling out of the dock, but she doesn’t seem concerned. Instead, she takes her time to process my paper work.”
Paragraph 2
-Comma after ‘must adhere to’.
Paragraph 3
-“I sprint for the dock but it’s a wasted effort, the boat is long gone and it’s the last one of the day.” This is a run-on sentence.
-I like ‘derelict terminals’. Nice.
-“Twelve hours, fourteen minutes and 32 seconds”–I don’t think you’re incorrect to write 32, but since you spell out ‘twelve’ and ‘fourteen’ in the same sentence, I’d probably spell out ‘thirty-two’ as well. I could be wrong, though.
Paragraph 4
-“Each passing minute makes it harder to relax, the hands on the big dirty clock face tick off my crimes”–This is a run-on sentence.
-“Tick, the penalties I will pay. Tick, the time I will spend behind bars if caught.” This is good, but I would format it like this: “Tick. The penalties I will pay. Tick. The time I will spend behind bars. Tick. Tick. Tick.” Again, just a personal preference, even though neither option produces a grammatically correct sentence 🙂
Paragraph 5
-“Word of the day toilet paper.” You lost me here. I had no idea what you were talking about until later in the paragraph. Is there a way to make it clearer from the start?
-“…the last words on the roll before my last attempt at escape: ‘impending’.” If there’s only one word on the toilet roll, shouldn’t it be “last word” instead of “words”?
-“Smeared with my crap ‘impending’ was flushed down the loo.” Comma after ‘crap’.
Paragraph 7
-“I have to get my arse of the platform…” of=off
I’m not sure if you’ve censored yourself for the purposes of having me post this (since I said only family-friendly stuff will be accepted), but ‘crap’ and ‘arse’ don’t really sound like words that would be used in this kind of story.
Not that I’m encouraging profanity, but to be honest, I feel you should either work around these words or use the real ones.
Really, most of the issues I see with this piece are grammatical. The set-up seems interesting and with a little cleaning-up, I’m sure people would read on.
Good luck!
Thanks Suzzanah, grammar is my weak point and your critique is easy to follow and I can utilise most comments. As for the profanity, I didn’t necessarily sensor myself but I did baulk at that sentence also. I will have a play with it.
No problem! Thank you for letting us learn from your excerpt!
You’ve done a good job setting a scene that the reader can build in their own head. The classic example is “show don’t tell,” and you’ve done that well. It’s suspenseful and rushed right from the beginning, and pulls the reader in. That is of course assuming this is the beginning of your story. It really feels like it is. If it’s not, try making it the beginning and see how it fits. That can always be fun.
You’re great with descriptive text. “My passport is secured under her stamp,” or “the hands on the big dirty clock face” are two in particular that caught my attention.
This whole paragraph is actually very entertaining, and has me wanting more. In my head it sounds like a bank heist gone wrong, but I don’t know and I want to find out. Is there a girl? Who’s Frank? Which country is he leaving and for where? I guess I’m assuming the main character is male. Maybe I’m wrong, but it doesn’t really change much in my opinion.
The only part I had a problem with was the “word of the day toilet paper.” It seems forced, like you’re trying to be subtle, which is never subtle. Sometimes as writers we have an idea that we think is great and so we struggle and fight to make our story work around it. It was William Faulkner that said “Kill your darlings.” That is a quote writers need to live by. If something doesn’t fit, it has to go, and often times it’s one of our “darlings.” Personally, I’ve discovered that often times when I kill a darling I’m cutting something that originally gave me the idea for the story, but just doesn’t fit anymore. I recommend taking this paragraph out completely. It’s not smooth and rounded like the rest of the story, and doesn’t seem to fit the voice.
Everything else is wonderful.
I’m not commenting on grammar because Suzannah seems to have caught it all. The only thing I will say is that “The Chicago Manual of Style” says that all numbers one through I believe ninety-nine are to be written out. I’m at a coffee shop and don’t have my style manual, but I’m pretty sure that is the rule. In my experience most novels are published in Chicago style.
Great stuff, I hope to see the rest of it at a book store in the future. I’ll definitely buy a copy.
Hi Aj, thanks for the thoughtful critique.
I’m pleased you pointed out the golden rule ‘show don’t tell’. After 4 years studying literature composition at University I feel like I have finally grasped the whole concept and I made a conscious effort with this piece to do just that.
As for the protagonist, it is actually a woman, which I make apparent in the next paragraph. I had to cut it there to allow the word count limit, however perhaps I will consider a feminine hint earlier to save confusion.
The excerpt I have shared was originally the beginning of the story, however since the first draft I have worked out the whole premise and have decided to start the story earlier ( nothing is set in stone and this may still work as the beginning with a flashback included later on).
As for ‘word of the day toilet paper’, consider it cut (or at least heavily edited). I never felt comfortable with it in the first place; you could consider it a ‘darling’ although it is not mine. I wrote this story as part of a Uni exercise in which we used a stimulus to get started, ‘word off the day toilet paper’ was my stimuli. I have to be grateful though, that exercise has allowed my discovery of Jax, our heroine and the political mess she finds herself in.
And thanks for the Style Manual tip, as I’m an Aussie we use a different edition, and I do need to be reminded to use it. 😉 Tanya
I don’t think you need to necessarily make the fact that it’s a woman immediately apparent. I just usually assume a male voice until I’m told otherwise. There needs to be more well done crime/mystery (what I’m assuming this is) with a female lead. Like Olivia in the show Fringe. My girlfriend became so attached to that character because Olivia was both feminine, and strong. She’d eat those type of books up.
It’s funny, but as I was writing the part about the word of the day TP, I was thinking it was a writing exercise. I had a similar thing happen, and I fought and fought to keep my “darling” in the story, but people kept saying it had to go. For some reason I thought if I got rid of the writing prompt, that gave birth to a story about something else completely, it negated the story. Took me a while to get over it.
I love your positive response to both critiques. A learning author is the best, and this excerpt already has me wanting more. I hope to see more in the future.
the apture bar is very irritating pls consider removing it
Immediate thoughts:
1–As Suzannah pointed out–“marked”-“marks”. You’re writing in present tense.
2–The word “arse” definitely put me in mind of a country outside the United States; I suspected your character is British so I immediately conjured up a British port o’ call.
3–Suzannah already hit upon the grammatical, comma related stuff.
4–I’m intrigued, especially having read the comments and discovering that your character is a woman. I assumed the character is male, mostly based on the situation (sexist, what can I say?). Now that I know she’s a female, it provides a twist in the tale.
5–I like a more vivid sense of place–sights, smells, sounds and the like, especially when you have a setting like this one. I know this is just a snippet from a larger piece. My assumption is that in the broader piece, we’d have more sensory details. Just something to keep in mind as you continue on.
Hope this helps a little.