Prologue.....
Benny felt better after taking an advil, resting his head on the arm rest, and finally being able to take the Berretta handgun out of his side holster, the cold steel against his waist was really starting to become a drag.
He closed his eyes wishing that the phone would never ring and that none of this bullshit had happened in the first place but nothing could be that easy, especially for Benny. He placed the ice pack on his head which didn't work for shit on the bloody knot.
Benny slowly drifted into a deep sleep where all he could see was what happened just hours ago..... Enrico, the drug deal, the shootout, and............the kid.
Benny was woken from his sleep by the ringing of his telephone from across the room, he slowly got up and answered it.
"I'll be out in a minute" he told the receiver not bothering to give that prick Enrico a moment to respond before hanging up. Benny grabbed his coat and gun before heading out the door, bright lights of a black sedan parked outside his driveway blinding him.
He got into the backseat not bothering to look at the driver which he probably should have done in the first place.
"Hello Benny" the driver greeted him.
Benny knew this man sitting in the driver's seat but he was not the man Benny was expecting.
Benny reached for his gun not even able to raise it before getting three gunshots in his chest the pain remarkable and the blood warm.
He'd been double crossed.......and the lights were dimming as he took one last look at the man who'd killed him.
Damn you.......
7 comments:
This is interesting, but you have a few syntactical problems here, specifically with fragments/commas. I think your third comma in the first paragraph should be a period. In the fifth paragraph, I would place a comma after receiver. There are a couple of other things as well, but I think the best thing you could do would be to read this aloud and see if it works for you. If you want the full Sam Bivins word by word edit after that, I'll be happy to do so.
I agree with Sam, Ryan. Interesting beginning for sure but there are punctuation issues and some syntax problem. One thing I can suggest is to go back and shorten up these sentences.
I learned to write in the Mark Twain school of fiction so I'm massively guilty of writing sentences that are much too long. I feel for ya in other words. If you haven't read Hemingway then I'd suggest you put him on your summer reading list. The short stories in The Snows of Kilimanjaro would probably be perfect.
Have you ever seen the film noir classic, DOA? I think it's available on the web and you might want to give it a look. :)
I'm looking forward to the next installment. Great beginning! Cheers!
totally agree with both of you...like pb i have amazingly long sentences sometimes, but i think that this is the type of work that demands shorter hemmingway-like sentences. especially in the first paragraph. i never have had benny's experience, personally, but i have had some massive headaches--imagine the morning after a long night of drinking. you think in fragments, barely able to string three words together...i would divide this paragraph into at least three sentences if not four.
but hey, that's just me. maybe its not your style. but i think this is an excellent beginning and it really drew me in. i want to know what happens next!!
Thanks everyone!
I'm really bad with grammer and such lol
I have a lot of books on my list right now but I'll put Hemingway on the top.
Ryan:
Looks like you’ve got some good advice here. Yes, Hemingway was the master of the short sentence…I believe I have almost everything he published. Its easy to get hooked on Hemingway.
Anyway, back to your work. Stephen King said in his book on writing: final draft = rough draft minus 10%, or something like that. An example might be the line about the berretta handgun. You don’t need to tell us it’s a handgun, we know that. Someone gave me this same advice once and I think it helped me quite a lot.
I know this is your rough draft and you’re probably still forming this one, but I think you’ve got a good one in the works. It grabs my attention right from the start and moves right along.
Keep at it; I’ll look forward to more.
-Steve
I am not a prose writer (though i've tried on various occasions) so hopefully I know what i am saying.
this engaged me, though I can't help thinking that there are quite a few assumptions that seem to lose me.
Assumptions like this:
"I'll be out in a minute" he told the receiver not bothering to give that prick Enrico a moment to respond before hanging up. - how did he know it was Enrico if he gave him no time to respond.
Also I am not sure of the narrator using swearwords, it doesn't seem to add anything and it takes away from the authenticity of the voice.
There is some good imagery here, however, like the opening paragraph. I'd be interested to see how this develops.
Hey Ryan, not to sound impatient but…
I was wondering if the next installment is in the works. :)
Okay, a little impatient. LOL
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