Good writing! You have either been working on your craft for a while or you are a natural. Good dialog - not too bogged down with description, so the reader gets to move along at a pretty steady pace. Your characters are true, and in the case of the manager even a bit interesting. Unfortunately, I stopped reading after the impromptu party at the guy's apartment.
I like the mystery of "the sound", but it takes too long to emerge and engage. The way it works is that either the reader continues because he knows the author, or the new author shows there is something worth reading about.
Think about it - is a soft purr going to keep a guy up who is exhausted? Could there be another sense that is engaged to make the reader believe it is worth pursuing? In a short story you have to engage immediately. Hell, even in a novel, a good opening scene is crucial.
I will read it again if you want to edit.
I really liked this. I will read more.
Way too much detail for the reader to take in. That being said, choose judiciously what to keep because there is much detail that makes the scene entertaining. If I were your editor, it would read, " Massachusetts was beautiful in autumn by anyone’s standards. Under the circumstances, Detective Becker wasn’t in the mood for banter – even from his partner. With a sigh Becker surveyed the area for evidence. A red shoelace coiled in the muddy gravel caught his eye. With the careful extension of his arm, he dangled the string inches from his face and peered over his glasses to view it in focus . His partner Atticus cracked his knuckles. " Please be aware this is not my story, not my edit, and I don't know where the story is going. This is just for example, but most of the other details are assumed because of the genre or just because I can see the scene play out in my mind's eye. I know how partners work, I know how evidence is examined and a very few adverbs are all you need.
I would like to read this again if you decide to edit it. Also I don't know what "brazzi" is. Or BAC. The only mystery should be the murder.
Tonya,
Here you have the beginnings of a short story. To help you with the genre, you might draw and annotate a character arc or outline the story. There are a lot of resources on the net to help you.
Use dialog in the opening scene. Starting with some action is good. Using dialog, even if it is inner dialog, will help the reader understand the character's motivations and feelings without having to resort to describing them.
" The veins were popping out of his robust arms, more from fear and nerves than physical strain." Metaphors are meant to help us understand something quickly. This statement gives me pause and not in a good way. Something like "his fears and nerves strained his body as much as the weight of the ..."
Good beginning. I know very little about ship battles, but I would like to read this when you do some edits.
Okay, good characters, and I like the premise. I am a bit confused. Is this a short story, a start of a novel, or writing practice. I will review it just on the writing itself.
The first four paragraphs are good although the third does run on a bit. I got the idea of Jenny's perfection pretty early in the paragraph. Cut it down to what is important because I am going to think there is something in the paragraph I should remember since it is starting out as suspense.
I must sound like a broken record. There is obviously a lot of action embedded in this story, but I am only reading description. Description slows the reader down. Suspense readers like action, and dialog. Description is only to give absolutely necessary information in a mystery/suspense. Unless you are writing literary fiction (Cormac McCarthy), and you can write like him, keep the description down to the minimum, just to move the character from scene to scene or to give the reader a rest from the blood and guts. Also inner dialog.
Get Carla moving around the room, talking to her partner, slipping on blood, noticing a broken window (red herring) and right at the start. If she is a policewoman,she is not going to be spending a lot of time thinking about high school while she is in the room with a blood soaked victim and supposed perpetrator. They may come later over a drink or trying to get to sleep, or talking to her mom. But in the story you need to get things moving and make it exciting.
Don't allow your story to become predictable. I was hoping as I was reading it wasn't going to be an abused wife murders her husband story, even though signs pointed to exactly what happened including the sympathetic, trained-in-domestic-abuse police officer. Choose some facts and make them different.
Anyway, I think you have talent in your writing. Good sentence structure, dialog conventions and word choice. Use your imagination and have fun.
I would like to read this again after a rewrite.
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