Chapter One of 'Cracks in the Sidewalk'

It’d been a normal morning for Liz Landry. Up till Officer Zachary Caine had knocked on her door and asked if her son was home.
“Jack? No, I don’t imagine so. He’d gone over to a friend’s last night to sleepover. Is he in any trouble?”
Caine peered at her over rounded sunglasses, “Ms. Landry, we believe we may have found his body by the Jose Rizal Bridge.”
Found his body.
Numbness crept across her skin like a sheet thin satin, sent a storm of panic fluttering in her head. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Do you know what happened?”
Caine took off his glasses, “No, ma’am. We don’t. May I come in and ask you a few questions?”
Liz nodded, let Caine inside the house. She led him to the kitchen, where she offered him coffee.
“No, thanks.” Caine leaned against the entryway. “When was the last time you saw your son?”
“Last night. About 7 o’clock.”
“Do you know this friend of his?”
“Not well.”
“What’s the friend’s name?”
“Connor Bellwood.”
“And were you and your son particularly close?”
“Not recently. We had different opinions on his way of living.”
“Oh? Ma’am, can you please elaborate? What opinions did you have?”
Liz hesitated, “Jack was delusional. He’d been under too much stress at school, because he wanted to get into Yale.”
“Delusional?”
“He believed he was a homosexual. Connor was helping him through some issues related to that.”
Caine took out a manila envelope, “Do you mind identifying your son through some autopsy photos?”
Liz shook her head, “Go ahead.”
Caine held out a photograph.
It was her son’s face. The eyes were closed, the skin gray. It looked oddly peaceful. The last time Liz had seen Jack alive, his face had been conflicted. A multitude of emotions playing across his face. Mistrust. Hurt. Anger. Sorrow. Grief.
And now he was gone. And Liz hadn’t said one kind word when he’d left.
Swallowing against the tears, she nodded, “That’s my son. That’s Jack.”
Caine’s face sagged in the perfect mask of comfort and grievance, “Okay. Ma’am. We believe he might have killed himself. Did he have any difficulties?”
“No. Well, yes. He was struggling.”
“With?”
“His homosexuality, of course.”
“Are you particularly fond of religion, Ms. Landry?”
“I belong to the Catholic church, yes. We attend mass every day. Jack believed in God. That was why he fought those desires.”
“Desires for men?”
Liz nodded, “Yes.”
Caine put his sunglasses back on, “We’ll be in touch.”

Cracks in the Sidewalk- Critique


Basic ideas:

1. Liz and Jack have a rocky relationship.
2. Jack is a homosexual male who lives in a somewhat strict catholic household.
3. Liz seems to be under the impression that homosexuality is something that can be ‘cured’ or changed.
4. Jack committed suicide when he was supposedly going to go visit a ‘friend.’


Throughout the writing, you seem to tell a bit more than you show. I think it has a very good storyline, a good plot, and you could write off of this brilliantly. There are some great lines in this piece of work that allow me to visualize completely what is going on.



Numbness crept across her skin like a sheet thin satin, sent a storm of panic fluttering in her head. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

This is a brilliant example of showing rather than just telling. This line actually sent shivers down my spine because it was so well done.

I noticed that most of this piece is made up of dialogue, and it is a very strong point of yours. The dialogue is steady and it flows very well. However, I want to know what the characters are doing as they speak- are they just standing there, looking at each other? Is the police officer just in the door way? I can assume that the setting is at Liz’s house, but where in the house? What is the house like? Is she in the lower class of people, upper middle class? What does Liz look like? What does her son look like?

Also, how does Liz feel about the idea that her homosexual son is supposedly spending the night at a (male?) friend’s house? Is Liz married, or is she a single mother raising Jack all on her own? I want to get a feel for these characters… There isn’t much information for me to go off of, so it feels like Liz is just being thrown at me.

Once again, this is a good story with a good plot, it just needs to be polished up a bit. 8D

I like it! You had a good hook at the beginning, and starting like that sucked me into the story. There was some good dialogue there, as well - as Kelle_Bellex said in the previous post, that seems to be one of your strengths.

However, your story lacks description. I have no idea what these people look like, how they say things, or anything. It's pretty much just too talking heads for most of the story. I can't really imagine what's going on at all.

And then there's Liz. Her son just died, and yet, I don't really see any emotion at all from her. She doesn't seem like she really cares that much, and I because of that I can't sympathize with her. I just can't feel for these characters. They don't seem real to me, almost. You need to start fleshing them out and making them more dynamic.

Are you going to continue this story? I hope you do! I want to know what really happened to her son!

Hello, darling! I'm Music. Here to review for you today!


Grammar:

Numbness crept across her skin like a sheet of thin satin[s],[/s]; it sent a storm of panic fluttering in her head.

Liz nodded[s],[/s] and let Caine inside the house. You've done run-on sentences twice already. Make sure you either have them as compounds with commas and conjunctions or semicolons, or as complexes, or as simple sentences. With the right conjunctions or phrases and punctuations, your sentences will be fine.

Ooh! Very little grammar mistakes! This is what Music likes to see!


Language Usage: It was a fairly short chapter, and, as mentioned, was, at times, a little more "tell" than "show". Make sure you make a clear, definite decision as to which way you want to go about telling the story. It must be clear to both you and the reader. Whether you include certain types of description or not will help to clear that up, but I'll get into that more thoroughly later!
You had a few run-on sentences. Be sure to avoid those, darling! I want to see properly punctuated and nice, grammatical sentences in your next chapter.


Plot: Interesting. My mother is Catholic, but I lean more towards the Methodist side. We haven't gone much into thorough beliefs, especially sexuality. I really want to learn more about Jack and the issues he faced. Maybe you could add a preface before showing part of Jack. That'd be nice. Just a suggestion! We'll see how you continue from here.


Imagery & Emotion: As I noted before, your story borders on the line of "tell" and "show".

To make it a definite "tell": Don't include any emotion. At all. I don't necessarily like this style, but it's your choice.

To make it a definite "show": Include as much emotion and imagery as you can. Precise, little things. A clock ticking. Sweat on someone's brow. The aroma of mocha coffee in the early morning. Things that will help the reader imagine each character in the book, doing exactly what they're doing.


Overall, I'm pretty excited about reading more to come! With a little editing, you could turn it into something great!


Love,
Music

Liz Landry seems more like a mannequin than a mother. If you were her and an officer came to your house showing you a picture of your dead son, would you act that calm? I like the beginning and like it has already been posted, dialogue is defiantly your strong point. But there were some parts in the story where you didn’t have to make it into separate paragraphs {at least to me}. My paragraph corrections will be in this **. Take for example:


It’d been a normal morning for Liz Landry. Up till Officer Zachary Caine had knocked on her door and asked if her son was home. **“Jack? No, I don’t imagine so. He’d gone over to a friend’s last night to sleepover. Is he in any trouble?”


Caine held out a photograph. **It was her son’s face. The eyes were closed, the skin gray. It looked oddly peaceful. The last time Liz had seen Jack alive, his face had been conflicted. A multitude of emotions playing across his face. Mistrust. Hurt. Anger. Sorrow. Grief. **And now he was gone. And Liz hadn’t said one kind word when he’d left.


Also, you might want to work more on being descriptive, other than just spilling out dialogue. Other than that, it looks pretty good. I look forward to the next chapter.