The Saratov Doctrine: Prologue

Prologue

I brushed past the luminous fence as I swept around a corner. Power walking generally got the better of me, and tonight was cold too. I strode, laced in a corduroy tailor-fitted suit, my feet soggy in the wet damp leather soles of my shoes and my head snug in a straw fedora hat. Rain tippled down upon me. I cursed at the aggravation of it all, closely listening about me. Shouting brewed from a distance, but besides such it was mere silence, rain, yes, but everything else had gone dead. My stride was heavy; I could tell by the weight of my feet as I walked heel by heel along the cobbled, wet sidewalks. The only light to guide me came from the orange flicker of several sleeping street lamps.

I met the next junction of streets, taking a sharp turn to the left. Here, there was no longer any light; just the moons soft blue daze upon the street allowing me to put one foot in front of the other in the right direction. I needed to reach the Courthouse, I told myself, sounding juvenile in my head, I disregarded the thought of trying to self-motivate myself farther and stuck to just making sure I was heading in the right direction.

My right hand was engulfed inside a dark, jet-black leather glove, clutching a roll of papers. People would kill for what I had right now, yet, here I am, in the mercy of the rain, the papers slowly dampening under my hidden thumb. Curse the thoughts, curse it all. I’d done too much to get where I am now, breaching another turn I peered upward at a dressing of signs and acknowledged that turning right was the next port of call.

Strangely amidst to my loneliness, I hardly noticed the man following me until I turned. From a glance, I had found him to be young of sort, perhaps inexperienced or hired, a guy’s son or a lucky mainstreamer. Whoever he was, I knew what he was here for. Luckily I was prepared. Taking a natural few more paces in my headed direction, I took out a silenced Walther from a holster buried under my overcoat and held it to my chest, out of sight from the lad in pursuit. The trickle of rain dribbled down it momentarily as I flicked of the safety with my thumb and allowed my index finger to hang loose over the sodden trigger. I carried on walking, however, making him sure that I hadn’t noticed his efforts to stay oblivious. Sniffing in the cold, urban air I marveled at the choice of weaponry that was gripped in my hand. A Walther, a gun much used during the Cold War by the Western Capitalists, a more favourable choice than the general Communist weapons that were going around the black market and it came at a price too. Some say a man can give nothing to a gun above money, whereas others suggest a man can give his own gun it’s pride on the first kill. Others dismiss it as an inevitable meeting of their death, but unlike them, I wasn’t intending to be on the receiving end.

I walked by a collection of shutdown shops, their glass reflecting off the blue shine of the moon, before reaching a small alleyway. I took the opportunity and passed into it, quickly consumed by its darkness. I stopped, with my back against the wall and my shoulder an inch away from the corner I had just turned; rain continuing to patter upon my hat. His feet had picked up pace now and the sounds of his paced jog revealed a man of good taste: a fine leather soled pair of shoes, what a gratifying way to dress upon your death. As he jogged around the corner and too faded into the darkness I raised my pistol from my left hand instantly. It touched the back of his head for a second before I pulled the trigger and his body jerked back in unison, with the faint sound of his blood splattering down to wet the ground before him. His body lay still. With the silence once again returned, I took off out of the alleyway, joining the street I had seconds ago departed.

At that moment, a crowning sound echoed throughout, the distant shouting instantly impeded by the curiousity of such a noise and then me, collapsing to my knees as something shredded its way through my heart. The rolled up papers fell away from my now loose gripped hand, left to soak in the devilish rain.

Okay, so I had never heard the word 'tippled' before? I looked it up, and these are the definitions I found.
1.An area near the entrance of mines which is used to load and unload coal
2.(rail transport) An apparatus for unloading railroad freight cars by tipping them; the place where this is done
3.(slang) Any alcoholic drink
And I'm not sure any of those fit your context. XD

'The only light to guide me came from the orange flicker of several sleeping street lamps.' Nice alliteration, but to me 'sleeping street lamps' implies they're turned off, in which case they wouldn't be lighting his way. :\

'just the moons soft blue daze upon the street' Moon's, and 'daze'? I think you were looking for a different word... Haze, maybe?

If it's raining that hard, wouldn't he tuck it under his shirt or something?

'From a glance, I had found him to be young of sort, perhaps inexperienced or hired, a guy’s son or a lucky mainstreamer.' Um... What? o.O

'I marveled at the choice of weaponry that was gripped in my hand' Why is he marvelling at it? It's his gun, he chose it, he shouldn't be surprised about it... Maybe he admires it, but...

'a crowning sound' A what sound? o.O

This isn't bad. It's really interesting. In fact, it could even be GOOD! But along with some needed proofreading, part of what threw me off a little was the narrative.

It's too... flowery. Complicated. You say in three sentences what could be said in three words. I get that you're trying to be artsy, and I understand. We all want that unique, elegant prose... But there's a fine line between elegent prose and making it harder for the reader to understand what's going on.

For instance, this sentence: '... breaching another turn I peered upward at a dressing of signs and acknowledged that turning right was the next port of call.'
'Taking another turn, I peered up at a cluster of signs and made a mental note to turn right at the next corner.' The first sentence wasn't neccesarily bad, but in my opinion you could've just as well used the second, and it'd be easier for the reader. All the flowery language can be hard to interpret sometimes, and it distracts me from what's really important: The story.

That said, the story itself is pretty good! A man walking at night in a hurry, delivering some urgent papers, being chased by someone... A little cliche, but if it's well-done, who cares? I want to read more of this, but keep in mind what I've said.

Go for it Ben Franks! I see you're going for the 'journalist-thriller writer' niche - excellent! I say - make the prose as flowery and awkward as you want to. Go over the top. Explore all possible ways to present a scene or a character's condition. If you do that regularly, a year and a half from now you'll be able to deliver super tight prose
A reminder:
People like Jack Higgins need 16 years and 36 book before their reach their best level
People like Thomas Harris need 12 years and 2 books to reach their best level
People like le Carre need 3 years and 2 books to reach their best level
People like Ludlum and Forsyth and Deighton start their writing careers at their best level
I think... I think that to start like Ludlum and Deighton, one first has to have written tons of stuff for oneself, and when you write for yourself - explore all types of styles. Flowery and minimalist, poetic and crude. After a number of texts in different veins your real style should appear and stabilize

Thank you Napal, journalism is my main routin' but I do love a thriller with big-end mumbo-jumbo words, I do admit

Hopefully with more practice I'll be better. & thanks silentpages for taking the time to review my work, I'll be around to editing it when i visit this novl next, don't worry!

~Ben

Hey Ben, sorry for the delay. Cool cover art!

Power walking generally got the better of me, and tonight was cold too, only adding to my discomfort.

You don't have anything to string these two thoughts together. I can only assume that they're meant to show that the narrator isn't extremely comfortable, but you don't actually show us the significance of this sentence! The bolded part I added as an example, but you just need some physical description to go along with this.

just the moons soft blue daze upon the street allowing me to put one foot in front of the other in the right direction

Missing apostrophe in "moon's". Proofread!

I needed to reach the Courthouse, I told myself, sounding juvenile in my head, [period here] I disregarded the thought of trying to self-motivate myself farther and stuck to just making sure I was heading in the right direction.

This is a run-on. If you replace that comma with a period, or even a semi-colon, it'll be fixed.

People would kill for what I had right now, yet, here I am, in the mercy of the rain, the papers slowly dampening under my hidden thumb.

People don't really think like this, especially not the "papers slowly dampening under my hidden thumb" part. Me, personally? I'd say/think something like: "It was almost funny. People would kill for these papers, yet, here I was, letting the rain soak through them.

I’d done too much to get where I am now, breaching another turn I peered upward at a dressing of signs and acknowledged that turning right was the next port of call.

Another run-on! Here's an article of mine on commas and semi-colons. You just need to remember that, if there are more than two complete sentences involved, you can't just use a comma; that's called a comma splice.

Strangely amidst to my loneliness, I hardly noticed the man following me until I turned.

1.) He didn't just "hardly notice" the man, he didn't notice him at all. There's a difference, and if your narrator did notice him before now, you need to mention it.

2.) Odd wording here. "Amidst" is, I'm almost certain, not the word you're looking for. It's a preposition to mean "within the presence of". Maybe you want to say something like: Despite the lonely silence around me, I didn't notice the man following me until I turned.

Overall

Okay!

Silentpages is right. You're over-complicating your prose. I'm not sure exactly what time or location this is set in, but no matter what you're using too many words to describe a scene of this size. The main actions are:

-- Walking in the rain to the Courthouse
-- Has important papers
-- Sees a follower; shoots him (with, might I mention, zero qualms?)
-- Is shot

But you take 722 words to describe what can easily be an under-500-word scene. Furthermore, this is a prologue, and you want to hook your readers in to find out what's going on. Right now I'm having to squint at the computer screen and tunnel through superfluous words to even find your action, much less appreciate the tension and plot. And this is supposed to be an action story!

So, basically: simplify your writing style. I know, I know, you're saying that you like to use big-end mumbo-jumbo words, but those words aren't any good to the readers if they're just clogging up your sentences. You have a pretty awesome opening conflict here, Ben! Seriously, it's a great note to start on for your story. But it's not accessible like this. The paragraphs are too big and clunky for the scene.

You want to establish a faced paced, edge-of-your-seat feel here. Your character is URGENT to get somewhere with something HIGHLY IMPORTANT. So important, in fact, that they're willing to kill for it without second thoughts! So break up these paragraphs, toss out a good amount of this description, and let the action of the scene shine through.

^_^ I really like the idea you have going, and I'm interested. But you need to find a writing style and technique that readers can enjoy and follow, even if it means sacrificing some of those big words and excessive description.

~Evi

Thanks Evi.

The reason for my excess description is I'm currently reading a political thriller by Greg Iles and he does a lot of over descriptive thought patterns that play havok with the mind. I was trying to make it a bit impressionist, rather than vividly explicit. Thanks all the same! I'll edit this chapter as soon as I can.

~Ben

Hey Benny Boop!

So, one bad thing I have to say is that... well this isn't necessarily boring, it's just a bit slow. Do you see how three paragraphs down is the line, italicized, where you introduce the conflict? Well, I love stories that begin right in the action, and yours does do that, but not in the interesting way. I think that you should move that line up: 'anyone would kill to have what I had and I'm stuck in the rain'. By doing this, you would introduce plot and setting instantly, which is what I love.

You know what I love about your writing? It's that you're so darn smart, and I know that by just reading a few paragraphs. You don't go and say 'oh there's a man following me, and I am the hero because I have important things in my hands.' I love your over-descritpion, because it matches the characters' mood here. If I were handling important documents, and if I were rushing to get somewhere with someone following me, I would be rambling, too. So good job on that. What most readers don't realize is that the amount of words adds to the affect.

Few-worded sentences make it seem like the person is rushing things, and long, drawn out descriptions sounds like they're scared and worried. I think you realize this as a writer!

Overall, this was interesting and I want to read more. For one, I want to know why he has to get to a church with important documents, and for two I want to know if there's any more reason you mentioned 'Communist'. I just studied it in history and am greatly interested in the subject!

Toodles,

Classy

I love the Communist topic in history, so this is essentially going to be based around the death of Communism, but the ghosts of the USSR are still running Russia, so in a sense it's a political thriller.

This needs some heavy refining so it can appeal to a larger audience, but I'm glad you liked it.

~Ben

Hey Ben!

I haven't actually reviewed anything by you before (as far as I can remember), so I have no idea of your current or usual style or anything. But just by reading this, I was fascinated. Are you really meaning to tell me that before the action, the real action (not the prologue, but the chapters following) has even begun, we get to see how the MC dies? Wow - what a hook; I want to know how it got to that stage. And then again, not wow, since I don't want their death to be the focus point that the novel drives towards. Just something to keep in mind.

Evi pointed out a few areas of improvement already that I noticed, so I'll only go over those that I found that were different:

I brushed past the luminous fence as I swept around a corner.

As far as opening lines go, I love the action in this. It's in media res, which is what I enjoyed and jumps straight into the plot. But that 'luminous' just annoys me. It's too poetic, too descriptive just yet. It seems inelegantly placed there, tacked on almost.

I strode, laced in a corduroy tailor-fitted suit, my feet soggy in the wet damp leather soles of my shoes and my head snug in a straw fedora hat.

In the first line, you say, 'I swept,' in the second you say 'power walking' and in this third you say 'I strode'. How many times do we need to repeat that just to get across the idea of walking fast? And here, just when I thought the action was enticing, we have a straight-adjective description of his clothing - his suit, his shoes, his hat. What's the point of this, other than to indicate he's an official? It seems almost too obvious, too blatantly clear that that's what you're wanting us to imagine which kind of...kills the mystery of it somewhat.

Rain tippled down upon me.

Don't like that word, 'tippled.' Seems too pretentious, like its trying too hard. Surely there's a cleaner way to describe rain. (And just so much as thinking about that word is sending me into a fit of giggles.)

Shouting brewed from a distance, but besides such it was mere silence, rain, yes, but everything else had gone dead. My stride was heavy; I could tell by the weight of my feet as I walked heel by heel along the cobbled, wet sidewalks

So, we read of soggy feet and wet shoes, rain tippling and...'mere silence, rain....wet sidewalks' Try not to overuse a word or idea this closely. And 'stride' - here we have that idea of walking fast again, for the fourth time within the space of a few lines. This could be condensed quite easily, I think.

several sleeping street lamps.

In literature, I find alliteration disrupts flow, since one tends to get so carried away by the aesthetics of the words together that they forget to read them properly, then they don't understand the meaning and have to come back to it...thereby disrupting the flow, like I said. I love the idea here, and perhaps it'd fit better in a poem, but for the sharp clarity of the writing, the intensity of focus, I think it does the prose no justice by beating about the bush like that.

My right hand was engulfed inside a dark, jet-black leather glove, clutching a roll of papers.

'My hand was engulfed in a ...glove' --> this idea seems more fitting in a poem as well. I've never heard of hands being engulfed by gloves (suggestig that the glove is too big for him?) - more like 'encased.' And do we really need the 'dark, jet-black leather' as the description for the glove. If you say it's a leather glove, most people will assume it's black, and it's jet-black - of all the 'shades' - and that it's dark. No need to overkill the description.

People would kill for what I had right now, yet, here I am, in the mercy of the rain, the papers slowly dampening under my hidden

Aside from funny phrasing, why the italics? Seems to look fine without them, especially since you say 'thoughts' in the next sentence.

I’d done too much to get where I am now, breaching another turn I peered upward at a dressing of signs and acknowledged that turning right was the next port of call.

Punctuation issue. Needs a semicolon after 'now.' 'Next port of call'...that seems a bit extraneous. Perhaps too official, but then again, I don't really know the character that well.

the lad in pursuit

The 'pursuit' sounds too formal and the 'lad' sounds too informal. A funny phrase.

Sniffing in the cold, urban air I marveled at the choice of weaponry that was gripped in my hand. A Walther, a gun much used during the Cold War by the Western Capitalists, a more favourable choice than the general Communist weapons that were going around the black market and it came at a price too. Some say a man can give nothing to a gun above money, whereas others suggest a man can give his own gun it’s pride on the first kill. Others dismiss it as an inevitable meeting of their death, but unlike them, I wasn’t intending to be on the receiving end.

A bit of a striptease before we get to the main action, maybe? ^^ This is the longest the MC has thought about any one particular thing, and I realise that during fast incidents, people tend to think of all sorts of weird ideas. However, for a crazily brief flash of a thought, this seems rather drawn out. Is it necessary, at this stage?

their glass reflecting off the blue shine of the moon

With all this 'luminous' and 'blue moon shining' going on, I have trouble imagining the rain. Seriously, if it's raining, it's going to be cloudy all over and we're not going to be able to SEE the moon in the sky, let alone bask in its reflection!

His feet had picked up pace now and the sounds of his paced jog revealed a man of good taste: a fine leather soled pair of shoes, what a gratifying way to dress upon your death.

Humour not working. Seems childish, and in the heat of the action, especially over the sound of the RAIN, how would the MC be able to tell what kind of shoes the assailant was wearing? Okay, so it's quiet, but raining (so some kind of sound is present already) and the MC can hear footsteps, yes; but I don't think they'd be able to hear they type of shoes!

With the silence once again returned, I took off out of the alleyway, joining the street I had seconds ago departed.

The silence returns straight after the gunshot. There's no interval of time between the shot and the 'silence' - it's pretty instantaneous. Furthermore, there isn't really a silence since there's always the constant sound of rain. And that last clause should read: 'I had departed seconds ago.' Are you using words like 'departed' in place of 'left' on purpose? This prologue is inconsistent - it teeters between mild poeticism, over-description and formality with extreme-action and adventure, and tension. A bizarre combination.

At that moment, a crowning sound echoed throughout, the distant shouting instantly impeded by the curiousity of such a noise and then me, collapsing to my knees as something shredded its way through my heart.

'Distant shouting instantly impeded' is too muc of an eyeful. Too hard to digest, and if the reader has to pause to digest it then...the action isn't so fast paced anymore. And what is going on with that line in the first place? 'And then me, collapsing to my knees' - that last bit makes little sense (although I get what you're saying). Seems like it should read: 'and then I collapsed to my knees as sth shredded its way through my heart.'

The rolled up papers fell away from my now loose gripped hand, left to soak in the devilish rain.

I'd probably end the prologue at the previous line, not this one. It doesn't really seem needed - sounds too much like you're trying to wrap it up with one last image, when what we really need is a action-packed cliffhanger to leave us reeling.

Overall, for all the little issues I brought up, I enjoyed the prologue and I can't wait to see more. You've got a marvellous brain for plot and character - it's just a few minor things with the writing of it that are sort of cluttering it up, making parts seem unecessary, wordy or extraneous.

Thanks for the read, and I hope that has been helpful. PM me if you've got questions or have made changes!

Hey, thank you for the review, it'll help me make some needed changes!