So... there are going to be five parts to this story which means it's going to take a while to make all five... Yeah... So hopefully this can get all of you guys HUNGRY for more... Enjoy!!! :P
It was a silent night at the mansion. A team of four criminals wait outside of the plastic manor, studying the map of the giant building before they head in. Emerald, the scout is a new recruit of the team, not only is he good at stealth but can almost hack into anything. Emily, she is the mapper, she draws the most detailed maps of City's, buildings, and more. Jack, the gunner is the most accurate shooter of there team, he will snipe down any threat seen. And then there's Troy, Well... I guess he just keeps watch...
"Ok, so once we enter the building, we will find the Hub, its filled with hidden passage ways to take us to almost any location in the mansion, none of them take us close to the main vault though. Emily said. She couldn't tell them anything else because of the rain that ruined half of the map. "Emerald, I need you to go in there and map the rest of the place out, we'll raid it tomorrow..." Emily said to Emerald. "What?!? Why me?!?" "Because your the stealthiest out of all of us, don't just stand there! Get moving!" Emily pushed Emerald towards the door hard enough to push him over onto the wet pavement. He got up with a pain on his side from the impact onto the ground. He slowly creaked the door open, and headed in with his pistol loaded.
He silently walked in with a pencil being held in his mouth, map in one hand and gun in the other. The Hub was a bigger then what it looked on the map, I mean, it's HUGE. Emerald walked to the area that he needed to map, he put his gun in his pocket and started drawing. Emerald was a bit of a psychopath, he would honestly do anything for money. When he walked around a bit more and was alarmed by a crying baby, he walked over to it and tried to shush it. "Shut up!" He whispered loudly. He could hear footsteps approaching. He took out his knife and stabbed the child in the head... He stuffed it into a nearby duffel bag and rushed to hide. As the parents seen the blood soaked into the their child's bed they immediately rushed around looking for it. Emerald ran for the door to try and open it, they locked him in. A note was slide under the door saying "You may leave when you get the money". "Dammit... Hopefully I don't have to kill anymore innocent souls..."
As he entered a door that took him near the vault, he could feel blood dripping from the bag he was carrying. He felt super depressed now, but nothing is keeping him from getting the money. He walked through a few rooms and eventually found the vault. He took out some handmade C4 and rigged it to the vault. As he pulled the trigger on the detonator, the whole building shook. He looked into the vault to find stacks of gold bars and wads of cash. "Thank god.. Time to leave..." When he started walking he heard someone say look for green hair. "Oh... Not a good day to dye it..." He ran towards the front door and tried to open the door. Blocked from the outside. "Emerald!" Jack yelled from the other side of the rubble. "Cops are on the way! You need to eliminate any suspects and get out of there now!" 'Copy." Emerald said without hesitation. He ran towards the sounds of footsteps, knife drawn ready to slash. He pulled the trigger on his gun to shoot one of them in the head and threw his knife at the other. He got on his phone and dialed Emily. "Emily, got the money early, I need a way out, now!" 'Can't! Holding off cops out here! Find a way out on your own, and do it quick!" He reached for more C4, he used it all on the vault...
As he was searching, he could almost eel if someone was watching him, stalking him, breathing on him, it wasn't that scary... Well... until he met with the demon face to face...
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Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi EmeraldLinks!
It helps add the emphasis without the intimidation.
I'm just gonna jump right in and say that I don't have a whole lot more to critique on this piece because Leftywriter and flite covered pretty much all there is. However, there is one thing I'd like to point out: the structure of this piece.
So, the paragraphs a re kind of long, making it hard to read because all the words are in one large chunk of writing. To fix this, you just space out your sentences. Now, I don't mean after every sentence press enter, haha. What I mean is after dialogue, you can start a new paragraph. For example:
"Thank god.. Time to leave..." When he started walking he heard someone say look for green hair.
"Oh... Not a good day to dye it..." He ran towards the front door and tried to open the door. Blocked from the outside.
"Emerald!" Jack yelled from the other side of the rubble.
See how much cleaner it looks?
Also, you start a new paragraph when you finish a thought or idea. If you need a reference, you could always look at published book! Haha.
Oh, and I'm not sure if this was mentioned by Lefty or Flite, but instead of hitting caps lock, italicize. It looks a lot neater and less intimidating. I don't know if it's just me, but when I see words in all caps, I read it in a loud, booming voice. So, italicize!
So that's all I have to say! Now I'm off to read part two!
Hi, there! Lefty here to review!
I was drawn to this piece because I love heists! My favorite tv shows are ones where nearly every episode is a heist so I was looking forward to reading this. Now, onto the nitpicks:
This is past tense while the rest is current tense. Should be "is" not "was"
I like this part where you give each of them little introductions, however, I felt this line could have been even stronger. Like, you could end it with "that you've ever seen", for example.
"she draws the most detailed maps of City's and buildings that you've ever seen."
I want to take a moment to talk about paragraphs. Every time a new person speaks, it should be in a new paragraph. Like:
Get moving should be on a new line. I saw this a few different times.
Who is "I" exactly? If it's supposed to be Emerald, then there should be an "Emerald thinks" afterwards.
That's about it for the nitpicks.
When he killed the baby, I found that to be really disturbing. Perhaps it was supposed to be to show how psychotic he is, but at the same time, it didn't really make sense for him to do that. Did he panic? Because he used his knife then hid anyway. So, why wouldn't he have just hid and left the baby alone? The parents wouldn't have had anything to suspect then.
Also, when you said he put his gun in his pocket, I think you meant holster. Take it from someone who has taken a handgun coarse. You never put a gun in your pocket without some kind of cover over it. Even then, it really should be in a holster on your hip. Although, I suppose this would show that he is an amateur he is to the whole heist thing, not knowing how to use a gun... But later he shoots someone in the head like he is a skilled gunsman, so... Something to think about.
Leverage is an amazing show where every single episode is them doing some kind of con or heist as well as a fight scene or two. You might want to check it out for inspiration and research purposes.
Show don't tell. How did he feel when he heard the baby crying? What did it make him want to do? What thoughts were running through his head when he heard it? What did he see when he walked into the nursery?
Overall I think this story has potential and I'm curious to see what happens next! Nice cliff hanger, too! Keep writing and have a nice day!
-Lefty
Hello Emerald, Flite here for a review. Let's get down to it.
First paragraph in, I think you could have introduced the story slightly better, the entire opening was an info dump on the characters and the settings. Making it incredibly obvious by the use of the format 'character name' followed by description of what they do. There is zero description in there of their appearance or any showing, but jut plain facts telling. You want to grab the readers in by the first paragraph, therefore it's important to make it interesting. Use a hook and return if you must, there are a lot of ways to approach it however info dumping isn't one of them. Place the characters in the middle of the action scene will equally distribute their roles, except it's more interesting.
A few problems with your dialogue above. You forgot the double quotation marks once the speech ended. Its should be it's. Secondly, the same thing with the dialogue. It's a information dump on their mission and has no depth or personal details. It's a dialogue purely for the sake of it. Take a look at this article here, it will give you a better idea on what to avoid when writing dialogue. You will want to avoid telling tone in your story, starting sentences with 'pronouns' repetitively tends to do that, using sequential conjunctions will also cause that. Try and vary your sentence lengths, beginning and endings. Don't tell us things, in your second final paragraph. You told us that Emerald was a psychopath, instead of telling us, showing us why he is a psychopath would be a better way to go about communicating this information.
Just a note here. I'm pretty sure the latter sentence came from Emerald and not the note, try and italicize the content of the note. Or better yet, tag the dialogue. I've also noticed several problems with your tagging. It's very dry and doesn't complement your characters very well. I won't explain them here, but instead, this article provides some very helpful insight into the types of dialogue tags and how to use them. I strongly recommend you to read it.
Alrighty, so I will give you two more things to consider for future chapters. One I've already mentioned, take a good look at this chapter and notice how often you use pronouns at the start and the length of your sentences. Overtime, they create a very flat tone. Along with that, there's also no description of the setting but just pure telling of what is happening and what their reaction is. We need more character development and more personal details.
An article on showing and telling. Please take a look at it.
I've noticed that your story moved very fast, you tend to jump from scene to scene without fully developing their potential. Like your ending, what about the stretch of time between him feeling the demon and actually facing it? That is a perfect way to develop Emerald's character and describe the setting to us more. Despite all of that being said, you certainly have an intriguing idea going on. You just need to work a bit more on your writing. I'm sorry if I've been harsh, if you've got any question, please feel free to PM me.
-Flite
Hey im reviewing my self ya- No not really, I aint not coin farmer...