Somalian guns

Hey man, I dig this quite a bit so far! Very cool setting, and with an interesting profession to boot. I think your action scenes are really well written and fast paced, and the way you’ve inserted description and back story about Somalia into the story creates a really vivid locale. Props!

General comments:

‘Wear’ in the world
In like, what, the second ‘paragraph’ (more on this later); you mention that he wears a thick fleece, thick pants, and heavy boots. Let’s stop. Wha- What?! I think I get what trying to happen here, you want the reader to see DeWitt’s a tough ass dude, who doesn’t care about the heat.
But you know what else it makes me think about him? He’s an idiot. A rational person would wear appropriate attire, especially if he was the type to deal arms, and especially, especially if he was going to get into gun fights Thick heavy clothing restricts your range of movement and causes you to sweat and succumb quicker to heat factors. Irrational arms dealers probably don’t last long. It makes him look less cool than just like a rookie.

You got a permit for that?
Dewitt’s in Somalia, one of the most lawless places on earth, and he leaves his gun in his car? He SELLS GUNS for a living! Why would he not carry some sort of firearm? It’s not like the Somali police are gonna stop him. It makes for a cool scene as he dives to grab the gun out of the car, but checks another box on the ‘dummy checklist’ in my opinion.

Little things
I really like how you used little things to add oomph to certain scenes and paragraphs. Just stuff like mentioning how many tours he’d done, the bag tagging him as former military, his eyes being bloodshot for some reason, the dichotomy between the coffee machine and the coat rack. Good stuff, all of it.

Hazmat Format
Maybe it’s just my browser but man; this thing was a pain to read at first. Paragraphs don’t start in any coherent fashion. For some reason some lines of text words sit out on their own on the left side of the page. It could really turn off a lot of readers. I actually ended up pasting it into a word doc and formatting it til I could read it better.

As a last unrelated head’s up, Somalian isn’t really a word, it should be Somali. It’s kind of like asking someone if they speak ‘Jewish’. Everyone still gets that you mean ‘Hebrew’ but it’s not really correct terminology.

I did really enjoy reading this though. I think you have a really strong writing style and a cool thing going here so far. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or get the next part up!

-Pattycakes

Hey Gabe! The title of this piece caught my eye and I thought I’d add a little of my input. I hope you don’t mind.

An old white pickup pulls up on a dusty side street facing the Bakaaraha market; the closest thing to functioning commercial space in Somalia.

A Western man, face submerged in a mess of hair winding into tangled brown beard steps out.

The thick crowd gives way, failing to notice the white mans presence.

DeWitt wasn’t some snot nosed,[u] [u]suite-wearing rookie straight off a plane from Saint Petersburg anymore.
‘Snot nosed’ should have a dash in between, so it’s ‘snot-nosed’. I think you mean ‘suit’ here, not ‘suite’, as a suite is not a type of clothing. Also, the ‘wasn’t’ confuses me. For the past few sentences, things were written in the present tense. Then it suddenly switches to past tense.

[s]And[/s] most importantly DeWitt had seen the violence, the total disregard for the value of a human life. As many a gun dealer had said to him as casually [s]a possible[/s], valuing human life was a “Silly Westerner” thing to do.

The ‘and’ and ‘as possible’ feel unnecessary here.

The pond is the weapons market, the dark space where the wealthiest Somalis, below an intoxicating plume of cigar smoke, would purchase weapons from Westerners.

‘Pond’ should be capitalized, since it’s a name. I find this sentence just a little too telling though. I do love the description ‘intoxicating plume of cigar smoke’, but perhaps there is a more descriptive way to say that the Somalis purchase weapons from Westerners at the Pond.

With the newly acquired weapons, the Somali gun dealers would then sell for greater value to Somali Militias who, now armed with fresh machine guns, could litter the streets with each others bodies as they so pleased.

Here, ‘militias’ shouldn’t be capitalized, since it is not the name of a specific militia. ‘Others’ should be ‘other’s’.

DeWitt was recognized immediately upon entering the desolate room, this was his fifth trip the Somalia, thus making him a veteran.

This is a comma splice. It would be best to use a period after ‘room’. A small typo, I’m sure, but ‘the’ should be ‘to’.

Slinging the U.S military issued duffle bag off his shoulder, Dewitt exposed a line of polished new machine guns, which seemed to twinkle even in the scarcely lit room.

‘Military issued’ should have a dash in between. I feel like ‘twinkle’ doesn’t really fit the mood here. The guns are serious and deadly weapons, and ‘twinkle’ makes me think of little children’s songs. Perhaps ‘glint’ or ‘flash’ would work better.

As DeWitt stepped outside the market erupted in gunfire, on cue a scattering of civilians, arms flailing, crumpled to the dusty floor.

Again, this is a comma splice. A period after ‘gunfire’ would probably fix that easily.

Stumbling back into the pond, DeWitt approached one of the Somali weapon dealers, tossing a wad of Somali money onto the dealers lap DeWitt snatched up one of his rifles in exchange.

Run-on sentence here, I think removing the second ‘Dewitt’ and replacing it with a comma with the word ‘and’ would work well.

Below the jungle of scrambling feet law twisted, barefoot bodies;

I think you mean ‘lay’ here?

Taking a step into the street, DeWitt stumbled, firing off a dozen shots into the crowd, which absorbed the bullets, keeping its perfect rhythm in panicked dance.

The underlined is very difficult to understand and I got lost trying to decipher exactly what it all meant. I understand that the crowd absorbed the bullets, but the part after just makes me dizzy.

From where DeWitt stood he still make out no armed Militia.

I think you want the word ‘make’ here.

Making it through between volleys of gunfire, DeWitt caught site of his car, a man lay face down, arms outstretched on the vehicles hood.

‘Site’ refers to place, location. Here the correct word is ‘sight’. Again, this is a comma splice. A different type of punctuation after the word ‘car’ is needed.

Tossing the hardly consciences man to the floor with one hand, DeWitt violently pulled open his driver door with the other.

‘Consciences’ would be the plural of that little voice in people’s heads. ‘Conscious’ would be how awake a person is. As for ‘violently pulled’, I feel that it’s a little weak in comparison to a verb that would mean the same thing. What about ‘yank’, ‘jerk’, or ‘wrench’?

DeWitt and the Militiaman spotted each other at the same time, the skinny Somali who was running across the street stopped dead five yards in front of DeWitt’s car, oversized machine gun balanced low on his bony hip.

‘Militiaman’ shouldn’t be capitalized. You might want to start a new sentence with ‘The skinny Somali…’ to avoid another comma splice.

The white pickup lurched forward driving right through the Somali man, sending him limply head over heals through the air until he crashed down hard like a rag doll, rolling loosely to a fractured standstill.

‘Heals’ is the plural of ‘heal’, something that’s been mended. If you want the back of the foot, use the word ‘heel’. Otherwise, this description is excellent. I love it.

The crowd [s]who had watched this unfold[/s] had fallen silent now, the chaos of the afternoon dulled to a silence by the car which sat smoking through an avalanche of yellow brick which the broken vehicle lay submerged beneath.