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Young Writers Society



The Assassination: Part 1

by Michael Ewins


The Assassination: Part 1

9pm. He was already an hour late. Alex should have been home by now, curled up on the sofa with his copy of The Guardian and a glass of Jack Daniels. Surely the message would have got to him. The secretary promised that he would pass the message on and he did sound like a bright lad, the sort who checks the door six times even though he knows he locked it. The sort who really cares about his work. Like Alex. Alex wasn't his real name. It was an identity, a person he could leave if anyone ever found out the truth. Alex was the new life. Life in London. It wasn't a bad place to live. There were good areas and bad areas but tonight Alex found himself in a good area. It was a small park, the sort of place you'd expect to find a family eating a picnic on a sunny Sunday afternoon. But the evening mist and the nature of Alexs' work gave it a sinister quality. Alex kept looking over his shoulder waiting patiently for his contact to arrive. He noticed that the pond had frozen over. Not surprising. It had been bitterly cold all day. Not like home.

9:05pm. Still no sign of the contact. Daniel Turner. That was his name. He was a journalist and tonight Alex was going to sell his story. Not the whole story but just enough to put that scumbag away for life. It's what he deserves brother or no brother. Alexs' legs were going numb. Not to worry. He'll be dead soon.


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Sun Apr 24, 2022 11:35 pm
KateHardy wrote a review...



Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

Anyway let's get right to it,

9pm. He was already an hour late. Alex should have been home by now, curled up on the sofa with his copy of The Guardian and a glass of Jack Daniels. Surely the message would have got to him. The secretary promised that he would pass the message on and he did sound like a bright lad, the sort who checks the door six times even though he knows he locked it. The sort who really cares about his work. Like Alex. Alex wasn't his real name. It was an identity, a person he could leave if anyone ever found out the truth. Alex was the new life. Life in London. It wasn't a bad place to live. There were good areas and bad areas but tonight Alex found himself in a good area. It was a small park, the sort of place you'd expect to find a family eating a picnic on a sunny Sunday afternoon. But the evening mist and the nature of Alexs' work gave it a sinister quality. Alex kept looking over his shoulder waiting patiently for his contact to arrive. He noticed that the pond had frozen over. Not surprising. It had been bitterly cold all day. Not like home.


OKay this is an interesting start here, but I do kind of have to preface things by saying that perhaps this could do with a little bit of splitting into paragraphs here just for this first bit, because we do have more than sort of one thing happening out here and having it all crammed together into just the one piece is not the best of ideas here here. Otherwise though, this is quite an interesting piece to start with. We do get to know some rather interesting bits of information there about this person and what they're doing, and while its somewhat generic there is just enough hidden mystery there to make us questions a few things and well that's just about exactly what you need in a first part like this one here.

9:05pm. Still no sign of the contact. Daniel Turner. That was his name. He was a journalist and tonight Alex was going to sell his story. Not the whole story but just enough to put that scumbag away for life. It's what he deserves brother or no brother. Alexs' legs were going numb. Not to worry. He'll be dead soon.


Well that was quite a startling ending there. I suppose with the kind of title that this one does have, it makes quite a bit of sense for something like that to be tossed around as casually as that was, but there is still quite a bit of surprise that you get as a reader at just how simply it seems this person is planning a bit of a murder...and top of that of course we have another tidbit of intriguing information. All in all, it comes together quite well I think to create a pretty interesting setup here.

Aaaaand that's it for this one.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry




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Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:32 am
LowKey wrote a review...



He'll be dead soon.


I'd change the bold to 'He'd'. Tense issues. :)

Very good way to open up a story, grabbed me from the start and held me through to the end.

However, there's not a lot there to critique. While you don't want to post a 2000 word story all in one post, you also don't want to post a really really short piece, because, well, there won't be a lot there to critique. :D Follow?

For future reference, you really shouldn't make your post shorter than 500 words or longer than 1500 words. Find a happy medium and you're set. :)

You can always eyeball it, too, if you don't have a word counter on hand. Your piece here is 269 words, according to MS Word, so about twice the size of that would be be good. :)




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Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:37 pm
Rag-Dolly says...



Decent beginning, it's got me hooked ^^.
Only thing to tell you is that, in the last sentence, you missed out the letter 'e' in 'Alex's'.




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Fri Jan 04, 2008 2:08 pm
Kimberlykat says...



Apart from critique, (Something I never do) It is put together perfectly. The introduction was great and transitions were made smooth. Overall, I would say this is something I would follow. Great start, great work!

God Bless, KIM




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Thu Jan 03, 2008 7:35 pm
NightsDreamer2277 wrote a review...



Ok, this was good, but there are a few things you need to fix. I'll bold the sections

Michael Ewins wrote:The Assassination: Part 1

9pm. He was already an hour late. Alex should have been home by now, curled up on the sofa with his copy of The Guardian and a glass of Jack Daniels. Surely the message would have got to him. The secretary promised that he would pass the message on and he did sound like a bright lad, the sort who checks the door six times even though he knows he locked it. The sort who really cares about his work. Like Alex. Alex wasn't his real name. It was an identity, a person he could leave if anyone ever found out the truth. Alex was the new life. Life in London. It wasn't a bad place to live. There were good areas and bad areas but tonight Alex found himself in a good area. It was a small park, the sort of place you'd expect to find a family eating a picnic on a sunny Sunday afternoon. But the evening mist and the nature of Alexs' work gave it a sinister quality. Alex kept looking over his shoulder waiting patiently for his contact to arrive. He noticed that the pond had frozen over. Not surprising. It had been bitterly cold all day. Not like home.

9:05pm. Still no sign of the contact. Daniel Turner. That was his name. He was a journalist and tonight Alex was going to sell his story. Not the whole story but just enough to put that scumbag away for life. It's what he deserves brother or no brother. Alexs' legs were going numb. Not to worry. He'll be dead soon.
Ok the bolded section should probably be its own paragraph, same with the sentences after it. That will help break it up so that it's not so hard to read.
Also, in the last line of that area, you need to switch an apostrophe from Alexs' to Alex's.
Besides that there are a few fragments like the one above in green.





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