"Bad business."
"Yep."
The farmers stood nearby, watching scores of patrolmen scouring the field.
"Linda found it, did you say?"
"Yep."
"She must be pretty torn up about it."
"Yep."
Jake Hollis stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Think they'll find out who put it out there?"
"Maybe."
"I guess I'll head on home," Jake said. "You tell Linda that Mag is coming over later with some of her sweetbread, alright? Woman shouldn't be left alone after a day like this."
The other man, one Ray Eddelson, simply nodded. Jake was considerably younger than he, and often proved to be an irritation in times of stress. Today was no different.
Jake shifted from one boot-clad foot to the other. "Well, I'll leave you to it. If you need anything, just give us a call."
Ray had no idea what this twitchy young man could provide to them, but he nodded anyway, and was relieved to see Jake turn and start off down the dirt road. He was obviously duck-footed, and shuffled along with his head down like a sullen boy. It was amazing that he and his livestock had survived thus far, since he possessed almost no knowledge of the trade.
Ray turned his attention back to the field, where the lawmen were wrapping up their search. Vehicle doors slammed shut, motors revved.
Back in the house, Linda was putting on the perfect show of being a woman whose life had not been dramatically changed three hours previous. She was even humming a tune as she washed dishes, though it was unusually off-key.
"Did Jake head back home?" she asked, without turning.
"Yep. Said Maggie would be by later with some goods."
"That's very sweet of her. And have the police gone, as well?"
"Just about."
"Good."
Ray felt an overwhelming wave of affection for this woman, his wife of almost thirty-five years. Her hair, once thick and black as ink, was now a wirey gray. Her hands were still dainty as ever, but he could see the veins clearly beneath the skin as she rinsed a plate under the faucet. "How you faring?"
"Just fine," she chirped, finally turning to smile at him. "Would you mind handing me that pot on the stove? The oatmeal scrapings will be dried on by now..."
He obliged, and watched as she set about scrubbing the pot with what seemed like cheerful vigor. True to her upbringing, she was holding up remarkably well under what must have been a good deal of stress.
After all, Ray thought grimly, it's not every day that you find a dead woman in your field.
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140,225 Literary Works • 673,047 Reviews
Oooooooo! I liked that. Your characters are very realistic and I can see them in my mind's eye, talking to each other.
This leaves me with questions...why is the wife not more torn up? Who is the dead woman? And a pressing question: Why haven't you put more of this on here??
I couldn't really find any other nit-picky things, so good job!! Keeping on writing!
--Xreigon
I'm a lazy writer nowadays. xD I am planning on putting more of this up, but stuff got sort of hectic around here and I never got around to it. xD The question of the woman will be answered in later chapters. And I was trying to portray "midwestern strength", haha. Country folk are sometimes known to deal with tragedy/shock by internalizing it.
Thank you once again for the feedback!
You're welcome!
Hey Bock!
~ “out there”, two words.Shady coming at you with review number three.
Right, so I tend to advise starting a chapter with dialogue, especially your first chapter. The second chapter of Sunburned worked okay as a direct continuation, but maybe give us an intro paragraph here...
~ Yay! Bock uses ‘gray’ not ‘grey’. I’m so happy! ^-^ However, “wiry” does not have an ‘e’ in it.
~~~
Alright!
You’ve got some interesting characters starting, but you hardly give us anything to hook us. I mean, I’m one of those annoying people who figures out the big revelation before it’s given, so I assumed there was a body found. It was good, a nice, ominous way to end your chapter.
But you didn’t give us much before you ended the chapter. It was far too short for my taste. Jake and Ray’s exchange amused me, since I’ve met Jake-type ‘farmers’ in real life. I like how eager Jake is, and how Ray’s just like “Yep.” *shut up* xD
Good interactions, just not long enough.
As always, you know where to find me.
Keep Writing!
~Shady
Wow, Payne! Sooo interesting so far! The last sentence/paragraph thingie is TOTALLY making me wish to read more! I like the part that goes "Her hair, once thick and black as a lawyer's heart," It's kind of random, funny, and true all at the same time. Keep writing!
~Sophie
Although I disagree with the previous reviewer on some points, he made a good call on your ending - it was much too unpredictable, and I almost felt let down by it. You didn't have to tell us anymore. You've shown it; what's the point of telling us something we've already realized? You might be better off with another thought, or - a better idea - have it as a part of the scene instead of the end.
On another hand, I'm not sure why this is a prologue and not the first chapter. I get the feeling this is actually a first chapter, not a prologue, and you've only titled it a prologue because you felt the need to have one? Perhaps. I'm not sure. You might want to read [url="http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/prologue.shtml"]this[/url]. I'd explain it here, but it'd be much too long and time-consuming, and I hardly think I could come up with a better explanation than the one in that article.
Read it and reassess if this is a prologue or a first chapter. As far as I'm concerned, it's a first chapter, and a prologue would be unnecessary in this novel.
On the nitpicking by the previous reviewer, I thought most of it was all right and I find it didn't jar me at all, save for one. I'd have to agree with him (her?) on his/her point on "zero knowledge". It was the only line that truly stood out as out of place in the entire piece.
You might want to edit one sentence there as well. In this line -
-you switched to an omniscient third person narrator, whereas the rest of the piece was written in a close third person point of view, with Ray as the character of interest. That line broke the point of view's restrictions. Unless you plan to maintain an omniscient narrator throughout the novel (in which case, the rest of the piece has to be rewritten to reflect that), you're better off removing the second part of that sentence or turning it into conjecture from Ray's point of view (Ray wondering if Jake's pockets had lint/sawdust, but that seems to be out-of-character for Ray).
It's your call, really, this being your novel. Just decide on which point of view to use and stick with it, and if you maintain this level of writing for the rest of the novel, I believe you'd have few, if any, problems.
I liked this a lot. You did a really great job capturing the feel of a rural area and the people that live there. There were a few places where it felt off though:
This part sounded unnatural. It seemed like these men shouldn’t be talking about such "womanly" things as tea and cake. The part where you wrote “Maggie would be by later with some goods” was much better. Also, it seems unusual to bring tea to someone’s house, since Linda would most likely have her own tea.
The “zero” clashes with your tone. It sounds too modern, too city-like.
The simile seems out of place… it’s funny, and it makes sense that Ray wouldn’t like lawyers, but the “literariness” of a simile doesn’t go with rest of the straightforward narration. Also, it seems like a weird way to describe her hair if he thought it was beautiful.
My other issue was the ending. It wasn't surprising at all. What else could it have been with them saying "Linda found her" and "Think they'll find out who did it?" if not a dead woman? So I think you need to reveal something we don't know -- how Linda really feels, who did it, who the woman was, etc.
Aside from that, this was really excellent. I hope you can expand it a bit.
Prolix