Two Shades of Black
There we were, the three of us, standing at different points on the roof, like the three corners of the Bermuda Triangle. There was nothing between us and there could be nothing: we'd reached a place where anything that could have breached the gap would crash or sink beneath the waves. There we were, the fugitive, the cop and I. One gun between the three of us and I had to kill a man because that was the only way a story like this could end.
It was a Friday, around eight O'clock, and I was working late on the third floor of the Lavida Life Insurance office. A new claim had come in; some poor fool kicked the bucket while putting up the festive decorations. The family hadn't wanted to claim earlier, not while it was Christmas. Or so the story went. His wife wanted to take the kids on holiday. At a first glance, it seemed a cut and dry case, but there was something about the dates which didn't match up.
This was my Friday night. Over-working. Being unsociable. Nothing out of the ordinary there. My boss and I were probably the only two left in the building and he wanted some files brought up so, of course, I was the chump who got the job. It was the last item on my agenda, so I left my office, walked to the stairwell, and locked the door behind me.
I met him on the stairs, the first stranger. I saw shiny black shoes and two cylinders of blue denim protruding from a long, beige over-coat. I was going up and he was coming down and he ran into me. His face was dark with a squashed, bulbous nose, scratchy facial hair and a distasteful bar through his neat, black brows. But I discounted all these faults in view of the two celestial blue eyes set deep into his skull. It was the beginning of a hundred romances.
He grabbed me instinctively and with a squeal, I let the files I'd been carrying fall to the floor. I stared into his beautiful eyes as he swept me off my feet and pulled me around the corner. My feet landed at the top of the next flight, heavily. Reluctantly. I wondered desperately if he was thinking the same thoughts as me – had he got carried away with the whole Prince Charming act? However, the spray of bullets at our backs was in disfavour of my fantasy.
'You'd better get out of here,' he said in a dismissive tone as he let me go and dropped to one knee. He started putting bullets in a gun and I just stood there, astounded and infuriated, trying to take it all in. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. I couldn't even form a full sentence in my head. I crouched down low on the stairs and shook uncontrollably as the bullets ripped through the air. It was terrifying and it was wrong because this should have been my opportunity. I wanted to stand up and brush back my tangles of auburn hair and say: Hey, you! Yes, you with the gun, aren't you going to ask me out to dinner already? But that seemed sadly inappropriate.
"You can't wait me out. I will finish you. I will end you." The voice came from above and I felt my anger re-directed at him, for it was surely a he with a voice like that. The tone was deep and strangely civilised and smooth, precise and crisp as bullets. In my mind, I immediately put this monster in a suit – white, not black – and gave him wavy, salt and pepper hair and a chiselled, scholar's face. But his eyes were as dark as bonfire toffee.
I was running down the stairs before I'd made any sort of conscious decision, the sound of my feet slapping hard on the smooth slabs was out of sync with the spit of gunfire and the drumming of my heart. And then. A scream! I froze, partly to catch my breath, but mostly to gather my shrapnel mind. Had it been him? The stranger with the bright blue eyes? Or the other one? I stared up through the well of stairs and saw the sheets of paper, sweeping, falling. I reached out with my eyes, as if I might catch one. Save one. And it was there, the splash of blood hugging the black print.
He screamed again and cried out, "You bastard!" with a rich, elegant voice. "My boys are outside and whatever happens in here, they're going to take you down!" I wasn't sure who his boys were, but suddenly running downstairs and out of the building didn't seem like such a pleasant idea. It was very easy to believe that at the bottom of the cuboid staircase, just outside the doors, standing under the security light which didn't have a bulb, would be a group of thugs with balaclavas and lead piping.
There was more shooting a few levels up. Moving quietly down the stairs, hoping I'd been forgotten, I stopped at the third floor and scrambled to unlock the door that led back to the safety of my office. I got it open, fell inside and quickly threw it closed again and leaned against it, taking long, deep breaths. Here was the familiar floor I worked on every day. There was my office. There was the photo-copier and – and the man with the gun was upstairs. Amelie.
I felt my chest tighten around the horrible realisation that my boss might be dead. Amelie. Was she dead? Was her body stuffed into one of those cramped, metal lockers that always jammed, just when you most needed what was inside? The thought of it made me feel sick and I almost forgot to lock myself in. There were loud scuffles on the stairs and just as I was about to turn the key, I saw him through the frosted glass window. The blue eyed stranger.
I made another snap decision.
"Quick! In here!" I hissed, cracking the door open and beckoning to him. I shot a quick glance at the stairs, almost expecting to see the other standing there, blood stains marking his crisp, white suit and a look of grim disapproval on his handsome face. There was no such man though and my blue eyed stranger pushed the door open wider, striding past me and into the room.
"Lock her up good," he said, turning his head to throw a smile over his shoulder. I didn't need telling twice.
It was while the second man was banging on the door and cursing at us that I really got to grips with the situation.
"So should we call the police?" I suggested, fully expecting him to confess to being an under-cover officer or even a vigilante inspector. Instead he simply said:
"There's no need. They're already here." And he looked to the window at the other side of the room. Feeling nervous, I crossed and looked out at the blue and white cars down below us. Ah. Those boys.
"Sorry, darling. We can't all be the good guy." He started to pace the room and I found that every time he turned to me, his eyes were looking past, out the window. "They'll be starting on the bottom floor, they'll be searching. Checking out the exits – where are they?" He rounded on me and I shrank back from him. I recoiled from his dark face, his messy hair and that distasteful bar through his neat brow. Most of all, I recoiled from those luminous, trickster eyes of his.
'There- there's no exit on this floor.'
"Then where, what about a fire escape? This is a frigging life insurance office so don't tell me you don't have a fire escape."
"Not on this floor.
"Just my luck," he grumbled and started pacing again.
"Am... am I your hostage? Or something?" I asked, almost too scared to break his concentration. He turned to me and gave a lop-sided grin.
"Or something," he agreed.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped, my temper flaring. He gave me an irritated glance and I held my breath, shrivelling in on myself.
"I was going to take you hostage on the stairs," he said quietly, his back turned to me once more. "But then I thought, I've got a lot on my conscience already and I wasn't so sure Fields wouldn't shoot you anyway. Just to get at me."
I decided I didn't want to know what he'd done even though he seemed to be in a confessing mood. He turned around and strode back toward me and I sought to fix my eyes on anything but his face. He was holding a piece of paper in one hand, creases running outwards like a spider-web of veins.
"There's nothing to make a man do his duty like a personal vengeance. I've been accused of murdering his daughter."
I tried to shut the words out but found solace in his phrasing. Been accused. He sounded like an innocent man.
"Why don't you just... uh. Turn yourself in. He can't do anything to you then."
He chuckled mildly and shook his head.
"No, it's too late for that and besides, I got a family to think about. I go to prison and what do they do, eh?" He shook the piece of paper fondly. "This is their ticket to the sweet life!"
I started to get a bad feeling in my gut.
"If that's a Life Insurance contract-"
"You don't have to stay here. Go on up the stairs, I'm ready for them and you'll only get in the way." He patted the gun for emphasis and gave me a smile that was half sad, half determined.
He was offering me my freedom and I felt compelled to do the same for him.
"You should come with me," I said. He shook his head. "Listen, that's a life insurance contract, huh? And I'm sure you forgot to mention your situation with the law when you took it out."
"So?"
"It's invalid. Do you really think the state actually pays out to criminals?"
He swore and we were soon running up the stairs and I could only hope that the man with the gun had gone down to meet his boys. He asked if I had a key to whatever level the fire escape was on. I shook my head sadly, no. I could gain us access to the fifth floor where Amelie worked. Knowing now that the man at the top of the stairs with the gun had been the cop, I felt a surge of relief that Amelie was almost certainly okay, but I didn't want to bring her in on this. Especially now that I didn't have her files.
We carried on up the stairs until we burst out on the roof and I bent over, breathing heavily. I picked my head up to ask what he planned to do next and then his arms wrapped around me from behind and I felt the cold barrel of steel against my head. Bloody men.
'It's just for the look, he might not shoot, he... I have to do something. I have a family.' The same sob story didn't have the same effect this time. Not when all I could think about was a bullet in my head. And Amelie. Had he killed her too? Had he hidden her body in her office cubicle – I realised now that there was no chance of getting her fat thighs into one of those lockers, though he may have tried there first.
'Please,' I begged. 'You said yourself, he might- he might-'
'Shoot you?' he asked. 'Eh, probably not.' And he laughed and the illusion was unravelling fast. I kicked out, desperately, landing a solid hit to the groin. I don't think he was expecting it. He shuddered back and doubled over, the gun falling from his hands as they sprung to his injury. What about your family now?
I'd never held a gun before. But I grabbed it and held it up threateningly, backing off, claiming my own space on the roof. And then the other came sliding through the door. He was beautiful. Instead of the white suit was a ruffled officer's uniform, pulled taut over his muscled Greek God body. And his face was indeed sculptured, his jaw square, his chin smooth and his eyes. His eyes were a warm, toasted brown.
He stepped forward slowly, taking a moment to judge the situation. His eyes roamed from the fugitive to me and my hands where the gun wobbled. While he was thus distracted, the fugitive threw himself across and they wrestled for the gun. The cop hit the ground quick and hard, crying out as he landed on his bleeding leg and the gun was pulled sharply from his hand. Then he kicked out and he kicked hard. The gun came skittering toward me.
I left that one laying there but pointed at them with the one I held.
'Get up and walk,' I said, shaking violently. 'You over there,' I jerked the gun, 'And you that side.' They started moving, watching me, watching each other and there we were. The Bermuda Triangle replicated on a city rooftop. And then the cop charged toward me and I flinched and put a bullet in his chiselled face.
We stood there for a moment, I looking down at the body and he looking satisfied but grim. The calm before the storm. Two fugitives trapped on a roof-top with a troop of officers about to file in. And there was only one question to ask.
'Did you kill her?'
'Not everyone can be the good guy, darling.'
'Bastard.'
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Megrim here for the Big Review! I love the title! I haven't read this yet and will comment as I go.
This starts out almost strong, but I think it could be a lot punchier. Personally, I don't like the simile with the Bermuda Triangle, because it seems really out of the blue (suddenly picturing warm tropics) and it's also not 3 isolated points like 3 people are, apart from Bermuda itself I feel the other two points are kinda wishy-washy--bigger regions. That aside, the next sentence makes no sense to me. I suppose now that I think about it, it's an extension of the Bermuda Triangle metaphor. This seems reeeeally forced to me. That second sentence is so vague and lacking in context, I didn't get anything out of it. I felt like we started out super strong with "There we were, the three of us, standing at different points on the roof," then fell on our face. Where it gets really strong again is when it hits "the fugitive, the cop, and I."
If it were me, I'd hack out the middle stuff and go for the meat of it: "There we were, the three of us, standing at different points on the roof--the fugitive, the cop, and I. One gun between the three of us..." That keeps up a nice strong voice, is to the point, establishes location, sets the players, and makes me feel ready to blast through the chapter.
I didn't mind the brief backstepping, but after starting out with strong stakes, I expect an exciting, fast-moving chapter. The paragraph before this was interesting because it suggested All Is Not Right. This one, however, starts to wander off with mundane details. Given the tone you started out with, I think this could be tightened. Even though it's slow action, you could keep up the snappy voice. Throw out any words not absolutely crucial. I'm a big fan of being efficient and strategic with word usage, because I think that's how we get our greatest impact. So I'd do away with throw-away sentences like "Nothing out of the ordinary there," and I'd probably try to distill the other details into as few sentences/words as possible. That way, it will read quickly, to match the fast feel of the opening.
I guess you could think of it like music: don't let it fade away too much. Give us a consistent downbeat. Roof. Office. Stranger on the stairs. Every time we hit those down beats, things get interesting again and I'm propelled forward. Sagging too much in the middle (eg talking a lot about how dull and slow the office is) makes me lose interest in between.
So IDK if this is any better, but I might try... "This was my Friday night. Over-working. Wishing for dinner. My boss and I were probably the only two people left in the building. With only a few files left to drop off downstairs, I tidied up my desk, locked the office door, and made my way to the stairs. That's when I met the first stranger."
Plenty of wiggle room with the exact phrasing, but my point is that I'd get rid of as much superfluous detail as possible. The story isn't about the files that the boss needs. That's just a device to allow him to run into the stranger.
Are those supposed to be... legs? "Cylinders of blue denim" is conjuring VERY strange imagery in my mind. I'm tempted to call this purple prose. That and "two celestial blue eyes set deep into his skull" is definitely purple prose. I hate fancy eye descriptions. The rest of his description is great, though, especially the nose, and I love the last line of the paragraph.
Few too many adverbs in too short a space for me here.
I read this as he was the one squealing.
The phrasing "putting bullets" for me is associated with shooting bullets, so I had to stop and readjust what I was picturing. Perhaps "He started loading a gun"?
I think "uncontrollably" is an unneeded adverb. As for the other part, I'm not getting a good sense of her emotional state. The first mention of the spray of bullets was so casual, she almost didn't seem startled by it at all. And I've been told a few emotions (astounded, infuriated, terrifying), but there's no showing to back those up, so I'm not really feeling it from her. Perhaps pick an emotion and expand on it a little with body language and physical feelings?
Lol. I like how much personality she has. Like in the next part when she imagines what the other speaker looks like <3
This strikes me as overwritten. Taking lots of words to say something simple slows the pace and bogs down the narrative. I'm a firm believer in being crisp and efficient (at least, in this style of story). This could just as easily be written "my footsteps were out of sync" without losing any meaning.
I've heard exclamation points described as laughing at your own joke. I'm also not a huge fan of the "And then." as its own sentence, because it feels like a gimmick. I feel like the content should be strong enough to stand on its own, without artificially inflating the drama. Sometimes I even feel putting a sentence in its own paragraph is too much, depending on what it is. My favourite is to place punchy lines just as the end of the paragraph. Subtle and understated, but very powerful imo.
An example of tightening might be: "I froze, panting. Which one of them was it?"
I don't think you need to tell that she's gathering her thoughts; since it's a deep, first person perspective, just directing the narrative that way shows the same thing.
Oooh good image.
I understand the intent with regards to voice and personality, but I don't think it's working for me as well as you probably hoped. This feels too long-winded.
As I've been alluding to, for fast paced action sequences and for choppy adrenaline-y thoughts, I think short, quick sentences are the most effective. I would break this into two, or cut some chunks out of it, to pare it down.
Also I really like the part after this about the familiar office.
You could probably remove the filtering. "My chest tightened."
I've been noticing throughout, and this is as good a place to mention it as any, that you use a lot of "to be" verbs. I don't mind them here and there, but they're not very evocative so I try not to rely on them too much for description. I would suggest doing a search and destroy, and see how many you can replace with more vivid verbs. I don't know if I have a good example for this particular one. "Scuffles sounded on the stairs" or something?
The reason I don't like the was's is because they make descriptions passive. Instead of the stuff you're describing doing the doing, it's just passively being. There WAS such and such--it's being passive, sitting there, existing. Such and such COOL VERBED some other stuff--a lot more room for description, more vivid, and the thing is active since it's the subject rather than the object.
Lol.
Regarding "Feeling nervous" - I think that would be better as a show than a tell. Emotions are something that I really don't like being told, because that makes it really hard to feel emotions along with the characters. A physical action might be useful, like gripping something tightly, a nervous habit, etc. Heart pounding is overused so I try and avoid that one, but it can be useful sometimes. There's another example of a "told" emotion down a few lines, at "my temper flaring." Show me with her words, her body language, and I'll understand without you needing to label it.
The punctuation here seems a little off in a few places. Also it's redundant to say she shrank back and then she recoiled.
Adverbs, overwriting, inefficiency - take your pick on how you want to describe it, but my suggestion is the same: pare, tighten, streamline. Single words can make big differences.
Closing comments:
I love the direction the ending took. I loved that he came up and was even more handsome and perfect, and I was so surpised when she reflexively shot him. Great irony, and great way to flip her situation on its head. Very cool, unexpected, lots of irony!
Plot: I liked the premise. Exciting from the get-go, lots of action, and an awesome ending.
Character: The MC seemed like she had tons of personality, with her imaginings and mind-wanderings.
Setting: The choice of setting was great, and it was pretty well done, but I suppose a few extra bits of setting here and there wouldn't go amiss. I try to remember to keep the setting integrated with everything else--alive and active instead of just part of the background. It really clicked for me when I got some feedback on a chapter where a character makes an escape attempt in an infirmary. I had originally written it with a lot of detail about the fight and the struggle with people trying to grab him and what have you. Someone commented that the fight still felt a bit blah, and I should really unleash him a bit more--crashing over diagnostic equipment, overturning med carts, disturbing sheets off the bed. And oh man, it made the scene so much more real and alive. You could try that sort of thing in the office. Chairs, keyboards, paperwork, a stapler--theres TONS of props you could throw into the fray. You might have noticed how much I liked when those papers flitted down the staircase. More of that would be good.
Technique: The main two things I think could be improved are overuse of "to be" verbs and overwriting. In fact, they may even by tied together. If you use more vivid verbs, you might find that eliminates the need for adjectives and adverbs. I've always said verbs are much more powerful for description that adjectives, and I've also repeatedly said that an adverb is usually a sign that you just haven't found the right verb yet. So, like I said, trim down, streamline, make the prose fast and snappy to match the plot!
Thanks for sharing, this was a very fun read
Thanks for the review and I agree with you a lot on the too many adjectives/ adverbs and things. My defense would be that this is four years old but it's not much of a defense xD I should really try and find some time to redo this one.
Oh right, I keep forgetting to check the dates on things. Sorry, haha!
Don't apologise, it's nice to revisit an old work sometimes and I only really have recent poetry up as I'm not much of a short story writer
Hello! I'm here for the big review! I didn't read any of the other reviews, so sorry in advance if I repeat something!
Really interesting opening paragraph. Awesome job creating lots of suspense - I'm begging to read on!
It feels a little separated from the rest of the story (almost like a preface) because in the next paragraph you back up and give some context for what's going on. I'm wondering if it would make sense to separate it a little - like include *** after or something.
The underlined part: This is kind of a long sentence and I feel like you can separate it at the semicolon. Also, the language is a little too metaphoric and flowery for my taste. The rest of the paragraph is more about setting the scene and stating facts, so this line really stood out to me.
The bold part: The wording felt a little awkward to me. The "I with the only" is what's getting me.
I would appreciate some more detail about the setting here to orient us. What job? What building? Who else is there?
Love this simple character development.
The underlined part sounds weird to me. I think "bringing" should be a different tense - "brought".
Need some extra commas here - one after "agenda" (two separate clauses), and one after "stairwell" (to separate the last item in the list).
I think I understand what you're saying here, but it's a little unclear. The narrator is speaking retrospectively in this piece, right? So he/she already knows what's going to come? Here he/she sees the first of what he/she knows will be more people?
I sounds a little funny though because unless there's a hoard of people behind 'him', how does the narrator know there will be a 'them'?
I would combine the "beige" with the previous sentence - "long beige over-coat". It's a little easier to read and leaves no ambiguity about what is beige.
Why is the narrator going up? I thought he/she just finished working on the 3rd floor and was leaving to go home (thus going down). Is he/she going up to deliver files to the boss? I would appreciate some clarification here because when the narrator leaves the office and locks the door, it seems like he/she is leaving for the night.
Great character development here with the tone and her thoughts. I can picture this in my mind so well. I'm assuming the narrator is a woman... literally swooning over a this guy with beautiful blue eyes (no judgment there! :p) thinking they're having a moment. And then the that final line - love it. It's so simple and almost deadpan, like here I am in this perfect fantasy and this one minor detail is messing it up. Great!
I'm a little surprised by this reaction. I understand the fear and astonishment, but the disappointment/anger not as much. If she's under gunfire, I would think fear would trump everything. (Bout to get psych-geeky :p). Maslow created a hierarchy of needs to describe how people are motivated. From lowest to highest the pyramid it goes: physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. He theorized that one cannot move up the pyramid until the needs below are met. So for example, one isn't going to worry about achieving personal growth (the very top of the pyramid) if one is cold and hungry (the very bottom of the pyramid). So here, her safety is in jeopardy because there is gunfire in the building and guy she's with just pulled out a gun, yet she's worrying about whether or not this guy likes her (social need). I get that she just met someone she's interested in, so I would buy that she wants to stick close (especially if she thinks he can protect her) and maybe something can come from this after they're out of danger, but I find it hard to believe that her main thought is I wanna date with this guy right now.
So is this voice coming from one of "them" from somewhere else? This whole paragraph was really confusing to me, I think there's too much information muddling up the main point. The main point is that this dialogue is coming from one of "them" and differentiating that voice from the blue-eyed guy's voice. I think the sentence after the dialogue "for a moment..." is unnecessary. It's a kind of confusing to read and I think it takes away from the main point. Instead, I would say something about where the voice is coming from so we know it's not "prince charming" and we have a sense of where these other people are.
The steps are made of stone? What kind of building is this? And there is still gunfire going on?
I liked this metaphoric language. I thought it was fitting for this moment and the imagery really adds to the situation.
The phrasing here was a little confusing to me, as well. Are the sheets of paper the same ones she dropped earlier? And the part about the blood was a little confusing. The blood is on the papers falling? All of the paper or just some?
I didn't realize she made it so far upstairs that it would take her this long to go back to the third floor. I think I mentioned this earlier, but I would appreciate more description earlier about exactly where she's going when she leaves her office or where she is when all of this starts to break out to orient us a little more.
I'm horribly confused about who Amelie is. (Note that one place where you spelled her name differently). Also, the imagery is really confusing here. I visualize her through this door looking around at everything she recognizes to make herself feel safe. She's pointing out the things she sees and the way that first line is phrased (photo-copier and - Amelie) it sounds like Amelie is lying in a pool of blood or something near the photo-copier, like she's seeing Amelie among the rest of the things in her office. But, as we read on, it sounds like she's just worried that Amelie was killed in this shooting situation. I think at the beginning when I mentioned that it would be nice to get some more information about what this narrator is doing job wise, info about the building and if anyone else is there - this could be a good time to bring up Amelie so she's not sprung upon us here. I'm guessing she's somewhere in the building working, but I really don't know anything about her so the narrator's fear about her fate doesn't do much for me.
Take out the "then" (it's a filler word) and start a new paragraph at "there".
I think this should be more active. Something like "I made another snap decision"
I took several readings for me to get the meaning here. I thought the "her" was in reference to Amelie (because you were just talking about her) and I was so confused about why the narrator would agree to this when she was so concerned about her safety. "her" is in reference to the door, right? Maybe consider rephrasing that.
I love that she assumes the best in him and assumes that he's a good guy. She really has no proof of that. He just has pretty eyes
So blue-eyed man is a bad guy (and I'm guessing she's realized this now). Are the other people in the building also bad guys? What's his motive for being here? What is he doing?
Also, the "where are they" confused me a little. If he's a bad guy, why is he so expectant about the police search? Is he just anxious about the inevitable? Does he want the police to come? Will the police be after him or the other people in the building?
Huh? Why is she telling him this? Of course there isn't an entrance on this floor, it's the 3rd floor. Is the fire escape the only exit unless you're planning on going downstairs?
New paragraph at "I decided".
I think "...he'd done even though he seemed..." sounds better than "but".
New paragraph at "I tried". In both of these cases, you're switching focus - his dialogue to her thoughts/actions.
I love how she's still pretending he's a good guy. He just told her he's basically holding her hostage, yet she's like "nah...he could still be good". Those blue eyes must be out of this world :p
Same thing here, new paragraph at "He chuckled". Actually, you could make a new paragraph there and then combine the dialogue that follows in the same paragraph. That will also remind us who's talking.
Same deal here. New paragraph at "I started" and combined with the dialogue after it.
And what kind of paper does she think it is? I'm confused.
Same thing here. new paragraph at "he was" and combine with the next piece of dialogue.
And who is "them"? The people already inside, or the police.
New paragraph at "He swore".
Why would she assume that he doesn't want to go to Amelie's floor? Does he know her? Does she even know for sure that Amelie is up there? (Again, more detail at the beginning might be helpful).
I'm still not quite sure why she's aligning herself with him. People are after him. I mean, he has pretty eyes, but he may have killed someone... Why isn't she trying to save herself?
They were on the third floor... Now they're on the roof... How many floors did they run up? And what happened to the people already in the building? Where are they now? I thought they were on a higher floor than she's on (how did they get up there in the first place without her realizing?), so wouldn't they have to pass them to get to the roof? Don't you usually need a key to get through the door to go onto the roof? I thought she could only access two floors.
I would add "I imagined" after "the white suit" because she never actually saw him, did she? And now I see, the other people in the building were the police, right?
I think my earlier questions still stand though.
I think you're missing a word or two in here.
Who? The cop or the bad guy?
Why not take the extra gun to have all of the power?
Also, I would appreciate a tad more description about who is going where. All of the "he's" is confusing.
And why? Why did she shoot? I'm very confused.
I like how this parallels the beginning (I love me a circular plot), but I still think it'd be good to separate that beginning part from the rest because the second paragraph is further back in time than that first paragraph.
Very confused about this ending. I want to know who is talking here. And who is "her"? The person he was accused of killing? Amelie? Someone else?
I also really want to know more about the motives. I get the motives of the police and the blue-eyed guy, but I really don't understand why the narrator did what she did there at the end. Does she believe the blue-eyed guy is innocent and the police are wrong? Is she someone weirdly in love with the blue-eyed guy? I don't understand her actions.
Overall, I thought this was a really interesting story. You have great technique and mastery of language and I was impressed with how this developed for how short it is. Sure, I think there were some holes or confusing parts with the plot and some characterization, but as a whole, I thought it was well thought-out and developed. I think it'd be really interesting to see this continued. The ending leaves a feeling of "now what"... And I want to know what happens next!
Let me know if you have any questions or if anything I said was confusing!
Thanks very much for the review! I've made some of the grammar changes and I'll definitely look at the bigger things when I'm revisiting this. It was originally written to a word count but now I don't have to worry about that, I should be able to add more clarity
Hello Rydia! Hermione here for The Big Review! I enjoyed how fast-paced and action-packed this story was. The description of the three people in your first paragraph is very intriguing, and it sucked me into your story right away. My only nitpick is the first sentence.
I liked this image, but the comma after the word ‘roof’ is unneeded in my opinion. I didn’t naturally want to pause there when reading, and doing so made it made it sound a little choppy. But that might be a matter of personal preference.
Whenever your main character first meets Prince Charming, the fugitive, I found it a bit unrealistic that she didn’t ask him right away what was going on. She doesn’t seem to question the shooting at all, even in her private thoughts, and you’d think that she’d be a little more worried. However, I did find her ‘Hey, you! Yes, you with the gun, aren't you going to ask me out to dinner already?’ statement hilarious. That was probably one of my favorite parts of this story. You did a nice job weaving humor into such a serious situation. I would still consider going back and making her reactions seem a little more realistic by making her seem shocked, frightened, confused, etc.
Amelie. I do wish you would have given a little more insight on who exactly this mysterious figure was. I understand that she worked with your main character, but why did she mean so much to her? There had to have been other people in the office when the shooting began, so why does your main character worry specifically about Amelie? If they are best friends, or maybe if they have just known each other for a long period of time, I think it would be good if you would have given a few hints to this in your main character’s stream of thoughts.
Run-on sentences and sentence fragments are completely okay to use in creative writing if they are used in moderation. Sometimes the ones that you used really added to the style of the story, but there were a few times where I thought they made your writing a bit confusing and hard to read.
This sentence should be a compound sentence, meaning you should have put a comma before the conjunction ‘so’.
Instead of using a comma after the word ‘decision’ you should have used a semi-colon. Either that, or you should have split it into two sentences at that point.
Another thing I noticed that got on my nerves was that you started many of your sentences with conjunctions. This is another thing that’s great to do in moderation, but you did this a lot. In my opinion you should go back and make the instances where you did this a little rarer, but if you don’t that’s okay. I think that may simply be part of your writing voice. It really sounds okay most of the time, and at parts it added to the fast-paced nature of what was happening.
Overall, wonderful job on this story! It was very entertaining, and the end was heartbreaking. Whenever the fugitive character said the line, ‘Not everyone can be the good guy, darling,’ I wanted to punch him in the face. That’s when I realized how amazing this story was. It got me emotionally invested, and that’s a sure sign of a good story. I hope you can find parts of this review to be helpful. Keep writing!
Thanks so much for the help! This is one of those pieces I keep meaning to re-visit and lengthen and slow the pace down a little as it was written to a word count. I think that's definitely a good call on giving Amelie a bigger part/ at least providing some more background on her and some of the conjunctions probably do need to go. Thanks again!
I really enjoyed the voice of this story. It’s kinda like it’s overloaded with private eye detective story cliches, like, “It was the beginning of a hundred romances” and “His eyes were as dark as bonfire toffee.” All in all, pretty damn cool. I did find that a couple times I wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but it kinda felt like that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The way the main character is swept off her feet, literally, and essentially turned into a criminal is priceless. It’s a pity the cop charged, though. I guess I can understand why he might be a bit reckless after the loss of his daughter, though.
Thanks for the review, Eli! I suppose I should have mentioned that I wrote this for class so it's currently to a word count, hence the rush. I'm going to do a re-write where there's a lot more character development and stuff
Hi Heather!
So, I think is the first time I've ever read or reviewed something of yours, and I will say, your writing is a pleasure to read. You have a good sense of atmosphere and how to describe it -- parts of the story made me feel like I was there. You have clearly put a lot of effort into formulating and drawing this out. Your dialogue is great as well. However, what really keeps this from being a favorite for me is your pace -- you really seem to rush through the plot at times and it becomes hard to understand what is going on. This is magnified by how your narrator carries the story -- she feels underdeveloped and rather passive (ie. we don't get a sense of distinguishing characteristics and you don't really portray her emotions as to what is happening).
I feel like you can draw this story out a lot more and paint us in with some details as to the circumstances of this whole thing. Even though this an action and supposed to be fast-paced, you can have slower moments to absorb what is going on in terms of story and character. You start off when she's in the office alone -- that's a great opportunity to set up the atmosphere! Is she lonely? Tired of work? What does her office look like? Is she wishing and dreaming about her Prince Charming, so much so that when the man comes that she's too in awe to smell fish?
That's another thing -- when she sees the people in her office building that she doesn't know firing guns, she just somewhat goes with it and doesn't question anything. I would be both terrified and have a million questions -- what did these people want? How did they get into the building? Instead of thinking about hot the guy is, wouldn't she be more concerned about her own safety? I'm not saying that she doesn't think about her own safety in this piece, but you don't really get into her thoughts to understand how frightened she is. I'm not sure who Amelie is, or why the narrator would think she had been killed. I also don't really understand why she has to shoot the man at the end, and I read this through a couple of times so that everything would be clear.
So, in general, yeah. Just try to draw this out and think about your characters and the situation that they're in, and this story will become a lot clearer for your readers. And please don't draw from this review that I hated this story, because I don't. It's really wonderfully laid out and composed, and I can see from this your talent as a writer. Keep up the excellent work, and of course, feel free to drop me a note if you need anything further!
~ Elinor