The Dark Revenant - Chapter 4

Hiya, AmadeusW! Just dropping in for a quick review.

This is a pretty long chapter. I reckon it could be cut into two chapters, actually - one based around the meeting with Sibelius, one based in the police station. As it is, the two halves feel a bit disconnected, and it leaves us with an awful lot to take in.

With that in mind, I'll address these halves separately. I personally enjoyed the Sibelius scenes much more. You grabbed my attention well, because there's an inherent mystery in the circumstances of Ryan's parents' deaths and I wanted to know more about that. I did think that Ryan's reaction to their first conversation was a little limp, particularly this part:

“I can tell you everything, but you must meet me in person. I know who killed your parents… he killed mine as well. There is much to learn, Ryan. I promise I am on your side. Will you meet me?”

I exhaled with stress. “I… I guess. But who are you? What’s your name? How can I trust you?”

This man says that he knows who killed Ryan's parents, and Ryan's only response is 'I guess'? Surely his mind would immediately zone in on the parent-killing aspect. He starts asking about it later, but it's a weirdly delayed reaction.

Regarding your dialogue, it gets a little too flowery at times. Sibelius says 'there is much to learn', Ryan talks about 'Frankenstein's fiend' and getting lost in the woods...it just doesn't sound like the speech of real people. If one of them spoke in a slightly flouncy, overblown way, you'd get away with it. It'd just be a strange character trait. Because both of them speak oddly, it just seems like the dialogue is unrealistic. I'm guessing this is set in the present day, but the speech has an air of old-timey fantasy to me.

The machine gun fire is very sudden, and I think your description of the escape goes on for longer than it needs to. There's two dense paragraphs that could probably both be cut down by half. Just be mindful of describing too much, especially when the character is in a stressful, high-pressure scenario. When we're terrified, we're not going to take notice of every last detail, so the writing needs to reflect that. Pick out a few fractured, evocative images - chips of stone and glass, acrid gunpowder, the sound cracking in his ears - and focus on those. But keep it brief and fast-paced. If Ryan's thoughts are moving quickly and he's escaping quickly, the writing needs to match that speed.

Turning now to the second half of the chapter, it didn't hold my attention quite as well. When it was revealed that Sibelius and Rafael were still alive, I wanted to know more about that. I was disappointed when the chapter veered towards Ryan's fugue moment and eventual arrest, and I'm not sure what purpose it's going to serve going forward. The dialogue with the police officers didn't really ring true to me, either. Richards just takes Ryan at his word that he has a 'mental condition' (which is so incredibly vague) that made him wave the knife about. I'm not even sure why they're asking him about it, given that it was surely obvious to them as onlookers that Ryan wasn't of sound mind when they first approached him. Just the whole way they discuss Ryan's behaviour and mental well-being feels really disjointed. I feel like they'd ask him if he remembers what he was doing or why he was doing it, and they might ask if he has any kind of diagnosis as well. I don't think there'd be such a focus on Ryan 'telling the truth' about his mental condition, seeing as (a) he doesn't know exactly what's wrong and (b) the officers would probably already know that Ryan was not well, based on the fact that he didn't even know what was happening when they arrested him.

I also don't understand why Ryan was interviewed by a DC first and then a DS later. Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about police interviewing, especially in the US (providing that's where it's set?). I always thought that there had to be multiple officers present for an interview, though. And if Ryan had admitted his mental condition to the DC, why would there be such a focus on him telling the truth to the sergeant? His statement would already be on the record. In the UK, at least, police interviews have to be recorded.

Procedural scenes are hard to write, so I'd do some really intensive research into police interviewing. Maybe try and find some first-hand accounts from people who have been arrested, particularly those who were mentally ill at the time. Looking at Mind.org, it seems that people with mental illnesses can't always be interviewed unless a doctor confirms they are well enough. However, that's in UK law, and I have no idea if that applies only when the suspect has an official diagnosis. That's something you'd have to investigate.

On the whole, I think there's some interesting mysteries and drama in this chapter, but the pacing needs to be a little tighter and you need to work on maintaining realism. If you're going to write about the police in any capacity, do as much research as you can. It makes all the difference.

I personally wonder if you even need the arrest scene. I don't think it adds much, and it takes the momentum away from the ambush and the unexplained survival of Sibelius and Rafael. Unless it's essential to the plot going forward, I think you could scrap it. But I'll leave that possibility with you, as it's obviously your decision!

Keep writing!
~Pan