Published February 17, 2007
Prologue
Lieutenant Liam Forester was running through a vast forest in an camouflaged army combat suit, wearing a bullet-proof helmet and armed with an SA 80 Individual Assault Rifle. Liam could here the Iranian soldiers running through the trees after. Occasionally, they would try and shoot him down but the bullet always hit a tree.
Liam’s team had been killed the night before when they were ambushed inside the forest. Two of the soldiers were killed instantly and the rest died eventually when they were defeated. Liam’s captain had told him to escape over the border and into Afghanistan, where their base was.
The soldiers shouted at him violently and Liam guessed they were telling him to stop running. But he kept on running. A ball of fear grew inside Liam. It kicked out at him when a bullet went zooming past him.
A fat Iranian jumped out of a bush in front of Liam, holding a revolver in his right hand. He then fired a round that went flying into Liam’s shoulder. Liam fell onto the ground and then clutched his shoulder. The Iranian grinned and gave him a hard kick in the face then spat on him.
“British scum!” said the Iranian in English. He sounded as if he could speak well but wouldn’t pass as fluent. “You British think you have the right to police the world, but, you will see the day when your economy is crippled when we send a nuclear missile at your Prime Minister’s front door.” And then the pointed his revolver at Liam’s forehead and pulled the trigger, bringing Liam’s life to an end.
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140,597 Literary Works • 673,549 Reviews
How do the iranians know he's british?
Kevlar helmet. Not a bulletproof helmet. It is bulletproof but kevlar is a better word.
If he has his rifle then why isn't he shooting? Where's the rest of his gear?
Why is he in Iran?
Why don't the iranians capture him and interrogate?
How did he get there?
Where's the beginning of this story?
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You've got some plot missing and your iranian's dialogue isn't very convincing. It's not horrible though. You just need to fill it out. Put some meet on its bones.
Keep trucking.
Thank you for looking at my work! If you ever need me to look at anything, just PM me.
For future reference--when you order people to critique, they are likely to ignore your story altogether.
Purely as a small point,
Mistake:
'here', here, should be 'hear'. (I couldn't resist that. Sorry.) One is a verb, one is a...um...not a verb. But trust me, it should be 'hear'...
Ofour and Sureal have said everything I was going to say, but one small thing... I thought the "fat Iranian" was rather odd.
It seems like the stereotypical practice of making the bully/villain fat and ugly. (I trust you know that the UK--and not Iran--has one of the highest obesity rates in the world...)
Even if it seems like no one will notice.
And yeah, copying a phrase from another source is not a good idea.
Other than those things, it looks to be a decent start. It didn't really spellbind me--probably in part because far-fetched extrapolations of current events don't really interest me--but the others have made some good suggestions and I could see this piece developing into an interesting story.
u posted, be patient. I've had pieces of work not recieve a crit until days after posting it.
But as you asked so, ahem, nicely, here's a quick run-down on what I feel could be improved on:
- Try to limit verbs ('doing words') that end with 'ing', as they tend to be rather passive and dull to read.
Example in this would be 'Lieutenant Liam Forester was running through a vast forest'. This would read much better if 'was running' became 'ran'.
'Lieutenant Liam Forester ran through a vast forest'.
- Don't give a backstory in the second paragraph. You start with action, and this interrupts it. Give the back-story after the action.
- '“You British think you have the right to police the world,' - that's taken almost word-for-word outta Die Another Day.[/quote]
I did use that sentence out of Die Another Day but I didn't think anyone would notice.
It's only been two hours since you posted, be patient. I've had pieces of work not recieve a crit until days after posting it.
- Try to limit verbs ('doing words') that end with 'ing', as they tend to be rather passive and dull to read.
Example in this would be 'Lieutenant Liam Forester was running through a vast forest'. This would read much better if 'was running' became 'ran'.
'Lieutenant Liam Forester ran through a vast forest'.
- Don't give a backstory in the second paragraph. You start with action, and this interrupts it. Give the back-story after the action.
- '“You British think you have the right to police the world,' - that's taken almost word-for-word outta Die Another Day.
"Lieutenant Liam Forester was running through a vast forest in an camouflaged army combat suit, wearing a bullet-proof helmet and armed with an SA 80 Individual Assault Rifle." - a little too much information here, i'm being bombarded with soldier-speak.
"Liam could here the Iranian soldiers running through the trees after." - After what?
"Occasionally, they would try and shoot him down but the bullet always hit a tree." - "Occasionally" means more than once and there is only one "bullet" here.
"The soldiers shouted at him violently and Liam guessed they were telling him to stop running. But he kept on running." - You repeat "running", it sounds odd.
" A ball of fear grew inside Liam." - Use "him" instead of using "Liam" all the time.
"It kicked out at him when a bullet went zooming past him." - The "kicked out" bit sounded very strange.
"He then fired a round that went flying into Liam’s shoulder. Liam fell onto the ground and then clutched his shoulder." - When i read this i thought "Well... duh!"
The story was alright, it was quite grasping but didn't really lead anywhere. It would be good as an introduction to a larger story.
Is anyone going to crit my work? I'm not going to continue my book until I get critique so CRIT!!!