OT: Small snippet from my book

[CustomCreator]

Twenty minutes later the man showed up, walking like a shadow between all the cops standing in the halls interviewing whomever they could get to talk. Nobody seemed to notice him, even though his presence demanded it. The detective was a hulk of a man, standing over six feet tall, and tipping the scales at over three-hundred pounds. Even though he was only twenty seven years old, his appearance told a different story. He wore a dirty brown trench coat cut at the knees, its belt long past fitting around his bloated waist. A faded fedora adorned his thick head, with hair so black it looked like oil.

Barnes started as a fresh faced nineteen year old, straight out of the Academy. Eight years on the job was all it took for him to make detective, he was also a constant favorite of Internal Affairs investigators. He still managed to somehow always get his man, although not always breathing. He reached the apartment, visibly sweating from the five floor walk up. Forensics was already doing a mark-up of the place. “Here you go Detective Barnes” the lead tech said as she held out a pair of latex gloves in front of him. Sucking on his toothpick, he shot her a look that would freeze anyone. “I don’t need no stinkin gloves; my hands ain’t gettin’ any dirtier.” The tech shrugged and went back to dusting the doorknob for prints. “Suit yourself; just do go messing up my crime scene.”

His eyes were all over the cramped kitchen, taking a mental inventory: Broken table, blood, birthday cake, bodies, razor blade. Barnes’ mind was like one of those instant cameras, owning an unmatched photographic memory. He could tell you how many dishes were in the sink, or what bills were left on the counter years after closing a case. Stepping around the pool of blood, Barnes walked over to a closed door on the other side of the kitchen. Opening the door, he stepped onto the thin carpet covering the floor. He noted the décor; rock band posters, baseball glove, car mags, and dirty laundry. Barnes had been filled in briefly at the precinct of who occupied the apartment, and now knew from the room that his newest target was the teenage boy. “Detective Barnes, there is something you should see here” interrupted one of the techs. Barnes turned around, silent, and followed the tech to a footprint not like the others in the blood. “Tsk, take a snapshot of that will ya” he mumbled. “Search all the dumpsters and trash chutes too.” Prints and evidence would take a few weeks to process, a few weeks too long if you ask Barnes. He knew he had to act fast. Taking one last look at the scene his eyes could not deny him, he wouldn’t need dental records to identify who the cut up man was.

[zayco]

Okay, first and foremost, I have a degree in communications majoring in writing, and a Postgraduate Masters in Creative Media, majoring in Writing. A novel of mine is currently being considered by the largest publishing agency in Australia.

You need to excuse the harshness of this response, it all comes with the territory, but any criticism is good criticism, yes?

First and foremost, it was the imagery that stood out to me the most, great imagery and you've portrayed it very well, although to a sense it could be slightly deeper.

The scenes seem a tad disjointed, almost as though they jump slightly, it's not insanely bad, but there's definitely a disjointed presence.

Yet the character you have designed "Barnes", is definitely one who we can follow through the entire book, albeit you definitely need to evolve him further, I suggest taking a swift sharp turn into the realm of the antihero, and really push that brooding mood of such.

As for the writing style... yeahhhhh, it's good, but a little too simple, there are certain sentences in there that just appear to be WAY too simple uhm... some examples:
"A faded fedora adorned his thick head, with hair so black it looked like oil."

"“Here you go Detective Barnes” the lead tech said as she held out a pair of latex gloves"

"Barnes’ mind was like one of those instant cameras, owning an unmatched photographic memory"

ANYWAY..

I strongly strongly suggest you join a writers group, they meet up on a weekly basis usually, and they give eachother their own work and do a "workshop", they all criticize your work as you take notes and stuff, they're tremendously helpful.

If you like, you can send me a bit more, it's really hard to tell the style and feel of the novel through this tiny slab of text. PM me, and we'll see where we can go from here - I'd be more than happy to help you out.

:) look forward to hearing from you.

[anthonyrapitis]

i like it. i would have posted more but i wanted to balance out the previous post lol

[anthonyrapitis]

i forgot to add, the fedora should be replaced with either a purple pimp hat with a pink feather or one of those propeller caps with the red, blue, yellow, and green color blocks...

[homunculus]

Not too bad. A lot of things are awkwardly worded and need to be rearranged, re-worded, or elaborated upon.

For example, "to a footprint not like the others in the blood." Stuff like that that's either mildly confusing, or just doesn't flow right.

Also, you need to start a new paragraph when you've got dialogue.


edit: Also, for this type of grump-a-dump character (and a detective, no less) I think 27 is kinda young. That may just be me, though.

[rxsheepxr]

Okay, first and foremost, I have a degree in communications majoring in writing, and a Postgraduate Masters in Creative Media, majoring in Writing. A novel of mine is currently being considered by the largest publishing agency in Australia.

You need to excuse the harshness of this response, it all comes with the territory, but any criticism is good criticism, yes?

First and foremost, it was the imagery that stood out to me the most, great imagery and you've portrayed it very well, although to a sense it could be slightly deeper.



For a good writer you certainly do stack up the "first and foremosts."

;)

I kid.

[anthonyrapitis]

Not too bad. A lot of things are awkwardly worded and need to be rearranged, re-worded, or elaborated upon.

For example, "to a footprint not like the others in the blood." Stuff like that that's either mildly confusing, or just doesn't flow right.

Also, you need to start a new paragraph when you've got dialogue.

agreed

[CustomCreator]

I know it's not fair to just post a slab of a story without any back story, but I wanted to see if the writing stood out, if you could visualize the scene. Barnes is actually the 2nd main character hunting the main character. I had to make him young due to the fact that the book is set in present day, and the murder's occur in 1970. He is going to still be tracking this guy, and if I made him any older, he'd be in his 70s, and I felt that would be WAY too long to try and catch someone.

I will add another couple paragraphs from earlier in the book that explain a bit more.....

This is the event that happend beforehand:

That all changed on my seventeenth birthday. I was now working in the Dodge plant thanks to my mother, and things were going very well. It was 1970 and U.S. troops invaded Cambodia. Four students at Kent State University in Ohio were slain by National Guardsmen at a demonstration protesting the incursion into Cambodia. America was still reeling with the Vietnam War. To tell you the truth, I didn’t give much of a crap about it. If it didn’t affect me, I didn’t care. As long as it ended by my eighteenth birthday so I couldn’t be drafted. My mother had planned a cake for me, and had invited her newest boyfriend to join us. Jack was a degenerate who lost his job at the plant for stealing chrome parts and selling them to auto body shops around Michigan. He and I never got along. My mother, bless her soul, had a way of finding these guys like a squirrel finds its way into a bird feeder. She had the day off, so we planned to meet at the house after my shift around six that evening.

The bus always stopped about a block from our apartment, so I hopped off and started walking. We had managed to scrape up enough savings to buy a junker of a car, which was parked out front of our building. First checking our mailbox, I ran up the five flights to our apartment (the elevator never worked). I was pretty winded by the time I got to our floor. Even though I was premature, I grew up pretty big. Standing about six feet and weighing two hundred and sixty pounds, you never would have guessed most of my days consisted of one meal.

The door to our apartment was cracked open. I slowed my pace and nudged the door open fully. The scene that unfolded itself to me made me instantly loose my guts. The entire kitchen floor was awash in a thick red liquid which took me a minute to realize was blood. There in the middle of the kitchen floor was my mother, face down with her throat sliced from ear to ear. She was wearing her good Sunday dress and her gold necklace she usually reserved for “important” events. As my blurry eyes moved up the leg of the table, they rested upon my birthday cake. A single candle was lit, and behind it sat Jack. He was blankly staring through me, but was obviously waiting for me to discover the scene. My straight razor was in his hand, twirling it between his thumb and forefinger. He hissed, “What’s the matter boy, you never seen a dead broad before?” I instantly leapt over the table at him, the rest was a blur.