Note: The blog administrator deeply apologizes for the tardiness of today’s post. She’d like to blame technical difficulties, but can’t bring herself to lie to her valued TKZ peeps. Life got in her way.

As usual, my comments follow the text.

***

 AVANTI

WAY BACK BEHIND HER flashing lights—reds and blues—closing like a rocket. THE COPS! Imagine that, she thought. Out here, middle of nowhere. Desert all around, guy sittin’ half the night all alone in the dark, his radar gun, or whatever, poised and ready for action, unlikely event some speeder comes bopping by, not a care in the world. And that of course, would be me, just daydreaming like some schoolgirl and totally ripping up the landscape. Sooo stupid. 

“Gettin’ stopped out here will never do, girl.” She said it aloud, followed by a “No way” . . . and then she punched it.

 Her car, all made up special. Custom everything. Suspension. Wheels. Tires. Engine. All state-of-the-art. Outrun anything. Anything! “We’ll just see ‘bout that,” she said. Accelerator to the floorboard, the flashing lights recede. “Chase is on now, son.” She cracked a big wide smile. Fully alert. Arms locked. Shoulders set. One-twenty-five and climbing! Dips in the road punching her gut. Weightless one instant, then wham! Needle passes 145. Everything outside’s a blur.

She checked her side mirror. Still there and coming on strong. Whoa, baby! Got me a tiger on my tail. HAH! Time to light the candle. Her reference was to an enriched fuel mixture she could employ in time of trouble, like, now. She slipped a pair of NODs—Night Optical Device—over her eyes and cut headlights. In total darkness she reached down and flipped the special switch. Soon as she stomped the accelerator, the result was explosive. Explosive!

WHAT A SIGHT it was, viewed from back down the road in the cop car. First off, the tail lights recede. 

Oh, man! Got me a runner! So he steps on it. Closing the gap the tail lights simply vanish. An instant later, KAPOW! Ten feet of angry flame lashes the darkness. And this time she really is gone, except for the heady smell of burnt kerosene and rocket fuel.

AND SHE’S FLYING. Not like back in the old days piloting Black Hawks and Apaches in Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous other places the censors deleted from her logbook. Only, here he comes . . . again. Reds and blues winking away back there in the dark, until . . . Headlights bouncing and he’s off the road. A tower of flame geysers into the starry sky.

Oh, no! What have I done?

***

My comments:

I found this to be a really interesting submission. I liked the “in the moment” sense of the narrator’s voice, which immediately draws you into her action. I like how the technical details were slipped in to give the reader a sense of her expertise. This writer doesn’t make the mistake of  explaining the reasons his character has competence and history–he suggests it by introducing technical clues while never breaking the action’s pace. That’s good. That’s strong. I like this.

I have a couple of suggestions to make. 

Title: 
AVANTI meant nothing to me as a title. Frankly, it sounded to me  like an aperitif or a menswear designer. I looked it up and found the definition as:

Kingdom of Avanti, an ancient Aryan kingdom of W central India, with its capital near modern Ujjain; flourished in the 6th–4th centuries b.c.

So, is this story going to pull us into a story based in West central India, or is it going to be some kind of CIA historical time traveling thing? Or is there another definition for Avanti that I’m clueless about?

The trouble is, the title is one of the strongest weapons you as a writer have to get a reader’s attention. If the reader is completely ignorant about what your title stands for, you’ve just lost your chance to lure that reader into your story. (And even if I’m the last person in the world to know what Avanti means, and everyone else chortles at my ignorance, I stand by that statement. You don’t want to lose even one reader if possible, especially on the cover.) So bottom line: I suggest finding a stronger title that suggests more about what the story is about.

POV transition: 
This comment is just a nit. When you switch from the narrator’s POV to the view from behind (aka the cop’s POV), in the following sentence:

WHAT A SIGHT it was, viewed from back down the road in the cop car.

It’s a slightly jarring, possibly confusing transition. Switching POV midstream can easily throw a reader. We read the line “What a sight it was,” before we know we’ve just switched to the cop’s POV.  I can’t really figure out an easy fix for that, but I would suggest playing around with it to get a smoother transition. I also think the writing got a bit awkward when it switched to the cop’s POV. His “voice” also sounded exactly like the main character’s in style and presentation. It’s important to distinguish the sound of your characters’ voices from one another. As a possible fix, maybe he could reach for the radio and have him speaking into it–that would be a natural way to introduce the cop’s thoughts and dialogue without repeating the “inside the head” style you have for the main character.

Capitalization and Exclamation Mark : In general, all caps and exclamation marks are no-no’s for creating a sense of drama. And this piece doesn’t need them. The writing is very dramatic as it is. And I’d be careful about overusing ellipses as a “thoughtful pause” device.

Voice:  I love the voice here. I love its narrative flow and the way it conveys an “in the moment” sense of being in the character’s shoes (or car, in this instance). I like the use of language. (For example, I liked how the writer uses “geysers” as a verb instead of choosing something more mundane, like “shot”). I did think some of the terseness was slightly overdone at a couple of points, but only very slightly.

Overall, I find this to be quite a strong first page. Well done, writer! 

TKZ’ers, your thoughts?