By Debbie Burke
Please welcome today’s Brave Author who submitted Murder for the Sleep Deprived – a dark comedy mystery.
Enjoy this excerpt then we’ll discuss.
~~~
NOW
Kevin Mills-Greene wasn’t a nice young man when he was alive.
He wasn’t exactly any nicer when he was dead, either.
The sun was beating down and reflecting off the pool in the Harding’s back garden, the sky a swathe of pale blue that was dotted with fluffy clouds, as the dappled sunlight fell through the leaves of the trees that brushed the edges of the garden.
Nice weather.
The sort of weather that the first thing you’d think as you sat down outside would be – “Ah, this is lovely.”
The weather was nice the morning after Kevin Mills-Greene was murdered, even if he wasn’t. The teenager was lying on his back, unblinking, unmoving, and utterly, entirely dead. To be fair, dead people aren’t exactly famous for moving and blinking. You mustn’t hold that against him.
The twitching of a curtain from inside the Harding household.
No blood-curdling scream.
Not yet.
The grass was soft and a luscious emerald shade – the entire garden practically radiating elegance, overlooking the corpse – even the small shed in the corner has neatly painted a shade of chestnut brown, the brightly colored plastic bottles creating as stained glass effect through the frosted windows as the sun reflected through. The burnished wood of a bench under the cover of a tree glinted in the sunlight.
One of those rare, perfect days; the kind of day that makes people forget to worry.
Perfect and worry-free, for everyone except Kevin Mills-Greene, obviously.
The buzzing of flies was a thick blanket of sound as they swirled like a rain-heavy cloud around the body, the twittering of birds in the trees overshadowed. The flies crept over his stiff limbs, his purpled, blueish skin mottled and paling.
Believe it or not, Kevin had been a relatively handsome young man.
~~~
The Brave Author categorized this as a “dark comedy mystery” and it certainly fills the bill. The ironic, understated humor has a tone that might be British. The idyllic description of the Harding yard and lovely weather contrasts effectively with the ugliness of the crime. A beautiful, peaceful setting is not where you expect to see the dead body of a teenager with flies feasting on him. That juxtaposition works well because it’s unexpected and surprise is a necessary component of humor.
Title: Good job! It caught my attention, which is a title’s main task. It establishes the genre and tone and piques the reader’s curiosity. Who’s sleep deprived and why? How does that connect to murder?
Time period: Now indicates a contemporary story.
First line: We’ve talked at TKZ about starting a story with a body.
It’s an attention grabber.
But it’s also a risk because the reader doesn’t know anything about the character yet. At this point, he is a two-dimensional being without personality, loves or hates, flaws or strengths. Why should the reader care if he’s dead?
However, I think the author pulled it off because of the intriguing opening line:
Kevin Mills-Greene wasn’t a nice young man when he was alive.
Why does that line work? It immediately raises a reader’s curiosity. Why wasn’t he a nice young man? Why is he dead?
What not-nice thing did he do that provoked someone to kill him? Who was that person?
There’s a hint at revenge, a very human, relatable theme for anyone who’s ever dreamed of retribution against somebody who wronged them. If this is a story of the ultimate comeuppance, what motive is behind it? How did an angry thought turn into murder?
The author took a risk and I think it paid off. I’ll keep reading to find those answers.
Point of View: The author took another risk here. The POV is omniscient which is difficult to pull off successfully. An all-seeing being floats above the scene and describes it, directly addressing the reader:
…the first thing you’d think as you sat down…
and
You mustn’t hold that against him.
Many readers dislike when an author uses “you” and talks directly to the audience. Personally, I don’t mind it. But it’s a matter of taste. In the comments, maybe TKZers will weigh in if they like “you” or not.
Back to the omniscient POV. Here, it sets the scene and gives context that would not otherwise be known to the reader. The narrator informs the reader that Kevin was not nice. How does s/he know? Is the narrator the god of the story issuing divine proclamations with dark wit? Or will the narrator soon become a character in the play?
Omniscient is not a popular choice for POV because readers don’t identify with a detached voice. They generally want to get inside the skin of characters, to experience the senses and emotions more directly. Omniscient is also difficult to sustain through an entire book.
This may be an introductory chapter where the problem is laid out, similar to the stage manager in the play Our Town. In this submission, perhaps the narrator makes the introduction then steps back and turns the rest of the story over to the characters and their POVs. If handled well, that could be an effective technique.
Does this POV work for the first page? Because of the humor, I think mostly it does. But the author should be wary of trying to maintain omniscience through the rest of the story because of the reasons mentioned above.
Here’s my biggest problem with the submission:
Where’s the body?
The statement about Kevin’s death is immediately followed by a detailed description of the pool. That led me to believe the body was floating in the pool, like William Holden at the beginning of the classic film Sunset Boulevard.
But, in the sixth paragraph, Kevin is lying on his back. That stopped me because generally bodies float face down in water. That sent me on another false trail: why is he floating face up?
In the tenth paragraph, there is a detailed description of a lush lawn and a beautifully landscaped back yard.
Okay, does that mean the body is lying on the grass?
No, wait.
The next sentence reads:
…the entire garden practically radiating elegance, overlooking the corpse.
How is the garden overlooking the body? Does the garden have eyes? Or is the body lying below the garden? If so, where? What or who is overlooking?
The last paragraph is a good, vivid description of the thick cloud of flies around the body.
But…I’m still not sure where the body is.
The author led me to several assumptions that turn out to be wrong. After going down false trails, I feel disoriented. Now I don’t quite trust the author. Do I really want to embark on a journey deeper into this book when I’ve been misled?
I don’t believe this was intentional misdirection on the author’s part. More likely, s/he saw the scene vividly in his/her head but something got lost between brain and keyboard. It happens to all of us!
Details: The twitching curtain raises the reader’s curiosity more. Who’s behind the curtain? Why doesn’t s/he react to the dead body? A blood-curdling scream is foreshadowed. These all increase tension and suspense. Well done.
There are several passages of detailed description of the setting–the shed, colored bottles, the burnished wood bench glinting in sunlight. Do these details play a significant role in the murder? If not, readers may become impatient because they want to know more about Kevin’s death.
…even the small shed in the corner has [typo-should be was] neatly painted a shade of chestnut brown, the brightly colored plastic bottles creating as [typo-should be a] stained glass effect through the frosted windows as the sun reflected through [repeated word]. The burnished wood of a bench under the cover of a tree glinted in the sunlight.
How much detail is enough? How much is too much that bogs down the story? This is a tightrope for authors. Because the author does a good job seducing the reader with the title and first line, I hope these details have significance.
But, if they’re not important, would the space be better used to describe what killed Kevin? Gunshot? Rodent poison? Garden trowel? Unknown cause?
Beware of –ly: In one page, I counted nine modifiers that ended with –ly.
Exactly, utterly, entirely, exactly, practically, neatly, brightly, obviously, relatively
Perhaps it’s a stylistic choice but they occurred often enough to be distracting.
Precision of language: The word choices sometimes don’t work.
…dappled sunlight fell through the leaves
Fell doesn’t accurately describe rays of sun.
I already mentioned the garden overlooking.
The twittering of birds in the trees overshadowed…
Does that mean the twittering overshadowed? Or the trees?
Small punctuation nit:
…the first thing you’d think as you sat down outside would be – “Ah, this is lovely.”
Normally, quotation marks are used for spoken dialogue. Since this line describes a thought, what if you use italics instead, like this:
…the first thing you’d think as you sat down outside would be: Ah, this is lovely.
Humor: For humor to work well, it needs to be tack-sharp and spot on target.
The narrator’s statement:
One of those rare, perfect days; the kind of day that makes people forget to worry.
Perfect and worry-free, for everyone except Kevin Mills-Greene, obviously.
Since Kevin’s dead, he’s free of worries, so the line doesn’t quite work.
Here are a couple of suggestions but you can do better:
Perfect and worry-free. Kevin was no longer perfect but his worries were certainly gone.
Or:
Perfect and worry-free. At least, until the discovery of Kevin Mills-Greene’s body.
Overall, the Brave Author did an excellent job of teasing us. The reader wants to learn why Kevin wasn’t nice. Who is looking out from behind the curtain? Why the lack of reaction to a murder?
The fixes are small: sharper wit, more precise word choices, and pinning down the actual location of the body.
I’ll be interested to hear how the author handles POV through the rest of the story.
I would keep reading. How about you, TKZers?
What are your suggestions for the Brave Author?