By John Gilstrap

Mr. or Ms. Anonymous has submitted a page for us to critique.  As always, the italics are mine, for the sake of clarity.  First the submission, and then I’ll see you on the flip.

Title:  Octobers Fire

The Dodge pulled up to the edge of the cliff. The man cut the engine, then the headlights. Stepping out of the car, he spent a few moments letting his eyes adjust, listening to the ticking of the hot engine block as it cooled. It was deep in the night, the hour when everyone and everything is slumbering, and the stillness was palpable. Even the crickets were asleep.

This hour was the sole domain of insomniacs.

The sliver of a crescent moon inched towards its zenith. To the west, lights from the boxy tract homes of San Amaro Hills spilled into the orange glow of the coastal cities, and to the south, a few twinkling lights peeked from the lush foliage protecting the old growth mansions of Rancho Alto. To the east, he gazed into the blackness of Fairy Glen. Its undulating hills were carpeted in shaggy chaparral, just a shade darker than the black velvet sky, freckled with stars, that hung above it. The perfect hunting grounds.

As the man’s eyes adapted, he could make out the depth of the quarry below him, the scarred surface of the granite torn away by machines and men. He pulled a half smoked cigar from the case in his pants pocket, stuck it in his mouth, but then decided against lighting it. He would savor it when the job was done.

He saw headlights approaching, bouncing and jarring up the hill.

He’d had a plan–make small talk, act jovial, share a few beers–but now found his patience was short. The thought of the whole charade seemed more distasteful than the job itself. The Rohypnol in his pocket could go to good use elsewhere, he wasn’t worried about that. He pictured a new, spectacular kind of death.

In his experience, investigations were clumsy. Police grasped at the first assumption and held on tight, like a dog with a bone. Nobody would miss this poor kid enough to investigate his death fully. It probably wouldn’t even make the local news.

He looked around his feet for the perfect rock, not too big, not too small. He remembered his boyhood in Bogota, pitching for his street gang’s stickball team. As the second car pulled up to his, he couldn’t help but smile. He still had a good arm.

=

It’s Gilstrap again.  Let’s start with the positives.  I think the writing here is very strong.  I like the details of the ticking engine and the stillness of the night.  The imagery of looking out over the sleeping town of boxy tract homes worked for me.  Kudos on that.  I have some niggling suggestions for strengthening the prose, which I’ll present below, but overall, the prose stitches together nicely.

All that’s missing is a sense of story.  And that brings us to the not-so-positives.  In these 400 words, we meet an insomniac with no name who for reasons unknown is preparing to do harm to someone else with no name.  From this sample, I could be equally convinced that the story is about either a serial killer or a werewolf.  (We learn that the remote outdoors are the “perfect hunting grounds,” yet we are also told that the hunter knows that the bouncing headlights are delivering a “poor kid” who is targeted for a “new, spectacular kind of death.”  Those are ominous phrases that ultimately have no meaning for the reader.)

I wonder more and more whether writers who submit their first-page samples have ever bothered to read the feedback given to their predecessors.  The problems that haunt this piece have mostly been discussed here on TKZ many times before.

Give us a name.  It’s impossible for a reader to bond with a pronoun or nameless entity.  The man, the boy, the woman, etc. have no humanity without a name attached. We don’t need much.  No backstory, no physical description.  Just a name will do to bring a spark of life to a character we’re meeting for the first time.

Give us action.  Lovely description is, well, lovely, but it’s not a story.  In this sample, I believe I would open with the approaching headlights.  Think of that as the framework to support the why of the story.  Consider:

Zachary Childress caressed the bottle of Rohypnol in his pocket as he watched the headlights approaching through the blackness.  They bounced and jarred up the rough hill, but they were still too far away for their engine noise to pierce the silence of the night.  Just a few feet away, the engine of his Dodge pickup ticked as it cooled.

Maybe that’s not where your story is going, but the point is that in just a few words, we know that a guy with an old-fashioned name means to make use of a date rape drug on the occupant of the approaching vehicle.  We also know that Zachary has only recently arrived.  From here, if you want to throw in a paragraph about the beauty of the night, that’s fine, but understand that that description stops the story.  (Your audience is not reading to find out what the evening looks like.  They’re reading to find out what he has in mind for his victim.)

Instead of transitioning to description, I would transition to his internal monologue.

Okay, enough of that.  Instead of rewriting your story, let me offer some suggestions on your story as it is.  The bold writing is mine.

Title:  Octobers Fire [Are we missing an apostrophe here?]

The Dodge [Give a little bit more here.  Pickup truck, maybe?] pulled up to the edge of the cliff. The man cut the engine, then the headlights. Stepping out of the car, he spent a few moments [This phrase makes me crazy.  A moment is an undefined unit of time, so a few is as long as only one.  If you mean seconds, say seconds.  Otherwise, one moment will do.] letting his eyes adjust, listening to the ticking of the hot engine block as it cooled. It was [Weak construction.  What was?  Better to say “This was the hour when everyone . . .]deep in the night, the hour when everyone and everything is slumbering, and the stillness was palpable. Even the crickets were asleep.

This hour was the sole [Really? The sole domain? What about firefighters and shift workers? Beware the unnecessary modifier.] domain of insomniacs.

The sliver of a crescent moon [As opposed to a sliver of a full moon? I’d pick either crescent or sliver, but not both] inched towards its zenith. To the west, lights from the boxy tract homes of San Amaro Hills spilled into the orange glow of the coastal cities, and to the south, a few twinkling lights peeked from the lush foliage protecting the old growth mansions of Rancho Alto. To the east, he gazed into the blackness of Fairy Glen [Be careful not to confuse your reader. Fairy Glen may well be a real place, but I’ve never heard of it. To me, this implies that Unicorn Alley may be around the corner, and that this is a fantasy/SF story.]. Its undulating hills [Do hills undulate, absent an earthquake?] were carpeted in shaggy chaparral, just a shade darker than the black velvet sky, freckled with stars, that hung above it. The perfect hunting grounds.[Except he’s not really hunting here, is he? Again, in context, “hunting” makes me think that he has not yet chosen his prey, but I think he in fact has.]

As the man’s eyes adapted, he could make out the depth of the quarry [Quarry is a bad word in this context. In the previous paragraph, you speak of hunting, and now you speak of quarry.  Beware of homonyms.] below him, the scarred surface of the granite torn away by machines and men. He pulled a half smoked cigar from the case in his pants pocket, stuck it in his mouth, but then decided against lighting it. He would savor it when the job was done.

He saw headlights approaching, bouncing and jarring up the hill.

He’d had a plan–make small talk, act jovial, share a few beers–but now found his patience was short. The thought of the whole charade seemed more distasteful than the job itself. [Does he in fact find the job distasteful?] The Rohypnol in his pocket could go to good use elsewhere, he wasn’t worried about that. He pictured a new, spectacular kind of death. [Presumably for his victim? What does he envision here?]

In his experience, investigations were clumsy. [This is a weird, jarring pivot.  Is he a cop?  If not, this seems like a non-sequitur.] Police grasped at the first assumption and held on tight, like a dog with a bone. Nobody would miss this poor kid enough to investigate his death fully. It probably wouldn’t even make the local news.

He looked around his feet for the perfect rock, [I thought it was dark. How does he see?  Is the rock his murder weapon?] not too big, not too small. He remembered his boyhood in Bogota, pitching for his street gang’s stickball team. As the second car pulled up to his, he couldn’t help but smile. He still had a good arm. [When I first read this, I presumed that he had somehow injured his other arm. Now, I think you mean a good pitching arm.]

By PJ Parrish

Get ready, because we’ve got a lot of action in today’s First Page submission. Explosions! Body parts! Fiery cars!  Whew…

I’ll be back in a…uh, a flash and we’ll talk about this.

Ice Hammer: Invincible

A blinding white light exploded across his senses. Light so bright it seemed like it had physical texture, burning white trenches across the inside of his eyeballs. A wall of sound struck a second later, with the force of a hammer blow from a giant blacksmith’s forge. It knocked Brad Stone and the other men in the room off their feet. Shards of window glass sprayed their faces and hands like hundreds of flying razor blades.

He struggled back to the window, carefully raised his head to look outside and stared down at the mess his men had created on the street below. Vehicles smoldered in front of the high-rise hotel. Arms, legs, heads, and torsos lay scattered across the pavement amidst pieces of vehicles and weapons.

Flames licked up from the underside of the overturned Suburban, its glossy black paint shimmered in the fiery reflection.

A hand appeared from inside the vehicle. A person, struggling their way out. A head and shoulders raised from the open window. The person, a woman, pushed herself up until she was half out of the vehicle. What looked like tears of blood streamed across her cheeks.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up in Brad’s direction.

Youngmi.

His wife.

His heart trembled in his chest, the sight filling him with horror.

He had seen his wife’s dead body only a few days after the war had started, two years earlier. He’d been certain it was her. She was in her new Mercedes SUV with the custom license plates. She was wearing her favorite t-shirt. And she was definitely dead. Her face had been blown apart, opened up and peeled back, like a rose blossom from the gardens of hell.

This version of Youngmi stared at him, shock and recognition mingled with terror. The flames reached the fuel tank and erupted in a roaring blaze. The fire stretched its greedy fingers around the edge of the armored SUV and caught her clothes.

She did not scream, not at first. Her mouth hung agape as she realized her own husband had killed her.

The flames erupted with new energy, enveloping her body. Her clothing lit like a human torch. Her face contorted in agony and the scream finally came.

“BRAAAAAAD!”

Her voice echoed his name across the city, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings.

___________________________

Dontcha just hate slow starts?  I’m kidding, of course. We’re always harping here at TKZ about the need to get out of the gate fast.  Now, if you’re a regular here, you know not to take that literally.  Getting off to a fast start in a thriller is a good idea, and I suspect we’re in thriller territory here. But that doesn’t mean you literally have to start with a car chase or flying body parts. (See Jame’s Sunday post about omniscient point of view openings for one reference). You can create tension with a slower approach.

That, as you can see, is not the case here. Things literally start with a bang. Our writer has dropped us smack into the middle of a crisis — an explosion that propelled the protag (I think) across the room and then he staggers to the window to see all hell breaking loose down on the street. What’s not to like?

Nothing, in my humble opinion. I think this is a good door by which to enter the story.  James’s axiom of “act first, explain later” is in full bore here.  And the part about the wife — supposedly dead but now appearing in the burning car — is intriguing, to say the least.

So, good set-up, writer!  But there are some problems in the execution here. We have some issues with lack of clarity: Where are we? What exactly is going on here? We have some overwriting going on. Here’s a good guideline to keep in mind: The more intense the action, the less “writerly” your writing should be. And at times, the word choices are jarringly tone-deaf, out of tune with the tone of the scene itself. More on that small but important detail in a second. Let me go through this with a fine-tooth pencil:

A blinding white light exploded across his senses. Not a bad opening line. Light so bright it seemed like it had physical texture, burning white trenches across the inside of his eyeballs. Not sure I get this image. Maybe burning the inside of the lids? A wall of sound struck a second later, with the force of a hammer blow from a giant blacksmith’s forge. I’d end after hammer. It knocked Brad Stone and the other men I’d lose them for now. Focus on your main guy; the spear-carriers clutter things up esp in the first graph! .in the room off their feet. Shards of window glass sprayed their faces and hands like hundreds of flying razor blades. Way too many metaphors in this opening graph. Turn this into action: The window shattered and the shards razored into his face.  

He struggled back to the window, carefully raised his head to look outside and stared down at the mess his men had created on the street below. This was a big hiccup for me. HIS MEN detonated a lethal bomb in a street? Is Brad a terrorist? Because we have no context — is this a foreign locale? Are we in wartime? — I am confused about Brad’s role here and am not liking the fact he’s the cause of the carnage. Vehicles smoldered in front of the high-rise hotel. Arms, legs, heads, and torsos lay scattered across the pavement amidst pieces of vehicles and weapons. You need to tell us how high up he is. I know, it’s a stupid detail but important because he is about to recognize his wife’s face. You say only that vehicles are on fire “in front of the high-rise hotel.” Is Brad in this hotel or it is across the street? 

What blew up? Where was the bomb? (I assume it was a bomb). The Suburban is overturned, but if the bomb was under it, it would have been blown to bits like the other vehicles you mention. (You don’t tell us it’s armored until way too late). And you miss chances to enhance the mood here — where’s the acrid black smoke, which might partially obscure his view? What does this smell like? Screams? People running or staggering away? Why are there weapons laying about on the street? Again, because there is not even a HINT of place or context, this doesn’t add up. 

Flames licked up from the underside of the overturned Suburban, use of “the” implies specificity. So it was the target? Otherwise, it is merely a Suburban. Also, these cars are common in the U.S., the Mideast and only a few other countries, so make sure you’re right on it. It’s also the car of choice of secret service. its glossy black paint shimmered in the fiery reflection. Now here is where I think you’ve gone off-key.  This is a hell scape. Brad would not be noticing “glossy” paint “shimmering.”  Watch your tone. 

A hand appeared from inside the vehicle. More likely, a hand appeared out of a shattered driver’s side window? A person, struggling their way out. A head and shoulders raised from the open window. The person, a woman, pushed herself up until she was half out of the vehicle. What looked like tears of blood streamed across her cheeks. This construction implies Brad is thinking this, but again, its tone is off. Her face is simply covered in blood. 

She pushed her hair out of her eyes She wiped the blood from her eyes and looked up in Brad’s direction.

I think you need a physical beat here before her name. One, the odd name is not easily digested as name on first glance. Two, GET US IN BRAD”S HEAD FIRST.

Brad froze. Brad’s heart stopped. Brad grabbed the edge of the broken window and stared down. Something, anything.

Youngmi. Put this in itals. It’s a direct thought with no attribution. Plus, the stress is nice.

His wife.

His heart trembled in his chest, Another example of off-key tone. This word choice is too soft, too tender for the action. the sight filling him with horror. Show me, don’t tell me. 

He had seen his wife’s dead body only a few days after the war had started, two years earlier. Problem with clarity here. We need a better transition. I didn’t get this the first time read it. Thinking I was dense, I tried it on two other people. They missed it too, asking me, “so she was already dead? Is she dead now?” When you’re doing a fake-out like this (nothing wrong with that!), you have to make it clear that’s what it is. Something needed here, like:

But it couldn’t be her. She had died two years ago. He had seen her body, seen her slumped behind the wheel of her new Mercedes SUV.  Seen her blood soaking the front of her favorite Bob Seger t-shirt. And when he had finally walked around to the window, he had seen her face — blown apart, opened and peeled back, like some grotesque flower.

He’d been certain it was her. She was in her new Mercedes SUV with the custom license plates. She was wearing her favorite t-shirt. And she was definitely dead. Her face had been blown apart, opened up and peeled back, like a rose blossom from the gardens of hell. This is you, the writer talking, not Brad thinking. Stay in his sensibility.

You’ve just been in a mini-flashback. You need a transition back: Now, he stared down at the woman in the Suburban. And she stared back at him. Or, the black smoke cleared and he stared down again at the woman in the Suburban.  

Another point: This is an armored SUV in some kind of war-zone place. Yet Brad doesn’t think, what the hell is she doing driving an armored car? 

This version of Youngmi stared at him, shock and recognition mingled with terror. Why would she look up to some random window in the high-rise? Makes no sense. She’s got other things to worry about. Also, the recognition thing has to be conveyed through Brad’s consciousness: 

What was it he saw in her face? Terror…but something more. Brad felt his gut clench. She was looking right at him. Jesus, did she recognize him? (You can do better, but you get the point).

The flames reached the fuel tank and erupted in a roaring blaze. The fire stretched its greedy fingers Get out of the way of your story! Too writerly. Stay in Brad’s senses. around the edge of the armored SUV THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DETAIL and this is much too late to toss it in. It implies war but you’ve given us nothing else to support that. and caught her clothes.

She did not scream, not at first. Her mouth hung open agape as she realized her own husband had killed her. You just shifted to her point of view. You must stay with Brad. You have to filter this revelation through him. Also, SHE’S NOT YET DEAD (at least this time), so the best she can think, “My husband is trying to kill me.”  But again, this doesn’t add up giving the scant info you’ve given us. This implies the Suburban was the bomb target. Was it? Now, because you belatedly mention it being armored, it could survive a bomb, but you must be clear on what is going on here. Maybe before the hand snaked out of the window, you can give Brad a thought about the mission of his team here?  

The flames erupted with new energy, enveloped her body. Her clothing lit like a human torch. Her face contorted in agony and the scream finally came.

“BRAAAAAAD!”

Her voice echoed his name across the city, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings. There is chaos going on down in the street. Probably sirens by now and screaming. Nothing is going to echo here. 

In summary, we have a bang-up set-up here that needs some work. So what? All of our openings need work. So, dear writer, dig back in and you’ll be on the right track.

Give us a little bit more info about where we are and the context. Are we at war? Is this a terrorist hit by Brad and his men? What are they doing here? What is the mission — we need a hint at least. I really have a problem with a hero-protag being willing to sacrifice innocent lives on a crowded street like this, no matter who he thought was in the Suburban. Clean up the imagery and make this scene feel more visceral. Thanks for submitting and good luck.

By PJ Parrish

Get ready, because we’ve got a lot of action in today’s First Page submission. Explosions! Body parts! Fiery cars!  Whew…

I’ll be back in a…uh, a flash and we’ll talk about this.

Ice Hammer: Invincible

A blinding white light exploded across his senses. Light so bright it seemed like it had physical texture, burning white trenches across the inside of his eyeballs. A wall of sound struck a second later, with the force of a hammer blow from a giant blacksmith’s forge. It knocked Brad Stone and the other men in the room off their feet. Shards of window glass sprayed their faces and hands like hundreds of flying razor blades.

He struggled back to the window, carefully raised his head to look outside and stared down at the mess his men had created on the street below. Vehicles smoldered in front of the high-rise hotel. Arms, legs, heads, and torsos lay scattered across the pavement amidst pieces of vehicles and weapons.

Flames licked up from the underside of the overturned Suburban, its glossy black paint shimmered in the fiery reflection.

A hand appeared from inside the vehicle. A person, struggling their way out. A head and shoulders raised from the open window. The person, a woman, pushed herself up until she was half out of the vehicle. What looked like tears of blood streamed across her cheeks.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up in Brad’s direction.

Youngmi.

His wife.

His heart trembled in his chest, the sight filling him with horror.

He had seen his wife’s dead body only a few days after the war had started, two years earlier. He’d been certain it was her. She was in her new Mercedes SUV with the custom license plates. She was wearing her favorite t-shirt. And she was definitely dead. Her face had been blown apart, opened up and peeled back, like a rose blossom from the gardens of hell.

This version of Youngmi stared at him, shock and recognition mingled with terror. The flames reached the fuel tank and erupted in a roaring blaze. The fire stretched its greedy fingers around the edge of the armored SUV and caught her clothes.

She did not scream, not at first. Her mouth hung agape as she realized her own husband had killed her.

The flames erupted with new energy, enveloping her body. Her clothing lit like a human torch. Her face contorted in agony and the scream finally came.

“BRAAAAAAD!”

Her voice echoed his name across the city, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings.

___________________________

Dontcha just hate slow starts?  I’m kidding, of course. We’re always harping here at TKZ about the need to get out of the gate fast.  Now, if you’re a regular here, you know not to take that literally.  Getting off to a fast start in a thriller is a good idea, and I suspect we’re in thriller territory here. But that doesn’t mean you literally have to start with a car chase or flying body parts. (See Jame’s Sunday post about omniscient point of view openings for one reference). You can create tension with a slower approach.

That, as you can see, is not the case here. Things literally start with a bang. Our writer has dropped us smack into the middle of a crisis — an explosion that propelled the protag (I think) across the room and then he staggers to the window to see all hell breaking loose down on the street. What’s not to like?

Nothing, in my humble opinion. I think this is a good door by which to enter the story.  James’s axiom of “act first, explain later” is in full bore here.  And the part about the wife — supposedly dead but now appearing in the burning car — is intriguing, to say the least.

So, good set-up, writer!  But there are some problems in the execution here. We have some issues with lack of clarity: Where are we? What exactly is going on here? We have some overwriting going on. Here’s a good guideline to keep in mind: The more intense the action, the less “writerly” your writing should be. And at times, the word choices are jarringly tone-deaf, out of tune with the tone of the scene itself. More on that small but important detail in a second. Let me go through this with a fine-tooth pencil:

A blinding white light exploded across his senses. Not a bad opening line. Light so bright it seemed like it had physical texture, burning white trenches across the inside of his eyeballs. Not sure I get this image. Maybe burning the inside of the lids? A wall of sound struck a second later, with the force of a hammer blow from a giant blacksmith’s forge. I’d end after hammer. It knocked Brad Stone and the other men I’d lose them for now. Focus on your main guy; the spear-carriers clutter things up esp in the first graph! .in the room off their feet. Shards of window glass sprayed their faces and hands like hundreds of flying razor blades. Way too many metaphors in this opening graph. Turn this into action: The window shattered and the shards razored into his face.  

He struggled back to the window, carefully raised his head to look outside and stared down at the mess his men had created on the street below. This was a big hiccup for me. HIS MEN detonated a lethal bomb in a street? Is Brad a terrorist? Because we have no context — is this a foreign locale? Are we in wartime? — I am confused about Brad’s role here and am not liking the fact he’s the cause of the carnage. Vehicles smoldered in front of the high-rise hotel. Arms, legs, heads, and torsos lay scattered across the pavement amidst pieces of vehicles and weapons. You need to tell us how high up he is. I know, it’s a stupid detail but important because he is about to recognize his wife’s face. You say only that vehicles are on fire “in front of the high-rise hotel.” Is Brad in this hotel or it is across the street? 

What blew up? Where was the bomb? (I assume it was a bomb). The Suburban is overturned, but if the bomb was under it, it would have been blown to bits like the other vehicles you mention. (You don’t tell us it’s armored until way too late). And you miss chances to enhance the mood here — where’s the acrid black smoke, which might partially obscure his view? What does this smell like? Screams? People running or staggering away? Why are there weapons laying about on the street? Again, because there is not even a HINT of place or context, this doesn’t add up. 

Flames licked up from the underside of the overturned Suburban, use of “the” implies specificity. So it was the target? Otherwise, it is merely a Suburban. Also, these cars are common in the U.S., the Mideast and only a few other countries, so make sure you’re right on it. It’s also the car of choice of secret service. its glossy black paint shimmered in the fiery reflection. Now here is where I think you’ve gone off-key.  This is a hell scape. Brad would not be noticing “glossy” paint “shimmering.”  Watch your tone. 

A hand appeared from inside the vehicle. More likely, a hand appeared out of a shattered driver’s side window? A person, struggling their way out. A head and shoulders raised from the open window. The person, a woman, pushed herself up until she was half out of the vehicle. What looked like tears of blood streamed across her cheeks. This construction implies Brad is thinking this, but again, its tone is off. Her face is simply covered in blood. 

She pushed her hair out of her eyes She wiped the blood from her eyes and looked up in Brad’s direction.

I think you need a physical beat here before her name. One, the odd name is not easily digested as name on first glance. Two, GET US IN BRAD”S HEAD FIRST.

Brad froze. Brad’s heart stopped. Brad grabbed the edge of the broken window and stared down. Something, anything.

Youngmi. Put this in itals. It’s a direct thought with no attribution. Plus, the stress is nice.

His wife.

His heart trembled in his chest, Another example of off-key tone. This word choice is too soft, too tender for the action. the sight filling him with horror. Show me, don’t tell me. 

He had seen his wife’s dead body only a few days after the war had started, two years earlier. Problem with clarity here. We need a better transition. I didn’t get this the first time read it. Thinking I was dense, I tried it on two other people. They missed it too, asking me, “so she was already dead? Is she dead now?” When you’re doing a fake-out like this (nothing wrong with that!), you have to make it clear that’s what it is. Something needed here, like:

But it couldn’t be her. She had died two years ago. He had seen her body, seen her slumped behind the wheel of her new Mercedes SUV.  Seen her blood soaking the front of her favorite Bob Seger t-shirt. And when he had finally walked around to the window, he had seen her face — blown apart, opened and peeled back, like some grotesque flower.

He’d been certain it was her. She was in her new Mercedes SUV with the custom license plates. She was wearing her favorite t-shirt. And she was definitely dead. Her face had been blown apart, opened up and peeled back, like a rose blossom from the gardens of hell. This is you, the writer talking, not Brad thinking. Stay in his sensibility.

You’ve just been in a mini-flashback. You need a transition back: Now, he stared down at the woman in the Suburban. And she stared back at him. Or, the black smoke cleared and he stared down again at the woman in the Suburban.  

Another point: This is an armored SUV in some kind of war-zone place. Yet Brad doesn’t think, what the hell is she doing driving an armored car? 

This version of Youngmi stared at him, shock and recognition mingled with terror. Why would she look up to some random window in the high-rise? Makes no sense. She’s got other things to worry about. Also, the recognition thing has to be conveyed through Brad’s consciousness: 

What was it he saw in her face? Terror…but something more. Brad felt his gut clench. She was looking right at him. Jesus, did she recognize him? (You can do better, but you get the point).

The flames reached the fuel tank and erupted in a roaring blaze. The fire stretched its greedy fingers Get out of the way of your story! Too writerly. Stay in Brad’s senses. around the edge of the armored SUV THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DETAIL and this is much too late to toss it in. It implies war but you’ve given us nothing else to support that. and caught her clothes.

She did not scream, not at first. Her mouth hung open agape as she realized her own husband had killed her. You just shifted to her point of view. You must stay with Brad. You have to filter this revelation through him. Also, SHE’S NOT YET DEAD (at least this time), so the best she can think, “My husband is trying to kill me.”  But again, this doesn’t add up giving the scant info you’ve given us. This implies the Suburban was the bomb target. Was it? Now, because you belatedly mention it being armored, it could survive a bomb, but you must be clear on what is going on here. Maybe before the hand snaked out of the window, you can give Brad a thought about the mission of his team here?  

The flames erupted with new energy, enveloped her body. Her clothing lit like a human torch. Her face contorted in agony and the scream finally came.

“BRAAAAAAD!”

Her voice echoed his name across the city, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings. There is chaos going on down in the street. Probably sirens by now and screaming. Nothing is going to echo here. 

In summary, we have a bang-up set-up here that needs some work. So what? All of our openings need work. So, dear writer, dig back in and you’ll be on the right track.

Give us a little bit more info about where we are and the context. Are we at war? Is this a terrorist hit by Brad and his men? What are they doing here? What is the mission — we need a hint at least. I really have a problem with a hero-protag being willing to sacrifice innocent lives on a crowded street like this, no matter who he thought was in the Suburban. Clean up the imagery and make this scene feel more visceral. Thanks for submitting and good luck.

Photo courtesy sommi, unsplash.com

I recently had what I’ll call an “episode” which caused me to pause and remind myself of my mortality. The circumstances aren’t important here other than to note that my immediate thought at the time was, “I don’t want to go out like that!” I did begin thinking, however, about what would occur if I suddenly found myself standing before the ultimate throne of judgment and the potential mess I would leave behind, and I’m not just talking about the collection of music and reading material I have. I’m referring to things left unpublished and unsaid, which would include both words most tender and the slings and arrows which the French refer to as l’esprit d’escalier.

There are also footprints through cyberspace to consider. Most of us have anywhere from one to a couple of hundred passwords for various things from email accounts and insurance policies to online collections of pornog…er, erotica and everything in between. I’ve seen those adorable little notebooks with the legend “Password Keeper” on the covers in gold and bold letters, created for the purpose of letting the owner mark down each and every one of their online passwords but which make it easy for whoever picks their pocket or grabs their carry-about to access their life and fortune. You don’t want one of those. You want something a little more secure. Many of you probably have a LastPass account which functions like the memory of a twenty-two-year-old who has never sampled drugs or alcohol and which will let you access whatever whenever you need it (though God help you if you forget the magic twanger for your LastPass account itself). At some point, your significant someone may need to access all of those passwords, including “iwant2writelikeJSB!” for Google Drive or “eyehaveAsecretcrush0n(initials deleted)” for your photos in your cloud storage. Then there are all of those works in progress on which you’ve been working progressively, including the masterpiece that you finished just before that one hundred plus percent blockage of the left anterior descending coronary artery that’s been manifesting itself as that numbness in your left arm which you’ve been 1) ignoring or 2) attributing to epicondylitis for the last six weeks suddenly decides to turn off the tap.  Wouldn’t it be nice, don’t you think, to have something that would store everything from your passwords to your documents for your spouse, successor, agent, administrator, and/or beneficiary might need and get it to each and all without worrying about a court order to open your safe deposit box, or to cause a scavenger hunt through a bunch of file boxes? Here’s something else. Rather than inconvenience everyone by forcing them to attend a funeral service (or to manufacture an excuse to be absent) wouldn’t it be better to record pre-morbid messages telling folks exactly what they meant to you and which would be sent to them after your death, since we know not the date, place or the hour?

There are, interestingly enough, a number of websites that will do just that. I had never heard anyone mention such a thing until a day or two ago, but such services have been around since 2012, which is a technological eternity ago. I don’t get out much, but you would think that because I don’t get out much I would know about this. That said, there are quite a few of them, and the services offered differ from site to site, as do the cost (though many are free). What they basically offer, however, is an ability to provide delivery of online documents, lists, and multiple media files to a person or persons of your choosing. You deposit the files electronically and provide the site/service with the emails of the people to whom you want to be able to access the files. There’s a dead man’s switch (and yes, there is an app available by that name) attached to some of the services which, if you don’t check in at regularly designated intervals to demonstrate that you are not on tour with the Choir Invisible, will assume that you are dead and will then send a link to your files to your personal Max Brod. Others, when you do not check in, will query your most trusted friends (again, you supply the list) to make sure that you have really passed on (as opposed to drying out after the most recent Bouchercon). There is an incomplete list of such sites here but there are others with such warm and cheery names as ifidie.org and emailfromdeath.com that will get the job done as well.

I’m not endorsing any particular service here, having just become aware of them myself. It’s certainly something that I am going to explore, however, and not just as a tool for estate planning. This whole topic opens up a potentially rich new vein of story possibilities in what my bud Marcus Wynne calls the grammar mine. Here is one: someone receives an email correspondence from a long-estranged deceased friend which contains a cryptic video file showing a murder. I won’t ask you what yours might be, but please take a moment to check out one or more of the links and then tell us: would one of these services be of any particular benefit to you? Or does the paper file in the cabinet (or safe deposit box) work just fine for your purposes? Please let us know. And stay safe and healthy. As for me, I’m going to go write a final blog post as a goodbye. I hope it’s not needed for a long, long time.