Good morning, crime dogs. It’s been a while since I tackled a First Pager but this one intrigued me. It’s a mystery, the submitter tells us. And within the mystery are things we can unearth, to learn, as always. Catch you on the flip-side.

By PJ Parrish 

If Only Twice

Cora Jean sat in her new apartment, piled high with boxes of her belongings, wondering where to start and asking herself why she was even here. The musty odor of damp cardboard filled her lungs adding to her melancholy. She clenched her hands, stood up and paced the floor. “The boxes, the boxes,” she said. “The never-ending pile of smelly boxes.” She kicked one. Her eyes teared up. She reached into her jean pocket and pulled out a box cutter. She stared at her wrist. Her hand trembled. She pushed the button extending the blade. The shiny blade. The inviting blade. The mesmerizing blade. She inhaled, held her breath and closed her eyes.

“Be careful with that boxcutter.” A voice from behind her said.

She twisted around, tripped over a box and dropped the box cutter. The stranger caught her before she hit the floor. He helped her to a chair.

“Those things can be tricky to use,” the stranger said.

“Who are you?”

“Your door was ajar. It looked as though you might need help.”

“I know how to use this.” She picked up the boxcutter and held it tightly in her hand.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Lew. I was checking on someone in apartment 12 B.”

“You have friends living in this building?”

“Mr. Whitley in 12 B can be cantankerous at times but, most are friendly. Here, give me that.” Lew reached for the box cutter, gently took it from her hand and retracted the blade.

“I know how to use that thing.”

“I will help you open your boxes.” He put the box cutter in his back pocket. “Let’s see, you have five boxes. Where do you want to start?”

She rolled her eyes. “Five boxes! Where did you learn to count?”

“I see only five. How many are there?”

She turned her head slowly examining every corner of the apartment. She moved to the bedroom door. On the bed were two boxes.

“There are a bunch in here. See you’re wrong.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t look in the bedroom.”

“There are so many I don’t know where to start.”

“Let’s start with the living room.”

“But they’re so big.”

“You can do it. One box at a time. I’ll help you.”

“The living room.” She compressed her lips. “Um, the living room maybe a good place to start.”

“Yes, the living room,” Lew said.

_____________________

As I said, this one interested me. There are some issues with it, especially with the critical opening paragraph and we’ll get to those. But let me say that I think this writer has potential and that this set-up scene can, with some work, make for a good opening. This is a great example of a submission that is pretty good but with some effective tweaking, can shine. First, what I like:

We know who were dealing with from the get-go. The two characters interacting here are named and their voices are distinct from each other — Cora Jean timid and troubled and the interloper Lew mysterious and vaguely creepy in his earnestness to help. I also like that the writer chose to place us directly in a disruptive situation — Cora feeling lost and even suicidal in a new home and confronted by a strange man. I mention this because many writers, dealing with a troubled character like Cora, would have given us paragraphs or a whole scene/chapter of her sitting amid her boxes moping, thinking, fretting and/or remembering what brought her to this point.

But no. This writer rightly drops us into the messiness and saves the backstory and “why” for later. If nothing else, that is a lesson to take away here. So, dear writer, you’re on the right road.

But…you can do better. The opening scene can be better. You can hook your reader with more tension. None of it requires major surgery. It’s a matter of little things adding up to big changes. Let me make a few suggestions.

Take a hard look at that first paragraph. It’s way too long and you’ve crammed way too much info and emotion into it. I have a hunch you felt it necessary to compact everything into one graph because Cora Jean is alone at this point. And maybe if you just kept going, in a sort of stream of consciousness, it would feel more urgent. But the effect is just the opposite. The opening line and graph should be a PROMISE of the mystery to come. A hint is always more powerful than a hammer.

And let’s talk about that box cutter. I love it! It’s so powerful but you missed an opportunity to make it work on two levels. (More to come on that). A box cutter is one of those “homey” but nasty gadgets. It’s so useful and well designed. Yet inside is hidden an awful weapon. One slip and your Ikea bookcase looks like blood-spatter scene. (Been there, cut that)

So Cora has a box cutter: Is it a benign tool to open something — or is it a deadly means to close something — i.e. her life. Chilling.

Yet you’ve buried this great detail amid the physical choregraphy of the opening graph. Let me suggest how powerful simple paragraphing can be:

Cora Jean sat in her new apartment, piled high with boxes of her belongings, wondering where to start and asking herself why she was even here. The musty odor of damp cardboard filled her lungs adding to her melancholy.

“The boxes, the boxes,” she said. “The never-ending pile of smelly boxes.”

Her eyes teared. She stood up and kicked a box. She reached into her jean pocket, her fingers curling around the peice of metal. She pulled out the box cutter and stared at it.

She raised her left arm and looked at her wrist. She pushed the button on the box cutter, extending the blade.

The shiny blade. The inviting blade. The mesmerizing blade.

Good stuff. But it can be even better. Some suggestions to work on:

Try harder to come up with a more compelling opening line. “Cora Jean sat…” is so passive and blah. And “her new apartment” and “her belongings” are superfulous. It is implied by the packing boxes.

Also, “wondering where to start and asking herself why she was even there” is you, the writer, telling us her state of mind, rather than showing the reader through her thoughts and actions. You need a bit of description! The smell of damp cardboard is good, but think harder about using Cora’s other senses to give us a FEEL for where she is, physically and mentally. Don’t tell us she feels “melancoly.” SHOW US. Something like:

The room was dark, yet she knew it was only just past three.  Shadows moved across the gray walls. Just the reflection of the bare tree branches outside the window, yet she felt like they were fingers reaching in to touch her. 

The room smelled stale, not just from the musty cardboard boxes piled all around her, but from something else, like an old woman’s perfume. She stared at the moving boxes, wishing she had remembered to label them. She had been in such a hurry, she had no idea what was in them. Her eyes welled with tears, as the thought came back to her again.

I have no idea of what I am doing here.

Use descrption and her sensory prism to show us her mood and emotions.

After you’ve established Cora’s emotions more vividly, then it’s time to move on to the action — the introduction of the mysterious stranger. You’ve done a pretty good job with this part. Nice dialogue, but watch that you don’t waste it on repetition or unecessary chattter. And make sure it is logical in its progression. I rewrote this a little:

“Be careful with that boxcutter.” A voice from behind her said.

She twisted around, tripped over a box and dropped the box cutter. “Who are you?”

“I’m Lew. “Your door was open and –”

She grabbed the boxcutter from the floor and held it out. “I know how to use this.”

He took one step back. “I was here to check on someone downstairs and walked by your door. You looked like you needed some help.”

“You have friends living in this building?”

He nodded but his eyes were still on the boxcutter. “Mr. Whitley in 12 B. He’s cantankerous at times but most folks here are friendly.”

He paused, seeming to stare at the piles of cardboard boxes. “You look like you could use some help with those.” He nodded to the boxcutter in her hand. “I know how to use that,” he said with a smile.

Cora Jean hesitated then retracted the blade.

I changed the dialogue up a little to stress a couple things. First, I don’t think it’s believable that Cora, being so sad and stressed at first, would allow a strange man to simply take the blade from her. It also makes her look weak. Why not let her keep it as she warily retreats (retracts the blade).

And this is the kicker: Note that I tried to make the line “I know how to use that” work harder for your characters. It now has a double meaning. Is Lew a good samaritan or a slasher? Well, read on to find out…

Also, one last point about your dialogue. You know how to craft it. But make it work harder. The dialogue you have after the blade thing is just taking up space. It is doing nothing to advance your scene or add to the tension. Good dialogue does one of two things: Says something unique or says something uniquely. Sure, sometimes people have to say mundane things to move your story along. But try hard not to use it in this fashion. Use simple narration instead: Cora knew there were six boxes in the living room and at least three more in the bedroom. She slipped the boxcutter back into the pocket of her jeans. “Some of them are heavy,” she said softly. “Yeah, I could use some help.”

So, good start, writer. Rework that opening paragraph to squeeze as much tension-juice out of it as you can. Make your dialogue work harder. Use some description to enhance mood. But based on this, I would read on, if for no other reason than to find out what Lew is up to. Thanks for letting us read your work.

I was one of the first people in the early 1980s to switch from analog to solid state receivers to increase my musical enjoyment. Not long afterward, I jumped on the CD bandwagon, a victim of commercial hype that promised clean recordings without the cracks and pops of vinyl albums and the portability of those classic silver disks. It didn’t matter I was that guy who bought a brand spankin’ new record, played it once to make a cassette recording, and then re-sleeved it.

Back then, the speakers in my living room were waist high, and had enough bass response to rattle the windows if I wanted rock and roll, and sometimes, I did.

Then came iPhones, and the world now listens to Bluetooth, playing it through ear buds or automotive sound systems that cost more than my first entire car. It sounds great! However, I seem to be the victim of friends and family who want me to hear a new song on that infernal device that absorbs our lives and insist on playing it through a tinny micro-speaker the size of a pin head.

Sigh.

Then not too long ago, I went back to my younger roots, buying a 1970s Marantz receiver. A business half an hour from my house specializes in getting them back up and running, and after a four month wait, it came back looking and sounding brand new. My brother found me a vintage turntable and an old-school 8-track player. I located a like-new cassette player. The Bride and I are back to music full of warm life.

She and I seldom throw anything away. We keep things, though they might be misplaced for a year or two. We have albums, 45s, cassette tapes, and 8-tracks from our larval years. The only thing missing is half my original album collection I left with my starter-wife, who threw them out.

But the Bride and I wanted to play tapes made decades earlier, and after three moves, I couldn’t find them. We searched high and low for a black case full of cassettes and wondered where they’d gone. Determined to find them, I resigned myself to an archeological dig through boxes in closets, under cabinets, and in the attic.

Huzzah!

They were no longer in the aforementioned case, but stored in a couple of old boot boxes. Now we’re listening to vintage music that takes us back to a different time, and to my point.

I tell you all that, to bring this forward. I’ve also switched computers a number of times, and though I know most of my material written since 1996 is somewhere in this electronic netherworld, I have trouble finding those files.

See, I used the phrase ‘those files.’ Not stories. Not manuscripts. Not notes. Files. New technology.

We pause here while I go put on a pristine John Denver album I bought 50 years ago. Ah, it sounds just like it did back in 1973.

I continue. The organizers at the Dallas Noir at the Bar asked me to participate, and I needed something special. I seldom write short stories, and didn’t want to read from any of my published books, or a manuscript under construction.

Then I remembered a short period of time ten years ago when I was beset by abbreviated creativity. I vaguely recalled hammering out a couple of stories that might work, so I went in search of them.

I’d run across one of the “files” while working on my latest novel, Hard Country. It was in a sub-file (don’t ask me how or why) along with a shelved manuscript that hadn’t seen the light of day in over 25 years. I virtually dusted off those 350 pages and found a chapter that would fill a hole in this first Tucker Snow novel.

Of course it needed work. I’d polished my style since then, so I got that old soft diaper out and went to work on the vintage/seasoned/almost forgotten story that became an integral part of the novel.

Huzzah, again!

Now I needed that short eight-to-ten-minute story to read at the Wild Detectives in Dallas. I finally found The Safe, 1950s noir about a guy who meets the girl, steals his boss’ safe, and sweeps her away along old Route 66 to a small town West Texas motorcourt.

The piece was too long because some other bad guys ‘peel’ the safe while my protagonists are at the movies, and because I’m a procrastinator, there wasn’t enough time to tighten it up. I dug deeper.

Oh, wait, there’s a novella I’d written back in 1982. Nope, too rough, too many character attributions, and a ton of adverbs. I liked it though, and sent a quick note to a magazine editor I met a couple of weeks ago.

“Dear Bob. You need to publish this western. Sincerely, Rev.”

Bob said yes about ten minutes later. Now I need to get out that old polish rag again and go to work. I pasted that one on my desktop so I could find it again, but I still needed a story for the noir.

The Professional? Did I write that? I gave it a quick read and recalled creating Nick, who’s waiting on a mysterious contact in a local park. Not bad. Needs a little work. Tighten up here, suture there, excise that, blow up the font. It read pretty dang good.

Hang on, y’all, while I stuff an 8-track into the player and listen to The Gatlin Brothers performing Sweet Becky Walker. Gads, that background hiss reminds me of those days in the early 1980s when I was hitting the honky tonks and listening to good country music. For some reason, I smell beer and cigarettes…

…so back to the noir, I printed the story off and headed for the event. Seven other authors and poets were there, and the fun began. I was next to last, and that gave me the opportunity to have a drink and listen to the creativity of others.

Then it was my turn. I slid The Professional from the envelope, took the stage, and read. All went smoothly until the last page. The climax! The cherry in an old fashioned, the candle on top of the cake, burning brightly and ready to blow out. People were on the edge of their seats to see how I wrapped up this story of murder, justice, and criminal professionalism.

Except that last page hadn’t printed. I stopped at the wrap, where it all came together, and guffawed, admitting what had happened and that I’d unintentionally presented a cliffhanger.

Some would be embarrassed, some frustrated, some disappointed, and some mad that they’d made a mistake in front of their peers and strangers. I was none of those. Taking a moment to make some off-the-cuff fun comments, I figuratively swept my hat, bowed, and took my seat to applause.

Like those pops, crackles, and skips on an old record, it’s all just a collection of motes, memories, and scratches that make up life. It’s fun, and entertaining. My unprofessional readus interruptus, or in true Latin, interrumpitur lectio, (dang, Spellcheck hates those four words) made that presentation so memorable it was all anyone could talk about as we gathered ourselves and left.

Embrace the old, life, music, technology, the mistakes you’re bound to make, and blow off some of your old work that’s gathering dust somewhere. It might all just work for you in the end in more ways than you anticipate.