Hostile Intent (Revamped) - Page 6 - Writers Forum

Sam Winchester · 04-17-2008, 07:14 AM

NaCl - Firstly, thanks for the read. Second, you've made very vaild points, which is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. Cheers for that.

gr8writer - thanks for the read, too. I'm glad you liked the twist.

Chris - Thanks for the read and your thoughts. Coming from as good a writer as you, I'll take your comments as a compliment. Glad you enjoyed it. I guess I don't know why he wanted to get away before the cops came. Maybe because he thought he'd get blamed for it. Or it could have something to do with his marine past, or a childhood incident. I'll have to re-think that. Cheers.

Babeonownbike - good spot! I'll have to tighten that up a bit.

Jim - that's exactly why I love this forum! People pick up on things that I haven't. Thanks for alerting me to that.

Sam.

gr8writer · 04-17-2008, 11:28 AM

I changed my story a lot, maybe you could read the new version when you have time?

Wildcard · 04-18-2008, 12:53 PM

Hi Sam. Good story.

A few minor things;
I would go back to the store scene at the beginning and elaborate a little more instead of jumping to the action so fast. Remember, this is a big scene. Talk a little more about the couple, the surroundings and the old guy. Let us get to know him a little more so that when the old hick gets offed, we'll actually feel sorry for the poor bastard.lol. Also, the scene where the shooter comes in, elaborate on that some more. Build the tension, dont just throw it on us.

This is good work though, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I posted some stuff in the critique and short story sections that you can comment on if you like. Cheers.

Just Jim · 04-18-2008, 01:32 PM

Hey Sam,

I went back to the beginning and read the whole thing. It looks like you got all of your inconsistencies in the first chapter. The rest of it is quite clean, and it builds a lot of tension.

I'm with you on the "telling" question. I know I overdo the telling, and I'm slowly learning to show more. But there seems to be an obsession with showing. Telling is the way humans communicate. Writers aren't competing with the half hour TV show. Well, maybe we are, and that's the problem.

(climbs down from soapbox)

Anyway, it's a great story.

Sam Winchester · 04-18-2008, 01:40 PM

Wildcard - thanks for the read. I originally thought the beginning was a little fast. I'll see if I can do anything about it.

Jim - Thanks for going over it again. Glad you enjoyed it better this time.

Sam.

Jax1108 · 04-19-2008, 12:23 PM

Hey Sam,

Sorry it took me like 10 hours to write a response. I skipped right on by the exerpt on page 3, so reading chapter 3 was confusing for me, with the different characters. Then I went back and found it so I think I am starting to see where this is going.

This kinda genre is normally not for me, but reading yours has greatly increased my interest! The characters are totally believable. I like how you pulled different races in here to (and maybe partly because I am obsessed with asians?

), it really just gives it that realistic depth. I am excited to see whats next.

I can't find any nits in your work, as always. But I would have to agree with Jim about the first part of chapter one. The whole gas thing was a little confusing to me the way it was. That and I agree that the action at the gas station was too quick, and I'd like a tad bit more description.

But thats just me

Anyway very well done. I am liking it so far I can't wait to see what happens next! It would be / is a page turner for sure!

Also, I disagree with the comment about the nurse knowing he is chinese. Things are "oriental" not people. My boyfriend is Korean, and the people who don't say he is asian just consent to saying chinese. It's a common mistake...

Sam Winchester · 04-19-2008, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jax1108

Hey Sam,

Sorry it took me like 10 hours to write a response. I skipped right on by the exerpt on page 3, so reading chapter 3 was confusing for me, with the different characters. Then I went back and found it so I think I am starting to see where this is going.

This kinda genre is normally not for me, but reading yours has greatly increased my interest! The characters are totally believable. I like how you pulled different races in here to (and maybe partly because I am obsessed with asians?

), it really just gives it that realistic depth. I am excited to see whats next.

I can't find any nits in your work, as always. But I would have to agree with Jim about the first part of chapter one. The whole gas thing was a little confusing to me the way it was. That and I agree that the action at the gas station was too quick, and I'd like a tad bit more description.

But thats just me

Anyway very well done. I am liking it so far I can't wait to see what happens next! It would be / is a page turner for sure!

Also, I disagree with the comment about the nurse knowing he is chinese. Things are "oriental" not people. My boyfriend is Korean, and the people who don't say he is asian just consent to saying chinese. It's a common mistake...

Thanks for the read, Jax. If it's not your genre and you enjoyed it, well that can only be good, right?

As for the Oriental thing - it can actually refer to people, but it is a derogatory statement and offensive, and therefore not something a nurse would say.

Hopefully I'll post the next part soon.

Sam.

joifulartist84 · 04-19-2008, 11:28 PM

Oooo plot twist!
Even though as I said before, this is not the genre I normally read (but why would I join a writer's forum if I wanted to read the same stuff all the time). I enjoyed this excerpt much more than the last one; even though there's still not much happening, it's obviously leading up to something interesting.

I didn't get a clear picture of where these guards are. At first I thought they were police officers staking out the bank... but then I read it a second time and I think they're supposed to be guards inside the bank.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Winchester

For the third time in as many days, Frank Clemence noticed the maroon van outside his place of business. Most people would have shrugged it off as nothing other than a coincidence, but in Clemence's line of work, he allowed himself no room for error.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Winchester

The windows were tinted, denying him any indication of who sat behind the wheel - if anyone at all. As his intuition played up, he wondered if it could be happening again. It had been fourteen months since the last one, and the perpetrator of that had sacrificied his life for nothing.

No, it couldn't be, he decided finally. (If there is no room for error in his job, he wouldn't just shrug it off like this - especially if it happened just 14 months ago)There was just no sense doing it anymore. Bank robbery had become as dangerous as flight hijacking. The smart robbers kidnapped a hacker to electronically wire the money to their account. The stupid ones still did it the old-fashioned way. For the most part, their reward was either jail or death.

To his right, his partner stood, one hand holding a cigarette, the other his mobile phone. He was saying something like "what are you wearing?" to the person on the other end, but Clemence had been tuned out to everything but the van. (Remove words)

'Okay, I'll see you later, honey. Love you. Ciao,' the partner(add partner's name here to avoid later confusion in your narration) replied, slapping the flip(remove) phone closed.(what do you think about the word 'shut' instead?)

Ciao! Clemence muttered to himself. It was one of many things his partner said that drove him mad. 'When you've finished chatting up your girlfriend, check out the guy in the green suit. Looks suspicious.' (What guy in the green suit?)

'And what exactly does suspicious look like, Frankie?' Charles "Charlie" Greaves replied, a little annoyed with Clemence's punt as his girlfriend. (I'm not sure what this sentence is supposed to mean; is it just late and my brain is scrambled?)

'Just do it, Charles,' Clemence replied, pissing him off more (further pissing Greaves off?). He only called him that when he wanted to get his undivided attention.

I agree with the comment about too many names in one space. Maybe you can add Greaves' name to the previous paragraph when he is speaking on the phone.

Sorry, I decided to get really nitpicky with this one

I hope that once again, I have helped.

djvincent3 · 04-20-2008, 11:41 AM

Hi Sam,
My infant skin is still shriveled and damp after my birth on this sight. I was glad to catch this piece. I was riveted. So much so, I must admit, I did not pick up on much of what the other posts did. Your piece flowed well, kept me going and leaves me with a ton of questions just like the season finale of a television drama might.
I do know a bit about the geogaphy of Pennsylvania. Lived there for a few years in my youth, but more importantly, traveled across the state numerous times in my college years. It is an arduous state to traverse when you have a goal. It is 8 hours from border to border at interstate speeds. Concerning the Appalachains, you are more "in" them, than looking at them. I imagined your travelers as being somewhere south of interstate 80 which crosses Pa. at its midsection. This is rural country and the terrain goes up and down ad nauseum. It is popular Amish country.
Don't know if any of that is helpful, but, there it is. Cannot wait for the next installment. Thanks.

Sam Winchester · 04-20-2008, 01:12 PM

Joi - thanks for the read and the excellent critique. That helps a lot! Thanks again.

DJ - Your Geography definitely helps, and I'm glad you're left with questions. Just the way I planned it! I'm editing the next piece at the minute, and maybe I'll have it up before the end of the night. Thanks for the read, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Sam.

joifulartist84 · 04-20-2008, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djvincent3

It is 8 hours from border to border at interstate speeds. Concerning the Appalachains, you are more "in" them, than looking at them. I imagined your travelers as being somewhere south of interstate 80 which crosses Pa. at its midsection. This is rural country and the terrain goes up and down ad nauseum. It is popular Amish country.

That's what I was trying to get at with my first critique.

It seriously takes you 8 hours to get across PA? I wouldn't want you to drive me to my parents' house this summer....

Hugowin · 04-20-2008, 06:58 PM

The wake of the Pikaman is nigh.

Hugowin · 04-20-2008, 06:59 PM

Quote:

"Very well."

Very inticeful title for this insightful writing. Verily, you incite me to laughter (or rather, to guffaw) and almost stifle my life. Hostile intent, indeed. The mawkish arrogance shining through the veil of listless dialogue and listlike prose is merely tedious, but you have also churned this CNN report into a chunder of conventional butter (near-vomit experience). Do you perchance work at Hollywood farm?

Quote:

"I beg your - "

I begged my little brother to read this aswell. He read it and composed thus an admonishement as a guidance for you in your obviously planned Hollywood career (screenplay, the etch a sketch of writing): replace your characters with Pokemon. I cannot submit the picture he made for you, though. No, I was compelled by an alienating forum rule to make this prophecy: 10 prophecies will prophecize the wake of a gawky man with an awkwardly glued-on Pikachu face. He will thunder: "just put a Pikachu face on it and it will sell!"

Quote:

"What?' Ash asked in a shaky voice"

"I said let's go!"

"What happened?"

"It doesn't matter. We have to get out of here before Team Rocket come. Come on!"

Set veracity level to 100%

Quote:

'Shit,' Butler exclaimed.

Diagnosis:

The pseudo-cubistic shit (the characters are merely cones compared to the rectangular descriptions) lazily extruded through your cube-congruent ass-mind is the final consequent of a very special case of verbal diarrhoea: chronic verbosity phobia. You are paranoid about your condition and have thus devised a wily dogma of self-fraud ("shit sashay") to delude yourself into illusory convalescence: shit slowly and inconstantly (youful room, shit-dearth toilet).

Treatment:

Empty yourself entirely everytime you encounter "en toalett" (the privy). Seriously. You have suffered bad advice from "good-hearted" charlatans, and thus your stomach is steadily progressing into Malfunction#¤! - Nay! Shit less, but shit more when you do; and keep away from the fraudulent witch doctors of modern stomach pedagogy (go quest for the real witches instead). Yea, write less, write writerly (that is, as a writer -- wriggle with the pen! You are at the very brink of sounding like a TV SHOW host rehearsing his cliché jokes) and eventually condescend to unravel the mendacious knot of bad prose wrung "professionally" around your stomach. Think, damnit!

And one day you shall write more than you shit (this timorous prophecy shall be averted insofar as you are timid).

Quote:

Butler loved when she was mad. Her face would lose some of its colour, and her most beautiful features emerged.

PS - Remember: to kill beauty is the highest "sin" against art (like the sin against the "holy ghost" - it can never be forgiven). The motif and vulgar analogy of this post is necessary, but surely aesthetically pleasing. The vulgarity of the "offensive" language should be interpreted through the translucent elegance of the prose style.

Sam Winchester · 04-21-2008, 02:41 AM

Seriously, what the hell? Was that supposed to be a joke, or am I meant to decipher what it is you're trying to say, Hugowin? That last post made absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. I think it is you who has a problem with verbosity. And verbiage.

I don't mind a negative critique; but give me one that is coherent and constructive, or don't bother.

Sam.

Fossy · 04-21-2008, 04:37 AM

Hugowin, I'd like to see some of your work!

Sam, great third chapter, and a twist I should have seen coming but didn't - nice.

NaCl said the gas station attendent told the robber that he was the first customer of the day. I understood that to mean the attendent was suspicious of the robber and didn't want him to know the other two were still in the shop.