Untitled but by far my best work. So far. - Writers Forum

KangTheMad · 05-08-2008, 01:50 PM

Alright, this is my third book I have started on here. This is a narrative, not commonly done but after reading Black House I liked the style.

Toni walks along the streets of China Town in Chicago. She goes to a small store and buys a nice duck for Hank and has already decided to make it Peking style. The storekeep smiles at her and wishes a good day to her and she replies in Mandarin. The storekeep's smile broadens and he breaks out in fast paced Mandarin, delighted that she speaks it.

His assistant, who is also his son, pauses and looks at this strange non-Chinese woman who is speaking Mandarin as if it were her first language. The pronunctiation an grammar is flawless. He also detects a mixed heratige in her, Brazilian? he is not far off. Toni Harolds is a mixture of British and Portugese-Brazilian. He glances approvingly at her figure and smiles. Toni is a true beauty.

Toni walks away with the duck keeping a casual but firm grip on her handbag. This is Chicago and she is not stupid. Even though she is only five foot three she packs a punch. She once dropped a would-be muger with a swift punch to the throat and a hard kick to the crotch. She then cooly walked away, leaving the mugger on the ground moaning is suprise and pain.

She thinks about getting a cab but decides she will walk home, It is a nice day after all and cab fares have jumped along with the gas prices. She shudders when she thinks about them. Regular is around $3.76 a gallon and she has no doubt they will continue to rise.

She decides to take a shortcut through an alley. She enters it and is suprised by the absense of the usual piss smell that goes hand in hand with alleys. A black sedan which has been following her some time stops, and two men get out. One is in an exensive Armani suit, the other is in a jean jacket with a Van Halen logo on the back. Suit points at Toni and Jacket nods. "Hey whore," shouts Suit.

Grapefight · 05-09-2008, 04:40 AM

Your big problem is weak sentence structure. It's all clause-conjunction-clause, clause-conjunction-clause, again and again and again, occasionally broken up with a skimpy little one-clause-only sentence. It's monotonous and rhythmic, like a recitation. Here, maybe it'll help if I go all dance instructor on you: your piece reads "Bada bada bah, bada bada bum. Bada bada bah, bada bada bum."
You just need to break it up a little. And by "a little", I mean "like a madman". Dashes and semicolons and, hell, even parentheses are all your friends, dear friends that you should abuse savagely. No, really; abuse the shit out of them. Chop your sentences up with an axe--a chainsaw, if your neighbors won't mind the noise--and jam them back together in new, interesting ways. Add brand new stuff even. Let your narration get distracted, let it wander off, ramble, digress. Don't be in such a hurry to get to what you think is the "good" part.
Anyway, it's retardedly late, which means there's a good chance I'm not being as clear as I could be (dance instructor! what the fuck?) so I'm just gonna goddamn rewrite your first paragraph to demonstrate what I'm trying to say. Here goes:
It's Chicago, it's Chinatown, it's rush hour. People scurry, lots of people scurry; on narrow sidewalks and in and of strong-smelling places that sell cheap tea, cheap souvenirs, dried seahorses by the pound, they scurry. Toni scurries. Hank, she thinks. Hank Hank Hank. Duck! Yes, duck. Her priorities play through her mind this way, over and over, like a mantra. She enters a butcher's. There's no line. No line! She can't help but smirk, victorious, like she's won something, defeated someone. The man behind the counter smiles at her. She steps forward to accept--no, seize her prize.
"A duck, please. That one." She orders in Mandarin. The man's smile broadens suddenly, becomes real and warm and no longer tentative. He and Toni begin talking as he weighs and wraps up her duck. The weather. Gas prices. Preparing the duck; when the man learns that Toni plans to do it the Peking way, he has many tips for her. Toni listens, interested. This guy knows what he's talking about.

So do you see what I mean? Sorta? At all? I hope so. Anyway, it's seriously bedtime. Good luck with this.

r0ck0sauruzzz · 05-09-2008, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grapefight

Your big problem is weak sentence structure. It's all clause-conjunction-clause, clause-conjunction-clause, again and again and again, occasionally broken up with a skimpy little one-clause-only sentence. It's monotonous and rhythmic, like a recitation. Here, maybe it'll help if I go all dance instructor on you: your piece reads "Bada bada bah, bada bada bum. Bada bada bah, bada bada bum."
You just need to break it up a little. And by "a little", I mean "like a madman". Dashes and semicolons and, hell, even parentheses are all your friends, dear friends that you should abuse savagely. No, really; abuse the shit out of them. Chop your sentences up with an axe--a chainsaw, if your neighbors won't mind the noise--and jam them back together in new, interesting ways. Add brand new stuff even. Let your narration get distracted, let it wander off, ramble, digress. Don't be in such a hurry to get to what you think is the "good" part.
It's Chicago, it's Chinatown, it's rush hour. People scurry, lots of people scurry; on narrow sidewalks and in and of strong-smelling places that sell cheap tea, cheap souvenirs, dried seahorses by the pound, they scurry. Toni scurries. Hank, she thinks. Hank Hank Hank. Duck! Yes, duck. Her priorities play through her mind this way, over and over, like a mantra. She enters a butcher's. There's no line. No line! She can't help but smirk, victorious, like she's won something, defeated someone. The man behind the counter smiles at her. She steps forward to accept--no, seize her prize.
"A duck, please. That one." She orders in Mandarin. The man's smile broadens suddenly, becomes real and warm and no longer tentative. He and Toni begin talking as he weighs and wraps up her duck. The weather. Gas prices. Preparing the duck; when the man learns that Toni plans to do it the Peking way, he has many tips for her. Toni listens, interested. This guy knows what he's talking about.

Well, it's his purposely-cool/calm-style, you're just making it tensed&agitated.

r0ck0sauruzzz · 05-09-2008, 07:23 AM

By the way, brush up and go through this piece again, tidy it...there're a few spelling errors:

"The pronunctiation an grammar is flawless."

"muger"

"exensive Armani suit"

KangTheMad · 05-09-2008, 09:58 AM

sorry, the school's keyboard is screwed up.

KangTheMad · 05-09-2008, 10:14 AM

Ok here it is revamped

Toni walks along the streets of China Town in Chicago. She goes to a small store and buys a nice plump, duck for Hank and has already decided to make it Peking style. Hank loves Peking duck and he always orders it when avaible at restaraunts. He has even gone as far to say that you can't make good duck if it isn't Peking. The storekeep smiles at her with a few missing teeth and wishes a good day to her in poor English. She replies in Mandarin and the storekeep's smile broadens and he breaks out in fast paced Mandarin, delighted that she speaks it.

His assistant, who is also his son, pauses and looks at this strange non-Chinese woman who is speaking Mandarin as if it were her first language. The pronunctiation an grammar is flawless. He also detects a mixed heratige in her, Brazilian? He is not far off. Toni Harolds is a mixture of British and Portugese-Brazilian, the combination blends in flawlessly, making her appear like an angel from heaven. He glances approvingly at her figure and smiles. Toni is a true beauty, if she wanted she could be a model. He sees her supple breasts and curvy hips and imagines what she would be like in bed.

In fact, she almost was a model and then she met Hank and his love for books changed her. She had messed around with the idea of writing a book and he supported her fully. She has now published seven books and the manuscript for the eigth book is sitting in a drawer of her desk, nearly completed. Over the years for her books she has made over ten million dollars off her sales. The eigth book is an autobiography and she thinks it will sell bigger and longer than her previous books. But if it does come out, she won't have long to enjoy it.

Toni walks away with the duck keeping a casual but firm grip on her handbag. This is Chicago and she is not stupid. Even though she is only five foot three she packs a punch. She once dropped a would-be mugger with a swift punch to the throat and a hard kick to the crotch. She then cooly walked away, leaving the mugger on the ground moaning is suprise and pain.

She thinks about getting a cab but decides she will walk home, It is a nice day after all and cab fares have jumped along with the gas prices. She shudders when she thinks about them. Regular is around $3.76 a gallon and she has no doubt they will continue to rise. just one more thing the government is screwing up. She has a deep distrust for the government, and for good reason. The Project was hell. Hell pure and simple. All will be explained in her auto, and the result will send shockwaves across the world. She knows that publishing it is dangerous but she has waited long enough. It is her time to strike back.

She decides to take a shortcut through an alley. She enters it and is suprised by the absense of the usual piss smell that goes hand in hand with alleys. There are only a few broken bottles scattered around and there is no graffiti whatsoever. This alley is unusually clean. A black sedan with no liscencec plates which has been following her some time stops, and two men get out. One is in an expensive Armani suit, the other is in a jean jacket with a Van Halen logo on the back. they are both profesionals hired by the same oraganization. The Project. The Project views Toni as a threat and it is time for her to die. Suit points at Toni and Jacket nods. "Hey whore," shouts Suit. His voice is suprisingly high, like a girls, but mocking and full of venom.

Grapefight · 05-09-2008, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by r0ck0sauruzzz

Well, it's his purposely-cool/calm-style, you're just making it tensed&agitated.

The thing I wrote seems "tensed&agitated" because the sentences are so short, not because the structure is broken up.

Truth-Teller · 05-09-2008, 06:39 PM

Your problem is: you tell.

Nevermore · 05-09-2008, 06:52 PM

Well, the second version is much better than the first version, but it's all still a bit disorganised. Your giving the reader insight into your MC but - to me at least - it's too direct and too much.
Also, all the elements for plot suspence are in place, but your not ultilising them. This is most obvious in the case of the car. Being followed by a car is almost a classic tool of plot suspence; if you build up the story, mentioning things like the autobiography and the Project as the story progresses, it will reach a whole new level.
My advice is to look first at the structure of this piece (is it a prologue?), then consider sentence structure to reach your first objective. I hope you consider this, because Toni is quite fascinating and I should like to hear more about her. Keep writing

silverfoxgirl · 05-09-2008, 09:13 PM

I like the second version a lot better. Post more soon!

KangTheMad · 05-10-2008, 07:08 PM

I will. In fact, here it is now. (You will learn more about Toni's previous life and the
Project through passages from her auto, read by Hank)

Toni hears the "Hey whore!" And turns around disgusted. Who ever called her a whore must be a low life scum to assume that a woman in an alley is automatically a whore. She is about to give them a piece of her mind when she recognizes Suit. The Project, she thinks with a chill. They have found her, how she does not know and yet, she does. her books. She was careless. They found her through her books. She has stayed in one town for too long. She forgot how ruthless the Project supervisors were. Especially Morgan.

She sees that Jacket has a hand in his pocket and instantly she knows what is going on. She drops the duck and grabs a jagged chunk of brick that is on a dumpster next to her. She calculates and throws with a defined precision. The brick hits Jacket in the arm just as her brings his gun out. His shot goes wide and hits the dumpster, but not going through it. Toni sees this and lifts herself up and tumbles in. Three more shots pound against the dumpster, each strike louder than cannon fire. She gets up with a Bulldog .32 and shoots at Suit who now also has a gun out. Two shots hit him, one in grazing his ribcage and the other hits his right shoulder. The gun drops amd he grits his teeth in pain. Jacket takes the opportunity to aim carefully and fires. The bullet hits Toni in the forehead and she crumples into the dumpster.

Jacket moves forward with caution, he has been warned about this one. She is highly dangerous, Morgan had said, do not underestimate her. Her grasp of what is going on is tremendous and she can predict your movements. I want her alive if possible. I have waited too long to get her back. If she is dead I will be severely dissaspointed.

"Mistake," grunts Suit, his Armani now coated with spreading blood. Toni's bullets were hollow-points and had destroyed several arteries. He is losing blood fast. "You heard what Mr. Tannhauser said."
"She got violent and wounded you. I had no other choice." Jacket looks into the dumpster and sees the back of Toni's head is nearly gone completely, dead without a doubt. He reaches in and grabs her and pulls her out. He grabs Toni's .32 and tosses it away. They get to the sedan and he shoves her unceremoniously into the back seat. He looks at Suit, "You're in no condition to drive with that shoulder." Jacket gets in and puts his gun under the seat. He turns and sees a woman running at the car.

"You killed her you bastard!" She screams. She reaches his rolled down window and shoves her hand inside.
Jacket sees what she is holding and his heart chills. "Don-" He begins.
"Eat this!" The woman, who he notices is extremely overweight, growls and sprays half a can of Mace in his face, Jacket screams as the chemicals enter his eyes, nose and mouth and react violently with his senses. She then brings her other hand forward and gives him her personal Tazer right in the neck. Jacket slumps forward unconscious.

Suit, who is partially blinded by the Mace fires at the lady with his gun and hits the steering wheel. The fat woman screams in terror, the realization of just exactly what she is doing sets in. She screams even louder.