Graff

I thought this was kind of funny, tell me what you think.
Note: A little swearing in here, but not too much.

Smoke
By: Graff

"It's all about the smoke, you see." Said Herman. He lounged in a wooden chair lined with green silk. A large cigar hung from his lip, and jostled around as he spoke. "Man, when I came up with this, all I could think was, how come nobody's thought of this before me? And you know what? It's because I'm smarter than everyone else. That's why your working for me, and not the other way around, right?" He spoke in a slight New York accent to the younger man sitting on the opposite side of his oak desk. "Anyway, I was just sittin' here smokin' one of these," said Herman, tapping the cigar that tucked away at the side of his mouth, "and it hit me. Why couldn't you just pump a casino, or any facility with a money vault for that matter, full of smoke? And I mean full of fucking smoke. You get as much smoke as you possibly can into the ventilation, and bang, the casino is yours. Customers are runnin' for the exit, cause' they think there's a fire, and you just walk on in, equipped with heat sensitive eye wear of some sort. Cameras can't see you, but you can still see everything you need to see. All this commotion gives you and your team time to set up explosives on the vault door, and blow that puppy to shit. Even better, go in dressed like firemen. Nobody will ask questions, brilliant, huh?" He rose his hands in the air to emphasize this last statement.

"Absolutely, Mr. Belfort." Replied the young man sitting across from him, after a slight pause. "It sounds like it could work to me."His name was Nick Perkis. He had short, dark hair, and some facial hair on the bottom of his chin.

"It will work." Replied Herman. "There's no question about it, this one's foolproof. My best idea yet, by far."

I'd bet on it, thought Nick. It sounds pretty crazy, but when I think about it, it really could work.

***

Nicks eyes burned, even through the goggles he wore. The smoke wasn't hindering his breathing, for he wore a gas mask on the lower part of his face. His body felt a great deal heavier than usual, due to the fire suit he was wearing. It was bulky, and he found it almost impossible to run.
In the standard blue, green and red of thermal goggles, he could see his team in formation around him, getting ready to place the explosives on the vault door. All he could do now is follow directions and wait to get the hell out of the casino.
Some one beside him told him to follow him, and he did. The team moved around a bend in the hallway, and waited for the explosion. It promptly came, and they moved back around the bend and through the vault door.
The money was held in large, rectangular containers, made of thick steel. The demolitions team went to work on them, while a few men stood guard at the door, one of the men being Nick.
The money was packed into bags after it was removed from the containers, and the team began it's retreat. They moved in formation towards one of the back fire exits. Even though they were so close, Nick had a bad feeling about this. In all the heist movies he'd ever seen, it had never gone this smoothly. Something wasn't right.
They reached the fire exit, and the man in front held it open for the rest of the team to pass through. After they had all done so, they began to load the money into a van that was waiting in the alley. Bag after bag was loaded in, and they were ready to go. The team leader told everyone to get in the van, and they started to do so, but before anyone got in, something happened. The team leader seemed to be picked up off the ground, and thrown extremely high into the air. It was as if some invisible force had done it. "What the fuck!?" Yelled one of the team members. As they all looked up in awe, the team leader came hurtling down again, splatting onto the wet pavement. He was dead, there was no question about it. Immediately following this, another one of the team members was thrown forcefully into the side of the van, smashing his head like a watermelon.
One by one, the team was killed by an invisible force. Some tried to run, but nothing could escape. Nick was one of the last to be killed, but his death was by far the most horrific.

Moral: No heist in a movie or book, goes off without a hitch, and what a perfect example this is.

__________________
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." -- William Strunk Jr.

seraphserpent

I really loved the first half of this story. I thought it was brilliant.

I have to say, though, that after that fabulous beginning, I was a little disappointed with the conclusion. The heist part was- I'm not sure if I can explain myself. I would say it was an almost clinical description of the events. You did very well in telling the actions but I felt more like I was reading a police report of what happened rather than a narrative.

Please don't misunderstand me. It was very good and I enjoyed reading it. I'm even puzzling over what happened at the end. Was it a SWAT team or some kind of monster? I'm intrigued. (That would make a good baseline for a horror story).

gohn67

Hey Graff,
I think the idea is there, but you kind of rushed the story. Especially in the second half. I agree with seraphserpent about the "clinical descriptions of the event". It's too distant and reads like a manual. I have the same problem when writing in third person also. So just keep working on it. Trying to get more into the head of the character and create a less passive tone and voice. It's difficult and I'm still learning to do it too.

I love the description of the cigar in his mouth. That was great. You should add more of that. You did it pretty well in the first half. I got a pretty good sense of the mood and atomosphere, the setting.

A few nitpick things

A few problems with dialogue format. Dialogue format is a pain. Took me forever to figure out the rules.

Follow this link and scoll down to a post by Daniela on Dialogue format. It is pretty helpful.
http://www.writingforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=11158

For the part in bold I think that you should use his name, Nick, instead of "the young man".

The part in italics seems to telling and irrelevant to the story.

Changed to first person?

tense change "is" should be "was"

I'm not sure what those things that killed them were. But I like that for some reason. It's so strange, and I think that's why I like it.

However I think the use of "horrific" is way too telling. Show it, though I'm not sure I want to know specifics.


I hope this doesn't seem to harsh. You seem like someone who is willing to improve.

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Tunkpirate

I can not agree with you more. Just through the dialouge I got to know the character. He was cocky, he was rough around the edges, and I loved it. I think that the first part felt crafted where as the second half felt (please dont take offense) to quick or something. I mean, what you have is a very good idea...the smoke, the plan, really the makings for a good heist story, but then it seems like you coped out a little. Its obious that the thought is there, but perhaps you should re examine the second half. I was confused by what was going on, and even after I read it over a couple times I was still at a loss. Like I said, the first half was killer, really set the tone, but perhaps if you go back and try to build the suspense in the second half, add some thoughts, something to flesh it out, you will have a more complete story.

BTW: What happened at the end...I want to know

__________________
"Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain."

eggo

Hi Graff,

Some insights here were just that, insightful. While you used some beautiful description to paint a picture at the beginning, you lost it in the second half.

The scond half needs more of your descriptive skills to round out the story. Perhaps some detailing of the inside of the casino obscured by smoke or maybe some of the carnage caused by the door being blow off the safe. Maybe some more of the inner angst of our main character which you touched on.

Use your talent of the latter half and I think you will have something very entertaining.

Graff

All your suggestions could not be more correct. I liked the way I worte the first half, and felt like crap writing the second. Something felt so wrong, and I could not get the descriptions down. I am most definitely going to rewrite the second half in an attempt to improve the story.



Absolutely



I think the easiest way to understand what I was trying to say, is to just think it over, and try to figure it out for yourself. The reason for that ending is not something I can really describe, but I can give some hints .

You see, the story was about to end without anyone getting caught. That's just against the rules in a heist story.

Neither. You can call it an act of God, or just some invisibe force, but the team just couldn't get away if you get my drift. Once again, NO heist story ends with all of the assailants escaping with the money. It just doesn't happen. There's always some betrayal, or someone gets caught.

Well, hopefully the ending is more clear now that I've done my best to explain it.

__________________
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." -- William Strunk Jr.

Julianne

I've never been fond of the deus ex machina ending. As a reader, I feel like I have been cheated out of some element of the story. Just my two cents...

J.