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Thursday, July 17, 2008

#24 SECRET AGENT Are You Hooked?

Title: Juvenis
Genre: Science Fiction

The pounding on the door sprang my body to life. I groped in the pitch-blackness for the nightstand. Fumbling around on the tabletop, an object slipped and the sound of breaking glass split the air. There went the ashtray.

Hard metal grazed my fingers. My hand instinctively wrapped around the barrel, the handle, and then the trigger. Those contours would make the pounding stop. I'd like to see them try to take me alive.

"Hey, Lotti!" A man's voice hollered. "Rise and shine!"

I fell back on the pillows. It was the superintendent, Bert, and at the sound of his deep baritone voice, it was 6 a.m. I'd asked him to give me a shout every morning; yet, every morning I woke in a panic. Alarm clocks were worse. Their sudden robotic screeching took me back to the place where my nightmares began.

"Shut up!" A voice croaked. Mrs. Calloway lived four doors down. She worked nights and chain-smoked mornings. Her voice grew hoarser every day.

"Go on back to bed!" That was Bert's usual answer. He would tease her about needing the rest of her beauty sleep. At this hour, she hadn't finished transforming back to human.

"Owooooo!" He howled at her, sending her back to her apartment spewing obscenities. She slammed the door at the sound of his rolling belly laughter.

When the Punch and Judy show wrapped up, I stumbled out of bed. Making my way to the bathroom, I clung to every surface within reach.

19 comments:

  1. Yes, I am hooked. The first stentence drew me in, after that I drifted a little. I want to find out why she is so jumpy, what have alarms meant to her in the past.

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  2. I was less impressed. It seems pretty standard SF a la Dashiell Hammett fare. What's different here? What hint of coming attractions?

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  3. There's lot of potential but I want to see more editing done. There are flabby words that you don't need here, cut them and the writing becomes tighter and smoother.

    Still, with a little work this is going to be very good.

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  4. I liked the line she worked nights and chain smoked mornings.
    Overall, though, I wouldn't read on. The fault is within me, not the writing. Just not my thing.

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  5. On one hand, I like the voice and the hints of back story and whatnot, BUT, you start with the [censored] character waking up! Stop it, people, for the love of chocolate, STOP IT. :P

    *cough*

    Sorry.

    It needs some editing, and I would much rather see the story start in a different place and use the wake up call later, once we're invested.

    So no, becuase of the opening, I'm not hooked, even though I do like parts of it. I'd like to see it start elsewhere and you could probably win a yes from me. ;)

    ~Merc

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  6. I think there's an interesting voice in here, but not much conflict to carry the reader to the next page.

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  7. This one's a no for me. There's a lot of the MC telling us about the people in the hall, and Wet Noodle Alert on the wakeup. :) There's also a couple bumpy writing points I'd like to see smoothed (sprang my body to life, clung to every surface within reach).

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  8. Not for me. I like certain SF stories, but I'm not connecting with this one. I like the overall voice, but the opening as a whole needs editing. All the shouting between tenants distracted me from Lotti, who I found more interesting than the neighbor or Bert.

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  9. No. It seems like you're scrambling to throw in all ancillary characters into the scene just to introduce them, and then don't do anything with them. The spatial relationships where these characters are confused me as well.

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  10. I liked the feel of it, but once again the story featured waking up, which is really the most used story opener it seems.

    Wait until later to have the scene and start with a problem. That being said, it could be introduced later in the chapter, seeing as this is the first page but I would keep reading.

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  11. While there are snippets that make me sit up straight and go 'oooo' (eg the werewolf living nextdoor), overall this is a no. There's action, but I don't feel like any of it is actually significant to the story.

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  12. I like the way you write, and you have some great lines.

    However I didn't a feel for the story. Some guy has bad dreams so the super wakes him up every morning.. and then the super tells the neighbor to go back to bed. I don't find anything compelling to make me want to continue.

    Good Luck and thanks for posting.

    jerzegurl

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  13. I'm on the fence leaning towards "no." I want to know why she immediately went for the gun, but... I don't know. But no real substance was here to grab me, make me need to flip that page. Sorry :(

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  14. Meh... waking up from a nightmare and it all just turns out to be a false alarm... nothing here catches me as original or draws me in.

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  15. After reading through the previous entries, I knew I was in trouble with the waking up scene. :S

    Like some of you said, I see now that there really is no hint at what's coming up...what makes this sci-fi...why should you keep reading?

    inkblot: sorry, werewolf was not meant to be literal.


    Thank you all for your comments! :) I'll work on it.

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  16. Yes.

    I like the voice here, and want to know what's wrong with this person.

    I did get thrown off a little by the P&J show reference...

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  17. Sorry, it's a no from me, but mostly because of the waking up, I've just read too many of the 'startled awake' beginnings. If I hadn't read so many, you probably would have gotten a yes from me.

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  18. Hooked? Partially.

    I agree with the wake up part everyone is commenting on. I did the same thing myself on an earlier version of the piece I entered in this contest.

    I read in an editing book "Don't start your story too soon. Don't have your character wake up and go look out the window." I returned to my story, and there was my MC waking up and looking out the window. I whacked a page and a half right there.

    Actually for me though, the wakew up part held my attention better than the landlord tormenting the future cancer patient. That part lost me.

    I like the flavor of the wake up part, where he is screwed up inside, and most things aggravate it. Just find some other way to introduce it.

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  19. Sorry no.

    I'm not engaged in this character waking up in some kind of tenement/hostel.

    I'm reminded of Ellen Ripley in Aliens, living in terror of her past and waking up in mundane surroundings.

    I wanted something to happen to Lotti, or for her to give some hint of the cause of her fear ( a momentary flashback of something horrific). If you could intersperse this with scene setting, I think this would help.

    For example, she might clean her gun, or check her wounds (whatever) when she's listening to the punch and judy show.

    JMO.

    Good luck with this.

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