TITLE: The Saving Race
GENRE: Romantic Mystery
Nick stood over the body, his gun hanging loosely in his right hand.
He exhaled slowly, releasing a surge of adrenaline from his system. A
curse crossed his lips and he placed his gun under his jacket. Seemed
like a waste of a bullet. While death was certain, the suffering was
needless. Nick’s shot had been fired out of mercy.
With his hands still slightly shaking, he brushed dirt from the knees
of his slacks and turned towards his car. The quiet of the forest was
interrupted by the sound of off-road tires rumbling on asphalt. Not
another car had been sighted the past twenty minutes, and now a car
approaches?
An outdated brown truck squealed to a stop upon seeing Nick’s car. The
approaching man scanned the scene, his eyes darting back and forth
between Nick and the carnage on the ground. “This your hit?” the
middle-aged stranger asked.
“Yeah,” Nick replied breathlessly, “it just happened.”
The man hovered over the body. “Wow, that’s some rack. Blasted shame
to have that happen.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Made a mess of the car too.”
The portly man glanced at the white sedan. “I’ve seen worse. Consider
yourself lucky, what with the size and all.”
Nick replied with a small chuckle as he looked at the mangled fender
and broken headlight. Lucky. Hardly the sentiment he was feeling. He’d
just hit a deer in a borrowed car.
Sorry, not quite hooked...more disoriented. I thought at first that Nick had shot another person, and didn't realize otherwise until the other driver spoke to him. Once I realized what had actually happened I wasn't sure why it mattered enough to open the book with. Also the tense change in the last sentence of the second paragraph puzzled me.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the dialogue sounded real and I was inclined to like Nick.
I like this. I thought he'd just murdered someone, then bam! He'd really hit a deer with his car. This piece would work very well as a self-contained bit of flash fiction. It does make me wonder how it fits into the entire novel, though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Beth. I liked the twist. Made me smile that you'd got me because yea, of course, I was thinking he'd kiled someone.
ReplyDeleteMy only crit is that after the first great sentence, the paragraph slowed a bit. The third sentence in particular seems "off" to me. "A curse crossed his lips.." I'm not a big fan of bad language and I know its risky to put offensive words in right away, but this seems very standoffish after that first poweful sentence. I think I'd just leave the phrase off.
And then the "Seemed like a waste of a bullet." I think I see why you put it in, but that thought contradicts the last line. Nick obviously doesn't think saving a living thing from suffering was a waste. Maybe the line should be less certain. Some might say it was a waste of a bullet- something like that.
Overall, i liked it!
I wanted to know immediately who got killed and why. Then I started asking myself questions. Whose POV are we in? Who's asking about "now a car approaches?" How fast can he be going in the woods to have hit a deer? Wait, he's on an asphalt road in the woods. Can you "hear" off-road tires? What I should be asking is why does he have a gun in the first place?
ReplyDeleteI found your ideas interesting, but I think you could tighten up the writing a bit. For example in the 1st paragraph, "A curse crossed.." is passive. "He cursed.." would be stronger I think. I'd also put "Nick's shot..." right after the curse sentence. Not sure if you need the rest in between.
ReplyDeleteIf you tighten it up some it could be pretty strong.
Hope that helps.
I liked your voice, and I liked Nick. Without seeing the rest of your story, it's hard to know whether this is the best place to begin. It reminds me of the twist at the end of a short story... you think he's murdered someone, and it turns out to be a deer.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the back cover copy promised something else interesting to come, I'd keep reading. Well done, I'm hooked.
I'm going to give you my thoughts as I read this, before reading other comments, so you can see how confusing this is.
ReplyDeleteI started reading and assumed, since this is a Mystery, that the body was human...but then, when the shot was described as one of mercy, I had a momentary thought that this was a western and the guy had shot his horse after a broken leg...which led me scan ahead (not reading closely). I found NOTHING here that specifies whether this is human, alien, or animal.
I didn't know what to think of the "Seemed a waste of a bullet" because I thought he was referring to the next bullet in his gun, since I didn't know he'd just fired one. Adding the word "smoking" before gun in the first sentence might fix that.
The "Nick's shot had been" really loses the sense of action and presence in the story. It's backstory because it jumps back to what had just happened. Move from the "seemed a waste" sentence onto another thought that contrasts it. "Seemed a waste of a bullet, but he wasn't one to let a dying animal/alien/human suffer. Not when death was certain." That would show us his mindset.
Next...his hands are shaking? The first paragraph made me think this was a man who was cool under fire...not someone whose hands were shaking. So that seems inconsistent with what's portrayed so far. (I'm still thinking this is an urban setting and he's an assassin.)
The outdated truck saw Nick's car? :) See the problem with the sentence structure there? It also leaves Nick's POV. I'd just delete "upon seeing Nick's car."
"This your hit?" makes me think this is a world where assassins rule, so the body must be human. Then, Nick agrees and claims it, then says, "it just happened" as though he wasn't involved, so I'm confused.
Now, I see the reference to a rack. My first thought was "huh?" until I finally thought hunting, and figured maybe this was a DEER'S body, which immediately led me to wonder if you'd made sure that wherever this location is, hunting with handguns is allowed and in season, because that doesn't happen very often. THEN it occurred to me that he might have hit the deer with his car, and happened to have the gun, which would explain that first paragraph a little more.
The next paragraph explained it...but by then, it was too late. I see now that two commenters liked the twist...but for me, twists and surprises of that nature just don't work for novels. You're trying to draw people into your story, and twists that require a total redrawing of the scene in our heads don't do that. You really need to work to make sure that your readers know what they're seeing right off the bat.
Mention that it's a deer laying on the forest floor. Somehow show us that there was an accident before you mention the handgun, because many readers will immediately get suspicious otherwise, thinking that you aren't aware that most hunting is done with bows or rifles or shotguns. Even with the accident, you'll have some of us on guard, wondering if this guy happens to live in a state where you can carry a concealed handgun without a concealed weapons permit, or if he has one.
Finally... now that I've gotten to the end, I'm wondering why we're supposed to be interested in someone hitting a deer...and I'm struggling with disbelief that a deer large enough to have a good sized rack would only mangle a fender and headlight in a collision that made death certain. That's not realistic. Deer with good racks generally can still manage to struggle hundreds of yards after TOTALING a car. So if only the very front of the car is mangled, then the deer was only clipped and the man wouldn't have been able to find it, even if he'd hiked for a mile or more. So you need to re-think your scene, or delete it in exchange for something with a hook.
Not hooked, sorry. This one was close, though.
ReplyDeleteI can't decide how I feel about the trickery with the deer (that is, whether it's clever and interesting or annoying and unfair). I found it disorienting, but since the length restriction prevents us from finding out what happens next, it's impossible to say whether or not, in context, it actually works. I do wonder about the apparent nonchalance of the other driver: I'd be seriously freaked out if I were driving along and came upon a person holding a gun -- as in, there's no way I'd stop and get out of my car. (Of course, I'm petite and female, which no doubt makes a difference in that equation.)
That said, I did ultimately decide I liked Nick. However -- "Seemed like a waste of a bullet" seems out of character: either he's freaked out by the situation and distressed at what he's had to do, as the rest of that passage suggests, or he's callous and jaded, as suggested by that one line, but I don't see how he can be both.
POV is a bit shaky; I think the main problem is the use of passive voice (which obscures whose POV we're in).
I'm with Joanna. I ended rather disoriented.
ReplyDeleteWhy was his mercy shot a waste? Did he not think he was doing the right thing when he did it?
I think you could probably just say "blast shame" and leave it at that. The rest of the sentence seems superfluous.
I don't think the twist was bad. I just wasn't in the mindset for something like that. Still, I'd probably keep going.
"This your hit?" made me suspect this was a deer. "Rack" confirmed it.
ReplyDeleteGeographically I become a little lost. "The quiet of the forest" led me to believe that he was in the forest, when, in fact, he was on the highway or the shoulder of the highway, right?
A couple of POV issues, but I liked the voice and am now even more curious to know about this guy -- and why he's carrying a gun.
I'm not sure if I would read on with this. Granted, this isn't my genre. But I agree with a comment earlier about this sounding like a piece of flash fiction, with your ending being the punch line that it's a deer, not a person he killed. End of murder mystery. But there's nothing really to make me keep reading. It ends too neatly. And I understand that the fault might be simply where the excerpt had cut off, but still. There's no story question coming to my mind and I wonder what this scene has to do with the rest of the novel.
ReplyDeleteI like that you play with our expectations by making us think it's a human. On the other hand, hitting deer is almost a daily occurrence where I'm from, so the event itself doesn't grab me.
ReplyDeleteI would also look at the last two sentences of the first paragraph. They directly contradict the sentence before, which takes away impact and makes your point unclear. I think the paragraph would have a lot more punch without them, and in a first paragraph, the punchier the better, right?
Not hooked, sorry. I agree with all that Kathleen said, plus two more things.
ReplyDeleteI LIKE to read, so when I am reading I want to believe Nick--which isn't to say that I dislike unreliable narrators--because I don't.
What I don't like is that I feel as though I've heard this one before--maybe on an episode of the Sopranos...so I DON'T LIKE the "gotcha sucka" reader feeling that this piece leaves me with.
The other thing is the passive voice kills me: "Not
another car had been sighted the past twenty minutes." As a former English teacher--both high school and college--it makes me want to take out my red bleeding pen and go to town.
My suggestion--make this a real woman with a real rack and go to town.