TITLE: 13 Charlie
GENRE: UMG Fiction
Winning the Jack O’Doodle Doo Winter Freestyle stunt competition is Charlie Sands' ticket out of Maple Falls, Maine (Population: 89.7% geezer, 9.3% adult, 2 teenagers). The scene finds her filming her contest video entry: riding a motorcycle through an abandoned school.
Charlie glanced up at camera five, tethered to a mechanical pulley. It zipped along next to her at an equal speed. She ran over the first trip cord and braced herself.
The force of the explosion rocked Charlie forward in the seat. It wouldn’t sink in until later that had the Jackal not been involved in finalizing the stunt, the amount of C4 she and Wendell had planned to use would have blasted her through the ceiling.
“ Gahh!” she shouted, after the next trip cord blew five locker doors off their hinges. She glanced in the rearview mirror. A ghoul-faced black smoke cloud was fast approaching. She’d be swallowed whole if she didn’t gun it. She revved the engine full throttle and zipped over the last trip cord, a second before the deformed jaws of the smoke-face ghoul snapped behind the rear tire.
The propped-up locker doors fell off their hinges. Two wrapped packages with sizzling cords protruding from their sides tumbled into the hall. Charlie glanced back to see flames hissing down the cords and into the fireworks packages.
Cameraman six stood just outside the school’s front entrance that Quigley had filled with swirling white frost from fire extinguishers. Both jumped back as Charlie zipped through the extinguisher’s fog. Whirring, whipping bands of light, crackling bursts of oranges, reds, blues, yellows and silver funneled out behind her and filled the doorway. Whirlybird rockets flew into the frigid blue and exploded into dazzling gold sparkles, while crackling bands of fiery explosives sputtered out in the snow behind the motorcycle’s wheels.
I swear I'm not a cheerleader, but this is just FUN. The description in that last paragraph, the "Whirring, whipping bands of light, crackling bursts of oranges, reds, blues, yellows and silver funneled out behind her and filled the doorway" is excellent, and there's a great balance of action and character interiority.
ReplyDeleteI guess the only thing that held me up was the "ghoul-faced black smoke." On first read, I focused on "ghoul faced" and thought it was a Halloween-type prop. Only afterward did I realize it's the shape the smoke is making.
I wish I had more useful feedback, but I just enjoyed this one.
Wow, another great voice. The only thing that threw me out was the line 'it wasn't until later' -- I'm not sure you need it. If you do keep it consider making it a thought along the lines of if the small Jackal... then the amount they were going to use but I think it takes away from the urgency and forward motion of the scene so I suggest cutting it.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe keep it in as a distraction, the threat of injury, that she needs to focus away from?
Just one thought. Even with the line, this has a fantastic voice.
I agree, great voice! Even your set-up shows a great MG voice. I love the "Gahh!" A few thoughts:
ReplyDeleteThe ghoul-shaped smoke was a great description until it "snapped" -- definitely an un-smokelike thing to do.
You have locker doors being blown off and others purposefully propped up. Maybe you could describe something else instead of the ones that blow off their hinges.
Could change "and into the fireworks packages" to "toward the enclosed fireworks."
And because so much is going on, I'd reiterate the fireworks part in the last paragraph. Maybe: "Both jumped back as Charlie zipped through the extinguisher’s fog just as the burning fuse launched the pyrotechnic finale."
And what a finale it is! Nice job!
This is a really great scene. My only comment would be that it doesn't read like middle grade. Where does a middle grade kid get C4? The narrative says someone helped them, but she and her friend had planned it on their own and that seems a bit outside my ability to suspend disbelief. Other than that, the writing itself was fantastic.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with this ms!
Now THAT is an explosion. Heck yeah!!
ReplyDeleteAnd one of my favorite parts isn't the explosion at all but the summary.
"(Population: 89.7% geezer"
LOVE!
"It wouldn’t sink in until later that had the Jackal not been involved in finalizing the stunt, the amount of C4 she and Wendell had planned to use would have blasted her through the ceiling.
“ Gahh!” she shouted, after the next trip cord blew five locker doors off their hinges. She glanced in the rearview mirror."
That was the weak part. The first bit about the Jackal is important and I want to know it, but the wording and placement threw me and I had to re-read to get it.
The same with "she shouted, after". I know there's a comma there, but we're reading faster in an action scene, and I read it first as "she shouted after." It might be good to tweak that.
Otherwise, it's simply fantastic. Good luck!!!
I LOVE this! The visuals, the tension, everything about it grabbed me from the start. I do think you can improve the flow a little, but over all, I really like this.
ReplyDeleteThis was a ton of fun. So refreshing to find a controlled explosion in the midst of all the death and destruction of this crit round. Like most of the other commenters, I just loved the fireworks at the end.
ReplyDeleteThe only weak spot for me was the Jackal reference. Jumping ahead to "she realized later..." pulled me out of what was happening in the moment. I would suggest amping up the description of how Charlie is thrown right there, so we feel how big the explosion is, and wait until after the ride is over to explain that what a close call she had.
In parg. 2, we don't see an explosion. You don't even tell us it happened. We get - the 'force' of the explosion. So perhaps mention that something exploded, then tell us the result.
ReplyDeleteThe - It wouldn't sink in - stops the action, so you might want to cut that. I do think it's necessary info, but perhaps fit it in later.
In Parg. 3, she 'Gaaahing' before the next explosion. Have the locker doors blow off their hinges first, then let her 'Gaah!'
In the last parg, don't explain about cameraman 6. Just have her zip past him, then have him react.
The ending fireworks were great!
The only real issue I had was with suspension of disbelief. I wondered about a middle grader riding a motorcycle, and where they got cameras and explosives and the money for all those fireworks. If she was in high school, it would be easier to believe, but it was hard to buy this coming from a middle-grader.
I agree with other commenters about things in paragraph 2 and 3 that could use tweaking. But I actually found the last image the hardest to really comprehend. I love what's building there, but in this draft there are a lot of descriptive words all sort of stacked together, and I had to read it a few times to really understand. There are a lot of adjectives and adverbs here. Normally uses as few as possible helps add clarity.
ReplyDelete"Whirring, whipping bands of light, crackling bursts of oranges, reds, blues, yellows and silver funneled out behind her and filled the doorway."
Because of the punctuation, I'm not sure if the bands of light are also the crackling bursts. Maybe simplify:
"Whirring bands of light--oranges, reds, blues, yellows and silver--funneled out behind her and filled the doorway."
Same with the other sentence:
"Whirlybird rockets flew into the frigid blue and exploded into dazzling gold sparkles, while crackling bands of fiery explosives sputtered out in the snow behind the motorcycle’s wheels."
"Whirlybird rockets flew into the frigid blue and exploded into sparkles, while fiery explosives sputtered out in the snow behind the motorcycle’s wheels."
Just a thought! Keep writing. :)
You did a great job with the summary.
ReplyDeleteI agree with moving the info about the Jackal's help to after the ride somewhere. It stops the action where it is.
You could also enhance that moment so it is more memorable when the info is given later: The force of the explosion rocked Charlie forward in the seat forcing her to...to keep from flying off the bike.
My opinion is the "stacked adjectives" and many adverbs work in this scene, though convention tells us not to write that way. You can break convention here!
The ghoul-faced smoke was a bit confusing as presented. Maybe change up the order of a events a bit so we know when/from where it appeared:
The next trip cord blew five locker doors off their hinges, shooting a ghoul-faced black smoke cloud after her.
“ Gahh!” she shouted, glancing in the rearview mirror at the fast approaching smoke. She’d be swallowed whole if she didn’t gun it.
I hope this doesn't put me in the geezer population (lol, love that) but I don't quite get this. Maybe the previous setting to the moment explains that she and someone else planted the explosions and how they were supposed to go off. We see how they didn't and it works. I just don't know what's going on here and I had to reread it. Is the smoke just smoke? Or is there a monster "ghoul" in there with her? That's where I get confused. It feels like you're staging an event that she set up herself, but I can't tell what's really going on. Maybe lengthen the scene a bit more. I like the voice. Great tone. Just confused.
ReplyDelete"It wouldn’t sink in until later that had ...."
ReplyDeleteI think you might want to either place commas in the sentence, or rephrase it into two sentences. I had to reread the first segment a couple times to figure out what was going on. (I did like the idea that she'd used too much C4 originally... though I wonder if you might cut the line there and have her actually consider that at a later point, since it says it wouldn't occur to her until late.)
Maybe cut "Gahh! she shouted" and replace it with a single, stronger verb illustrating the point. That, or have a bit of the description what she's doing before she speaks. I've found I have a hard time deciding whether to actually say what the person screams, or leave it to the reader to decide.
I like the last paragraph best. For me, it was the clearest, had a strong dramatic effect, and gave me a good visual image of what's going on. I had a bit of trouble with the moments before hand, though if some of this has been set up in previous scenes, it might read smoother for the readers who's already read that.
Good luck with it. :-)
I feel like the bit about "it wouldn't sink it until later" takes me out of the action into the future. That works great later, when "it" actually does sink in, but for now this doesn't heighten the danger. You're talking about a danger that ISN'T, since she and Wendell didn't end up using that amount of C4, so it's not as high-tension as everything else.
ReplyDeleteLOTS of explosions here. I love the variety in them! The shout does throw me off a bit, since you put it before an event it happens after. Shorter sentences, all in chronological order, are best for action. Trip cord blows five locker doors off their hinges; she cries out. Or, she cries out AS, not AFTER--that usually holds the action better without me having to tangle my brain with before and after, which takes about a nanosecond longer to process. (I'm making that up, but seriously, putting before and after words in there slows down the action a bit for me!)
Thanks for sharing!