Part 1 knots and crosses.
I liked knots and crosses because it started with the action straight away as they said “Who brought this in, Mac?” he brought me into the story and just made me carry on and on. I never did wanted it to stop, he also had great description in his writing
Part 2 The Kidnapper
Peter was fourteen years of age, he was a man of great size, he was like the so called tough chivalrous boy, but on the other he was a sympathetic young lad with a soft heart. He had wavy blonde hair with black streaks. Peter was wearing a green wooly jumper, with brown jeans.
On a cool mid summers evening in Essex, Peter was on his way from his aunties house.
As he was making his way home Peter was suspicious of the whereabouts and he felt something atrocious had happened. He was eager to find what the issue was. If Peter was
Lucky enough to find a piece of evidence it would have been great, indeed it was. He found a brief letter of a random young kid that would be kidnapped, the most useful description was the name of the suspect.
Peter woke up determined to solve this, even though he was at the age of fourteen, the age might not have mattered but he had the love and care, he was on his way to police station to hand in the piece of evidence, when he arrived and gave in the letter, they were delighted to hear about this, as they knew themselves about had been going on.
The police were on the case, they had took the letter to the forensics were they found finger prints and DNA , they found out the information of were he lives. The next morning they were on the move hunting him down, they knocked on the door put the man to the floor hand cuffs around his arms, and searched the room were the young boy was wrapped around with a rope, the boy was flooded with tears, the boy was taken back to the police station, as the kidnapper was taken into custody and on his way to court to be charged a long sentence.
This is my favourite extract as well, like you say, it opens at a really interesting point of the story. It does this in a very special way: it is not overly dramatic, yet poses a myriad of questions for the reader, encouraging them to read on. Be careful with your tenses and punctuation.
ReplyDeleteI think this piece would have been stronger if it had been the opening to a longer body of work. The opening is strong as it sets up character, setting and plot straight away, pulling the reader into the action. However I do wonder about the plausibility of the storyline… a young boy thinks something is wrong, then conveniently finds a letter with a kidnappers address on it? Maybe it would be better to omit some things from the story, this would build tension and make the story hold together better.
The ending feels a bit rushed as you are very ambitious in what you want to include in the story. Sometimes it is hard to cut things you really like, yet it makes your work stronger. Really concentrate on what is necessary to the story and then work on that. I feel that the strongest part of your work is the character building. I would concentrate on that as a passage for your reader into the story. Then drop subtle hints and clues about what is happening in the plot. Crime fiction is all about subtleties so that the reader can figure out what is happening as the detectives do. Try to show what is happening in the story rather than telling us.
Hello again,
ReplyDeleteI have little to add to this piece really, as I agree with Gina's comments 100%, and if you follow them to the letter then the piece will improve exponentially.
As Gina has stated, this piece would function better as the beginning to a larger body of work, and definitely the best avenue to follow would be character building, for one very good reason; Peter is around your age. Therefore you will have an easy ability to write for him due to your own experiences and those of your social circle; the second half of your story deals with the adult world of forensic detective-work, and I'm just going to take a wild guess that you haven't had much experience in this area because it shows; the first half of the story is much more believable. By and large it is easier for writers to write what they know, and if writing about something outside your experience, then try and conceal your inexperience by combining the subject matter with something more familiar; for example, concentrate more on the human, personal side of detective-work. Basically a writer should always know their limitations, but don't get me wrong; one should always push those limitations and challenge themselves to write outside their experience, but this should be a gradual process.
One thing I would also say regarding your characterisation, however, is that, while it is certainly thorough and very well realised, it is important that you are sure that every detail is relevant. For example, while Peter's age and personality are obviously important to the story, I am unsure of the relevance of 'Peter was wearing a green wooly jumper, with brown jeans'. Fashion sense is a very effective way to present a character's personality, but you need to know exactly what it says about him. In this instance the clothes you have given him are fairly nondescript; I am not sure what they tell me. If he was wearing very neat clothes I would have certain ideas about his personality, and the same if he was wearing a leather jacket...basically what I am saying is that you need to be sure you know exactly why every word of your story is there.
What would also be helpful would be some indication as to Peter's relationship with the kidnap-case, other than merely finding a crucial piece of evidence. While it is not imperative for Peter to have any relationship to the kidnapped child, it is important that there is at least SOME reason for Peter to get involved with this matter. The other solution, of course, is to be deliberately ambiguous, which also works very well as it will keep the reader hooked and curious as to why a 14 year-old boy is getting involved in a criminal investigation.
In any case, there are some very fascinating ideas in your writing, and I am especially fond of your ambition, but it needs to be tempered and disciplined before it can improve, and I am confident that you can achieve this very speedily,
Well done,
Eoghan