Hey mate, finally found the time to read this, been looking forward to it and it didn't disappoint.
The descriptions and the senses are really tight. "a glass that smells of chlorine and saliva" is some powerful shit, I really felt that. There's loads like that that I really really like.
I see Maegan's commented (Hi Maegan), and said a couple of things I was going to say. I think the descriptions and scene setting can be cut down a bit. An example would be: "Standing and stretching, he carries the folder to his backpack where he places it in an elasticated pocket behind an A4 notebook and broken laptop he doesn’t remember ever working." I don't need that level of detail there.
What I like with the long drawn-out slow build is that I got the sense very early that there's going to be a dramatic change of mood ignited by a rash scene of violence, and that got me slowly more and more excited. But there's a fine line between slow build and too-slow build, and you're definitely skirting that line.
One quick way to speed it up would be to go through and delete all the unnecessary "and"s and "is"s. Example: "and the flat is quiet enough" could become "the flat quiet enough".
"a futon only big enough for one" could be "a tiny futon" or "a futon for one" for example.
"The flat is stuffy from all the rebreathed air of man and machine; the windows are shut most of the time." is probably my favourite sentence, I love it, I feel it, I want to open a window. It's great. The picture I have of this guy is so vivid.
But then the image I have of the girl, basically as a weak, skinny junkie, makes it hard for me to believe that she can pack such a punch and also be able to overpower him, manhandle him like she does, so easily. So I either need to see earlier why he is so weak, or why she is so deadly. This might just be me, though. I'll read it all again sometime in the upcoming days and see if I get a different impression.
I found a typo: "you can talk me though what you’ve found?”
And I'm not sure, but I think desk-top doesn't need the hyphen, think it's one word.
All in all, mate, it does what you want a piece of writing to do and that is hold the reader's attention. I definitely wanted to keep reading, and still do.
All of these pieces of advice are just editing things.
Ah I almost forgot, I also made the same observation as Maegan about changing point of view. I'm typing this on my phone so can't see the exact sentence right now, but from memory it was something like "He looked small in the chair" but it came right after a description of her I think, or a thought of hers. Whatever it was, for a moment I remember being a little disoriented by the shift.
Hope this is all helpful, mate. Glad you're writing, glad you're posting, and as always I'm a fan of your work.
Dude, thank you so much for reading and for the extensive notes!
I totally agree with you. There was a fair bit of description that got bloated for word count purposes, but I also wanted to try something a little different. I usually have such short sentences, and for the first draft, the rhythm was far too staccato for my liking. It was all short jabbing sentences that kind of fit a mood but left it feeling devoid of fun. I was interested in the rhythm of the words so I wanted to try and change it up a bit, but I'm not sure it's been that successful (I've been reading loads of stories to my little lad, and I'm envious of the rhyme and rhythm of children's stories, so I kind of wanted a bit of a more adult version of that).
I wanted the girl to be more capable than she looked. She wouldn't look much, but would be the sort of person who'd quite easily resort to violence at the slightest provocation. In early drafts, there was less dialogue, less back and forth, and more tension, but it just read far too bleak.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to critique, mate, it's really helpful and really appreciated. I think I need to leave it alone for a long time now, I'm sick of the sight of it! I've got some other bits on the go, so I'll be sure to send them your way to cast an eye over.
Hey Matt! This is cool. It's like cozy meets sci-fi. (I think? I'm no cozy expert). When I reached the line, "He sits wearing only Adidas...", that's where I jumped in, my attention was grabbed. I wonder if you could start closer to there and weave some of the scene setting in a little bit later. I'm not sure how important the scene setting was for me in my understanding of what was taking place. For me, After the Adidas bit, my brain followed the bread crumbs you were dropping like it wanted to solve the puzzle.
At the line, "After removing his jacket, he kicks off his shoes and sets them on the mat by the door. She doesn’t. If questioned, she could blame the laces running up to her knees, but she wouldn’t. " you changed POV to the woman, am I reading that correctly?
I think the ending ends in a good place. You've left an open loop for the reader--will he get away? will he be forced to help her?
All in all, I'd say this was gripping. Could read quicker if some of the descriptions were shortened up. Maybe check the tennis-match in the dialogue, though I think a little bit of tennis-match is kind of part of the typical cozy, maybe? is it?
It's cool though. Sci-fi + Mystery. I'm digging it.
You're quite right, the Addidas line was originally at the start, but I ended up changing the order of things to try and make it read as if you were watching a camera pan around the room, setting the scene before anything happened. I'm not sure if the imagery translated that well though, and I've reordered and rewritten it so many bloody times that I think that anything I originally intended has been trampled all over.
It set out being (and bear with me on this) a reto-futuristic noir thing (I know that sounds super wanky, but it's the closest thing I can think of to describe it). It was a lot darker in tone and more like the sort of thing I'd usually write, but it was no fun, so I wanted to have some buddy-style comic book dialogue. It's something I struggle with though, so I need more practice.
Same with the perspective. Third person does not come naturally, and I end up drifting from an omniscient viewpoint to something more character focused and I struggle to keep track.
But thanks for reading and for the notes, they're really helpful, especially as this is a more experimental thing for me. I think it'll be a while before I return to it though, I'm sick of the sight of it!
You've got really great descriptions, don't get me wrong. Re-reading, I see the cinematic effect. Maybe try this: in the first few paragraphs, see if you can replace "is", "are" (to be verbs) with more active verbs like you did in the first sentence with your verb, "covers." Just that simple (haha yet not simple) change might add that sense of movement that you give to me in the Adidas line. Or maybe not, just a thought.
As for the third person, I try to think of it like I'm writing from whichever character I'm pretending to be, but every time I go to use the word, "I", just replace it with He. Or she. Or whoever. But you can still get up close and personal. You can still say stuff right from the character's head.
I try to ask myself who is telling the story. And sometimes the answer is multiple people, and then it gets multiple POV's. But I think it's easier for the reader to catch you put a *** between jumps or if you reserve one chapter per POV.
I liked the POV change you did in this one, but wanted to call it out to make sure it was intentional. And since this is part of something longer, I'd say you could totally do an each chapter is told from different POV thing. Whatever you end up doing, having fun is key! You got this.
You make it sound (and look) so easy! But that's excellent advice so I'm absolutely gonna take it and use it.
As for POV, I just wanted to give extra attention to the introduction of a new character, so it was more of a slight shift of focus rather than a completely intentional change.
Thanks again for reading and helping out Maegan, it's massively appreciated!
Matt- This is a thoroughly engaging piece. For some reason the sentence that really stood out to me was: “He knows of her by reputation.” There’s a ring to it. I love it.
Hey mate, finally found the time to read this, been looking forward to it and it didn't disappoint.
The descriptions and the senses are really tight. "a glass that smells of chlorine and saliva" is some powerful shit, I really felt that. There's loads like that that I really really like.
I see Maegan's commented (Hi Maegan), and said a couple of things I was going to say. I think the descriptions and scene setting can be cut down a bit. An example would be: "Standing and stretching, he carries the folder to his backpack where he places it in an elasticated pocket behind an A4 notebook and broken laptop he doesn’t remember ever working." I don't need that level of detail there.
What I like with the long drawn-out slow build is that I got the sense very early that there's going to be a dramatic change of mood ignited by a rash scene of violence, and that got me slowly more and more excited. But there's a fine line between slow build and too-slow build, and you're definitely skirting that line.
One quick way to speed it up would be to go through and delete all the unnecessary "and"s and "is"s. Example: "and the flat is quiet enough" could become "the flat quiet enough".
"a futon only big enough for one" could be "a tiny futon" or "a futon for one" for example.
"The flat is stuffy from all the rebreathed air of man and machine; the windows are shut most of the time." is probably my favourite sentence, I love it, I feel it, I want to open a window. It's great. The picture I have of this guy is so vivid.
But then the image I have of the girl, basically as a weak, skinny junkie, makes it hard for me to believe that she can pack such a punch and also be able to overpower him, manhandle him like she does, so easily. So I either need to see earlier why he is so weak, or why she is so deadly. This might just be me, though. I'll read it all again sometime in the upcoming days and see if I get a different impression.
I found a typo: "you can talk me though what you’ve found?”
And I'm not sure, but I think desk-top doesn't need the hyphen, think it's one word.
All in all, mate, it does what you want a piece of writing to do and that is hold the reader's attention. I definitely wanted to keep reading, and still do.
All of these pieces of advice are just editing things.
Ah I almost forgot, I also made the same observation as Maegan about changing point of view. I'm typing this on my phone so can't see the exact sentence right now, but from memory it was something like "He looked small in the chair" but it came right after a description of her I think, or a thought of hers. Whatever it was, for a moment I remember being a little disoriented by the shift.
Hope this is all helpful, mate. Glad you're writing, glad you're posting, and as always I'm a fan of your work.
Dude, thank you so much for reading and for the extensive notes!
I totally agree with you. There was a fair bit of description that got bloated for word count purposes, but I also wanted to try something a little different. I usually have such short sentences, and for the first draft, the rhythm was far too staccato for my liking. It was all short jabbing sentences that kind of fit a mood but left it feeling devoid of fun. I was interested in the rhythm of the words so I wanted to try and change it up a bit, but I'm not sure it's been that successful (I've been reading loads of stories to my little lad, and I'm envious of the rhyme and rhythm of children's stories, so I kind of wanted a bit of a more adult version of that).
I wanted the girl to be more capable than she looked. She wouldn't look much, but would be the sort of person who'd quite easily resort to violence at the slightest provocation. In early drafts, there was less dialogue, less back and forth, and more tension, but it just read far too bleak.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to critique, mate, it's really helpful and really appreciated. I think I need to leave it alone for a long time now, I'm sick of the sight of it! I've got some other bits on the go, so I'll be sure to send them your way to cast an eye over.
Thanks again!
I know that feeling only too well.
Great insight, Kris!
Hey Matt! This is cool. It's like cozy meets sci-fi. (I think? I'm no cozy expert). When I reached the line, "He sits wearing only Adidas...", that's where I jumped in, my attention was grabbed. I wonder if you could start closer to there and weave some of the scene setting in a little bit later. I'm not sure how important the scene setting was for me in my understanding of what was taking place. For me, After the Adidas bit, my brain followed the bread crumbs you were dropping like it wanted to solve the puzzle.
At the line, "After removing his jacket, he kicks off his shoes and sets them on the mat by the door. She doesn’t. If questioned, she could blame the laces running up to her knees, but she wouldn’t. " you changed POV to the woman, am I reading that correctly?
I think the ending ends in a good place. You've left an open loop for the reader--will he get away? will he be forced to help her?
All in all, I'd say this was gripping. Could read quicker if some of the descriptions were shortened up. Maybe check the tennis-match in the dialogue, though I think a little bit of tennis-match is kind of part of the typical cozy, maybe? is it?
It's cool though. Sci-fi + Mystery. I'm digging it.
Thank you so much for reading, Maegan! You hero!
You're quite right, the Addidas line was originally at the start, but I ended up changing the order of things to try and make it read as if you were watching a camera pan around the room, setting the scene before anything happened. I'm not sure if the imagery translated that well though, and I've reordered and rewritten it so many bloody times that I think that anything I originally intended has been trampled all over.
It set out being (and bear with me on this) a reto-futuristic noir thing (I know that sounds super wanky, but it's the closest thing I can think of to describe it). It was a lot darker in tone and more like the sort of thing I'd usually write, but it was no fun, so I wanted to have some buddy-style comic book dialogue. It's something I struggle with though, so I need more practice.
Same with the perspective. Third person does not come naturally, and I end up drifting from an omniscient viewpoint to something more character focused and I struggle to keep track.
But thanks for reading and for the notes, they're really helpful, especially as this is a more experimental thing for me. I think it'll be a while before I return to it though, I'm sick of the sight of it!
Thanks again!
You've got really great descriptions, don't get me wrong. Re-reading, I see the cinematic effect. Maybe try this: in the first few paragraphs, see if you can replace "is", "are" (to be verbs) with more active verbs like you did in the first sentence with your verb, "covers." Just that simple (haha yet not simple) change might add that sense of movement that you give to me in the Adidas line. Or maybe not, just a thought.
As for the third person, I try to think of it like I'm writing from whichever character I'm pretending to be, but every time I go to use the word, "I", just replace it with He. Or she. Or whoever. But you can still get up close and personal. You can still say stuff right from the character's head.
I try to ask myself who is telling the story. And sometimes the answer is multiple people, and then it gets multiple POV's. But I think it's easier for the reader to catch you put a *** between jumps or if you reserve one chapter per POV.
I liked the POV change you did in this one, but wanted to call it out to make sure it was intentional. And since this is part of something longer, I'd say you could totally do an each chapter is told from different POV thing. Whatever you end up doing, having fun is key! You got this.
You make it sound (and look) so easy! But that's excellent advice so I'm absolutely gonna take it and use it.
As for POV, I just wanted to give extra attention to the introduction of a new character, so it was more of a slight shift of focus rather than a completely intentional change.
Thanks again for reading and helping out Maegan, it's massively appreciated!
Matt- This is a thoroughly engaging piece. For some reason the sentence that really stood out to me was: “He knows of her by reputation.” There’s a ring to it. I love it.