I vanished to do work and here's some of it (545 words)

[subtletylost]

Basically, I'm looking for a critique of my grammar, the flowy-ness of this section (it's part one of a three part prologue), and general things that you feel could be improved upon. Thanks friends.

~~
At three am, most subway stations in the city were empty of all but the sleeping homeless. One station in particular was empty of even them. Or so it seemed. This station, accessed via stairs at the corner of Market St. and Fifth Ave., seemed to be completely empty. On the day to day this station was abandoned, completely and thoroughly, trains didn’t pass through it anymore, and they hadn’t in years. At night it was lit by a sole working light. In the shadows of the light stood a man. The only man crazy enough to be alone in an abandoned subway station at three am. He was a relatively tall man, standing six feet nine inches tall, average build and wearing a black cloak. He had a couple of really good reasons for picking this particular station, at this particular time. Being as it was abandoned the police never bothered to patrol it and it was underground which meant he had more power here.

The man was waiting here for his accomplice to arrive. He waited quietly and patiently. His mind was wandering, a thing it did quite often, and he kept seeing in his mind’s eye this bratty girl with long black hair and strikingly red eyes. He knew this girl was trouble. She’d be the downfall of his plans, if his accomplice failed him. As his mind wandered it also focused on a task, searching for the familiar life sign of his accomplice. When he noticed that familiar life sign walking down the stairs to the station he refocused on the situation at hand.

“Boss?” the voice was gruff familiar to him.

“Ah, yes. Welcome to my lair Cutthroat. What do you think of it?” His voice had an authoritative tone to it with a slightly Greek accent.

“It’s dark.” Cutthroat stepped into the light, what little bit of light there was. He was as gruff as his voice. A big man about seven feet tall and two hundred seventy-five pounds of pure muscle.

“Just the way I like it,” the cloaked man laughed.

“It suits you boss.”

“Thank you, Cutthroat. Now, do you know why I called you here today?”

Cutthroat thought about the question. HE scratched his head for a moment then remembered what his job title of mercenary meant. “You need me to kill someone?”

“That’s right, Cutthroat. I need you to make sure the girl“ he handed Cutthroat a slip of paper “living here doesn’t ever get the chance to interfere with my plans. Understand?”

“How will I know if I kill the right person?”

“Kill them all, I don’t really care. The girl you’re looking for has red eyes, that’s a rare trait in mortals. Kill the one with red eyes if you don’t want to kill them all. Just don’t fail me.”

Cutthroat nodded tersely. “Don’t worry boss. I’ve never failed before, and I’m not going to start now.”

“Excellent. Now go. I shall be awaiting news that you’ve successfully completed this task.”

Cutthroat nodded again. “I’m on it boss.” He turned, stuffing the paper into the pocket of his jeans, and left the station.

The cloaked man smiled wickedly. “The gods will fall.” He laughed menacingly and disappeared into the shadows of the station.

 

[Brian G Turner]

A question - which type of POV style are you writing in, and why? What are the strengths and weaknesses of that, and how will that affect your story?

Simply that IMO you need to understand something of the tools of structure to use them successfully. Reading the piece above, I don't get the impression that you've considered that, which makes your piece feel like it lacks discipline.

 

[tinkerdan]

You might want to place in a bit more of what it is you are trying to achieve here.

Let me explain a bit.

You start with a distant paragraph setting up a potential mood that looks bordering onto dark and mysterious. Then you drop down to the shadowy man waiting alone in the near darkness with dim thoughts directed against some young girl or possibly a child. And all of this seems to stay mostly omniscient third and rather distant. Distant enough that I'm not sure that I really feel the annoyance with the girl that you might want us to feel.

Now the rest is most important because it begins to look silly in a rather humorless way. It's as though you are working toward a dark comedy though I am not all that sure that's your goal.

Read through their dialogue and you get this feeling like two people reciting back and forth a shopping list or maybe examining an inventory of things. But for me I keep getting the feel that other than putting in for an order of murder most foul these two could be inline at a fast food restaurant deciding what to order. Or worse yet the dark man is telling his secretary to order up a dozen ways of death for this young girl in the same manner he would suggest having him pick up a dozen red roses and take them to this address and make sure that the woman whose eyes match the flowers gets them.

There is really no good way to judge the emotions here because we don't get close enough to either of these people for those types of judgement and for that and for me it ends up looking silly by the time we reach the bottom so my question is is this a dark comedy or what.

 

[tinkerdan]

On another thought I believe you could draw closer to the character in the beginning of this and enhance the mood a bit by involving the reader in some of what he feels and hears tastes and smells.
As an example I've cobbled this together::

Three am, the darkest part of the morning even in the subway station where, like a dryer filter, detritus floating through the city was collect. Usually it was the homeless and sometimes the occasional unwary traveler who through lack of diligence have lost their luggage and temporarily haven't the means to acquire a room in a hotel. This particular station, where the tall stout man draped in black cloak waited, would stand empty without his presence. It was abandoned and even the police avoided coming here; so he stood in the shadows, preferring to foster the illusion of abandonment. He'd chosen it for its ambiance, as the place best to meet his associate.

His shoulders shrugged, not so much in discomfort as in impatience; he'd waited a while now. The dankness of the underground assaulted him with each careful breath he took. If not for the the caustic collusion of sewage he might have smelt the sea air above. It was not for its lack of trying as the wind was the only sound he could hear echoing through the man-made cavern. That and the faint sound of foot steps he'd anticipated. Strange almost anomalous sounds as the tap tap so gentle belied the monster of a man that stepped through the darker shadows and into the grey areas to be revealed. A formidable man in his own; his accomplice towered over him at seven foot and two hundred five pounds of pure muscle. A man of some man's nightmares stood before him; yet it would most likely surprise the casual observer to find him more concerned with a faint black haired little girl with red eyes. He shook his head of such thoughts, so he could focus on the matters at hand; though in truth the largest of those was the girl.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Basically, I'm looking for a critique of my grammar, the flowy-ness of this section (it's part one of a three part prologue), and general things that you feel could be improved upon. Thanks friends.

~~
At three am, most subway stations in the city were empty of all but the sleeping homeless. One station in particular was empty of even them. Or so it seemed. This station, accessed via stairs at the corner of Market St. and Fifth Ave., seemed to be completely empty. On the day to day this station was abandoned, completely and thoroughly, trains didn’t pass through it anymore, and they hadn’t in years. At night it was lit by a sole working light. In the shadows of the light stood a man. The only man crazy enough to be alone in an abandoned subway station at three am. He was a relatively tall man, standing six feet nine inches tall, average build and wearing a black cloak. He had a couple of really good reasons for picking this particular station, at this particular time. Being as it was abandoned the police never bothered to patrol it and it was underground which meant he had more power here.

I don't dislike this although it is very wordy and can be trimmed.
eg "One station was empty of even them."
"Abandoned completely and thoroughly. Trains no longer passed through it."
6ft9 inches isn't relatively tall it is tall - even taller than Richard Osman. (we don't know enough of the world to know if people are taller than on Earth)

The man was waiting here for his accomplice to arrive. He waited quietly and patiently. His mind was wandering, a thing it did quite often, and he kept seeing in his mind’s eye this bratty girl with long black hair and strikingly red eyes. He knew this girl was trouble. She’d be the downfall of his plans, if his accomplice failed him. As his mind wandered it also focused on a task, searching for the familiar life sign of his accomplice. When he noticed that familiar life sign walking down the stairs to the station he refocused on the situation at hand.

You use a lot of -ly adverbs here. If he must remain nameless I suggest not calling him "The man" just refer to him as he. Take us further into him. As he waits quietly and patiently what does he do? Is he completely still, tapping his foot, singing or humming under his breath. When his mind wandered where does it wander - not just to whom where is the girl who is the girl does he know? Remember he has five senses. What you could do is tell the subway station from his POV - how does it smell, what are the sounds, is the air warm or cold, can he taste the mustiness or is he chewing gum. Is he disturbed by the abandonment or does it make him feel safe? How dark is it? If it is dark how does he make out Cuthroat. They are accomplices but accomplices in what?

 

[J Riff]

I think you might want to get to the guy and keep the subway description to a minimum. The 1st sentence is almost enough.
Cutting stuff out is the position u want to be in so this should be OK with a bit of snipping. *

At three A.M. most subway stations in the city were empty of all but the sleeping homeless. The station at () was lit by ....
In the shadows of the light stood a man. He was relatively tall, standing six feet nine inches with an average build and he was wearing a black cloak. He had a reason for selecting this particular subway station, at this particular time, being as it was abandoned and police rarely patrolled it, and it was underground which meant he had more power here.

 

[vector7]

I think Tinkerdan summed it up clearly. The overall setting and environmental description is good but there is a clear lack of closeness to the characters. It seems to read as if you are giving more focus to the environment and the subway rather than the character in the shadows. And the lack of emotion makes it actually read a bit of a comedy. When I imagine the story, I read it more like corny lines spouted out with an extremely straight face (which Tinkerdan explained clearly). Also, the little lines which do give out the information about the characters actually catch my attention.

One of the things that was interesting:

Being as it was abandoned the police never bothered to patrol it and it was underground which meant he had more power here.

It feels that your story would end up focusing on his powers. I understand that his powers are mysterious right now but it might do good to give this particular text a better position where it is front and center rather than a little anecdote. And my thought is that setting this text up in a better way would provide a nice hook for the reader by teasing about the characters a bit more. In any case, this example still goes back towards how little we know about the characters and this lack of knowledge on the characters really doesn't really help.

Edit: added a bit more of explanation.

 

[JoanDrake]

I like this. I'm especially a fan of old forgotten subway stations. There is something magical seeming about a subway anyhow, like being teleported, but having one that's just a connection to a largely empty tunnel going god know's where..., and yet they're rather starkly modern, not even Victorian in feel, and the creepiness is just amplified by this

Is there any really good reason for these two being so freakishly tall? I ask because it's going to give them problems, especially seeing the line of work they seem to be in.. Did you see anyone suspicious? Well, yeh, there was this giant...

Beyond that I see no basic difficulties. You might tighten it up for impact and experiment with changing things about for effect as has been suggested, but as an intro I find this intriguing and would read on, so it's good to go IMO.

 

[tinkerdan]

Well, any forgotten subway under LA or Hollywood...::

I like this. I'm especially a fan of old forgotten subway stations. .

::Would likely belong to Kage Baker's Company.

 

[Bowler1]

This station, accessed via stairs at the corner of Market St. and Fifth Ave., seemed to be completely empty. – Directions??? Why do I need directions?

“It suits you, boss.” – Missing direct address comma.


Cutthroat thought about the question. HE scratched his head for a moment then remembered what his job title of mercenary meant. “You need me to kill someone?” - Break in POV from the Boss.

You switched POV in the middle which is generally not done. Some small errors in punctuation, but not too bad and I’ll assume this is an early draft and not edited and polished to within an inch of its life. The opening two paragraphs were too long for me and the first repeated the empty station image a number of times. The opening could be much shorter and focused.

This was (once you got going) heavy on dialogue with little connecting emotion, background (what things looked like, (other than the characters) and don’t forget touch, smell and all the other senses) and depth in general. You’ve not described the world your characters live in and this is one of the reasons why I read – to experience a new world born of a writer’s imagination.

His voice had an authoritative - Cutthroat nodded tersely = Authoritative and tersely were for me telling and not showing. There is a balance to be struck and both have a place in good writing, but here I wasn’t so sure (definitely on authoritatively – what does that mean?).

Try a word search of “the” please and see how often it is use in this section.
walking down the stairs – to – walking down stairs
On the day to day this station – to – Day to day this station
Most “the” belong, don’t get me wrong, but in this section “the” felt over used to me.

I didn’t feel much tension in this section and that is because it lacked emotion in general, or so I think. Because of that, I wasn’t really hooked. Like most of your other reviews here, I felt you need to get closer to the characters to make this work. Keep at it, this is how we learn.

 

[Avid Scifi Fan]

I think its a good start. Here's a few things I noticed:

Lots of repetition in the first paragraph:

stations in the city were empty
station in particular was empty
This station,...,seemed to be completely empty
station was abandoned

stood a man
only man
tall man

Also, I'm not sure on this one, but shouldn't "am" be "AM" when refering to time. it is an acronym. I recommend changing the second time it appears "three am" to something like "three in the morning" to avoid the same repetition.

When he conversation began:

“Boss?” the voice was gruff familiar to him. (the only voice at the moment is "him". You may want to move this statement to a later point after the other guy speaks.)

“Ah, yes. Welcome to my lair Cutthroat. What do you think of it?” His voice had an authoritative tone to it with a slightly Greek accent.(I don't like pronouns as an introduction to a new charater. Maybe its just me, but I would prefer a name or description until I get a name.)