The beginning of a novel. Need your opinion!

[Jackie Bee]

The following is the beginning of my first novel's prologue.
The genre is post-apocalyptic.
I'd appreciate a fresh opinion on this. How does it read? Too slow? Too fast? Writing amateur? Would you keep reading?
Any feedback is appreciated!


PROLOGUE


"Take a look! Quick, quick, over there!"

"Oh my God!"

Grace slowed down and looked up, curious as to what had caused such excitement. A couple of teens, a boy and a girl, both dressed in jeans and similar white tee shirts, stood right ahead of her. They were pointing at something above and behind her, squinting in the morning sunlight.

She turned around just in time to see a plane cut a strange path in the sky. It aimed down – not straight down, but still at an angle obviously too sharp for a successful landing. She caught a glimpse of it for only a split second before it disappeared behind distant skyscrapers.

She froze, expecting to hear an explosion or to see a cloud of dust and fire, but neither happened. If the plane had crashed, it must've had happened too far away for her to see or hear anything.

Goose bumps rose on her arms. Could she really have just witnessed a plane crash?

"Did you get it?" the girl said.

Grace turned and saw that the question was addressed to a man standing a few steps away, looking up, filming with his cell phone.

"Don't think so," he said miserably. "Happened too fast."

"Too bad, that could have been a rare footage," said the guy in the tee shirt, and pulled his girlfriend by the hand. "Let's go, it'll be on the news in minutes."

"Did it crash?" Grace heard herself saying. "Did it really crash?"

"So it seems," said the guy with the phone, reviewing his footage. "Not something you get to see every day, huh?"

Grace swiped her employee card by the door at the back of the building and walked to the elevators. Just a minute ago, she'd been planning her chores for the morning, obsessing about that meeting summary she was supposed to have finished yesterday. But now, she couldn't care less.

After swiping her card at yet another door on the second floor, she stepped into the familiar open space. The halogen lamps shone brightly over the huge room. Usually, by the time she came to work, the place was quiet with only a few employees sitting in their cubicles, surfing the web, drinking their coffee, the only sounds being the occasional clicking of a mouse or tapping on a keyboard.

But today, the place seemed lively. Small groups of people gathered here and there, some of them talking, others looking at their computer screens and their phones.

Walking to her desk, Grace felt a sting of disappointment. They'd obviously learned about the crash already, so she wouldn't be able to break the news. Still, she had seen what had happened with her own eyes while the others had only heard about it. Maybe she had something interesting to share, after all.

She placed her bag on her desk and pulled off her throw-over.

"I saw it," she said, addressing the group of four engineers hanging by the nearby terminal. One of them – Colin – sat in his chair, while his friends from another department crowded behind his back, eyes on his computer screen. Once Grace had spoken, two of them raised their heads and glanced at her distractedly before resuming their focus.

"Saw what?" Colin said, not looking at her.

"The plane," she said, trying to sound nonchalant, spreading her throw-over on the back of her chair, smoothing the wrinkles on it.

"What plane?"

"The plane that crashed," she said. They didn’t react. She walked over and tried to peek at the screen, but couldn't see anything from behind their backs.

"What are you looking at?"

"Just a second," Colin said. "Holy crap, this can't be real. It's a joke!"

She turned away, annoyed by their lack of attention, and headed for the small kitchen adjacent to the open space. Idiots, she thought. Probably fussing about a sports game or something of the kind, while she had a really interesting story to tell.

In the kitchen, she stumbled upon Martha, a woman so big it was impossible to steal past her unnoticed.

"Good morning." Grace placed a paper cup in the coffee machine and pressed a button. "You know, I've just seen a plane crash."

Martha widened her eyes. "Oh my!" She put her cup of water down on the counter. "Are you serious? Where?"

"I was just outside the building. I saw that plain aiming down, but I didn't see any explosion. It must have fallen beyond the city limits."

"Holy Jesus!" Martha breathed out. At last, Grace seemed to have found someone with the proper reaction. "That's horrible! The poor people on board! Do you think it was a terrorist attack?"

"Probably not – I mean, it didn't hit a skyscraper or anything…"

"What a morning!" Martha picked her cup back up and finished her water in one gulp. "All that prank news and now this…"

"Prank news?"

"Haven't you heard? About the strange news? Our boys say it must be a prank, they say --"

She was interrupted by a low, loud sound coming from the outside. For a second, Grace couldn't quite understand what she was hearing, but then she figured out that it must be the city alarm. The siren started somewhat stealthily, but it steadily increased, quickly reaching a scary, deafening volume. Both women turned to the window, but it overlooked the back yard of the building, and nothing interesting was happening there.

"Oh, my." Martha pressed her palms to her chest, her voice barely audible above the wailing siren. "Now, what is that? What's going on?"

Suddenly, Grace wanted no coffee. Leaving her cup in the machine, she hurried back to her desk.

It was quieter there, with almost all the windows closed. She saw Colin locking one of them at the end of the passage between the cubicles. His effort had further reduced the noise, but the wailing outside still sounded strong and ominous. The siren must have distracted Colin's friends from whatever they'd been reading, for now they stood with their backs to the computer, looking around hesitantly. Grace stopped in front of them.

"What's going on?" she demanded. Too many strange things were happening at once for her to keep playing cool, and her voice was shaking now, in a very un-cool manner. "What's happening? What did you read?"

"Haven't you heard?" one of them said.

She had their full attention now, but their expressions were somewhat strange, as if she was asking them something she should already know better than they did.

"I haven't heard anything – can't you just answer a question, damn it?"

"There's some weird stuff on the Internet," Colin said, coming back from the window. "We thought it was a prank, that maybe someone had hacked the major news sites and published that bullsh**, but it's on the TV, too, and now this…"

"But what kind of bullsh**?"

"It says there's some kind of an epidemic," he said. "Some kind of a virus – most likely airborne – spreading quickly, sort of washing over the country, so they claim."

"Good thing we've closed the windows," said one of his friends – a tall, skinny guy, dressed in a blue sweater and a matching pair of jeans. He looked around with a weak smile, which nobody returned.

"And it mostly affects women," Colin added, looking at Grace attentively. "Like, almost exclusively women."

"But that's bullsh**," the smiling guy said. He was very obviously trying to wipe the grin off his face, but it seemed to be stuck there against his will. "There's no such virus."

"But how does it affect women?" Grace said. "What happens to them?"

"They die, basically," Colin said, watching her warily.

….

 

[Brian G Turner]

PROLOGUE


"Take a look! Quick, quick, over there!"

"Oh my God!"

Grace slowed down and looked up, curious as to what had caused such excitement. A couple of teens, a boy and a girl, both dressed in jeans and similar white tee shirts, stood right ahead of her. They were pointing at something above and behind her, squinting in the morning sunlight.

^ You don't need any of this - all it's doing is dragging the reader from the immediacy of the experience, with the message of "let's start the story in a moment!"

She Grace turned around just in time to see a plane cut a strange path in the sky. It aimed down – not straight down, but still at an angle obviously too sharp for a successful landing. She caught a glimpse of it for only a split second before it disappeared behind distant skyscrapers.

She froze, expecting to hear an explosion or to see a cloud of dust and fire, but neither happened. If the plane had crashed, it must've had happened too far away for her to see or hear anything.

Goose bumps rose on her arms. Could she really have just witnessed a plane crash?

"Did you get it?" the girl said.

Grace turned and saw that the question was addressed to a man standing a few steps away, looking up, filming with his cell phone.

"Don't think so," he said miserably. "Happened too fast."

"Too bad, that could have been a rare footage," said the guy in the tee shirt, and pulled his girlfriend by the hand. "Let's go, it'll be on the news in minutes."

"Did it crash?" Grace heard herself saying. "Did it really crash?" Let's have some more reaction from Grace here. She's becoming static very fast. Give us a sense of her physical and emotional experience, instead of being so detached from it. Make the reader feel what's she's feeling.

"So it seems," said the guy with the phone, reviewing his footage. "Not something you get to see every day, huh?"

Grace swiped her employee card by the door at the back of the building and walked to the elevators. Just a minute ago, she'd been planning her chores for the morning, obsessing about that meeting summary she was supposed to have finished yesterday. But now, she couldn't care less. You've lost urgency here. The lack of emotional engagement with Grace is making all this flat and seem like going through the motions of an ordinary and routine day.

After swiping her card at yet another door on the second floor, she stepped into the familiar open space. The halogen lamps shone brightly over the huge room. Usually, by the time she came to work, the place was quiet with only a few employees sitting in their cubicles, surfing the web, drinking their coffee, the only sounds being the occasional clicking of a mouse or tapping on a keyboard. Same as above, but you're doubling killing the immediacy

But today, the place seemed lively. Small groups of people gathered here and there, some of them talking, others looking at their computer screens and their phones. And? Don't presume that we understand the emotions that you're trying to inject - you have to describe them. It's one of the hardest things in writing to bridge that emotional excitement you feel as an author, and communicate it to an audience. At the moment you aren't communicated that

Walking to her desk, Grace felt a sting of disappointment. They'd obviously learned about the crash already, so she wouldn't be able to break the news. Still, she had seen what had happened with her own eyes while the others had only heard about it. Maybe she had something interesting to share, after all. This paragraph reads really flat, and is also in danger of making Grace look kinda sick that her world didn't light up being able to tell her work colleagues that potentially a couple of hundred people just died

She placed her bag on her desk and pulled off her throw-over. Why tell us this?

"I saw it," she said, addressing the group of four engineers hanging by the nearby terminal. One of them – Colin – sat in his chair, while his friends from another department crowded behind his back, eyes on his computer screen. Once Grace had spoken, two of them raised their heads and glanced at her distractedly before resuming their focus.

"Saw what?" Colin said, not looking at her.

"The plane," she said, trying to sound nonchalant, spreading her throw-over on the back of her chair, smoothing the wrinkles on it.



Okay, stopping here a moment. You've started with a superb opening hook. But you need to better communicate a degree of emotional engagement with the reader. At the moment you are writing the story with too much emotional distance, and it's making your story end up sounding flat, and Grace kind of lifeless. Additionally, if you focused more on immediacy, you would be able to set a really strong pace. Instead, you keep injecting details which slow everything down, yet don't seem to contribute anything.

Now, I was just going to stop there, thinking that the scene was just going to go on the same. But instead it loses coherency for me because a) no one acknowledges the plane crash, and then b) from nowhere you introduce the idea of a killer virus but (phew!) thank goodness we closed the windows so we'll escape that. Rather than create any sense of mystery, I'm left with the feeling that the story is coming apart and hitting a Philip K Dick moment of utter randomness. I'm not sure that's your intention, though, but whatever you're aiming for isn't being communicated very well to me.

 

[Jackie Bee]

Okay, stopping here a moment. You've started with a superb opening hook. But you need to better communicate a degree of emotional engagement with the reader. At the moment you are writing the story with too much emotional distance, and it's making your story end up sounding flat, and Grace kind of lifeless. Additionally, if you focused more on immediacy, you would be able to set a really strong pace. Instead, you keep injecting details which slow everything down, yet don't seem to contribute anything.

Now, I was just going to stop there, thinking that the scene was just going to go on the same. But instead it loses coherency for me because a) no one acknowledges the plane crash, and then b) from nowhere you introduce the idea of a killer virus but (phew!) thank goodness we closed the windows so we'll escape that. Rather than create any sense of mystery, I'm left with the feeling that the story is coming apart and hitting a Philip K Dick moment of utter randomness. I'm not sure that's your intention, though, but whatever you're aiming for isn't being communicated very well to me.

Thanks for your opinion! I'll thinks how I can improve the immediacy and emotional engagement. As for the not acknowledging the place crush, it's because nobody have learned of it yet, except for Grace, and, of course, the window will not save them from the virus--but all this comes together later.

 

[Michael M]

I agree with Brian Turner that the plane crash needs to have a more immediate impact upon Grace, perhaps contemplating the fate of the people on the plane. I am not sure why we have no confirmation that the plane has crashed. I do not fully understand your explanation above. I feel you are slightly denting the emotional impact if we do not know. I would also lose the guy with the phone. Just focus upon Grace.

You can have Grace’s mundane arrival at work, but only if you are highlighting the contrast with Grace’s emotions. If you are attempting to create a growing sense of unease with the plane crash, the groups crowded around computer screens and finally the sirens, you are not quite achieving your objective. The people around the screens need to be worried and tense. They could be watching porn or cat videos. The final section once the sirens begin is good, but you need to build the tension within this opening, and place less emphasis upon the mundane description of the office. This is not an ordinary day.

The premise of the plot is attractive, and I am certainly interested in reading more about the virus that only kills women.

 

[Michael M]

Sorry for another posting, but that final sentence does not read quite as I would like. I meant to write that the idea of a virus that only strikes down a particular grouping in society, leaving others completely safe, is an intriguing prospect.

 

[Loren]

Sorry for another posting, but that final sentence does not read quite as I would like. I meant to write that the idea of a virus that only strikes down a particular grouping in society, leaving others completely safe, is an intriguing prospect.

Yes. I remember reading a short story about a man who invented a virus that only killed women after he had a bad affair.

This opening would make a great short story in itself with a little work.

 

[HareBrain]

That made me laugh, Michael. I know I've sometimes read through an earlier post of mine and felt the blood drain from my face as I realised how it could be interpreted.

 

[pambaddeley]

Obviously your treatment is different but just be aware that Frank Herbert wrote The White Plague, about a virus that is engineered to kill only women. In that book, women are reduced to breeders apparently - I say apparently, because I couldn't face reading it after what I heard about it, although I was able to read books based on similar setups written by women, such as Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the series by Suzee McKee Charnas.

 

[Loren]

Obviously your treatment is different but just be aware that Frank Herbert wrote The White Plague, about a virus that is engineered to kill only women. In that book, women are reduced to breeders apparently - I say apparently, because I couldn't face reading it after what I heard about it, although I was able to read books based on similar setups written by women, such as Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the series by Suzee McKee Charnas.

I'll bet that was what I read! Long ago.

 

[pambaddeley]

Possibly, though it's a novel and the protagonist decides to wipe out women rather illogically because his own wife and kid(s) are wiped out by a terrorist bomb, not due to an unhappy affair. Long ago would fit as I think it was published in the early 80s.

 

[Loren]

Possibly, though it's a novel and the protagonist decides to wipe out women rather illogically because his own wife and kid(s) are wiped out by a terrorist bomb, not due to an unhappy affair. Long ago would fit as I think it was published in the early 80s.

Sounding more like it. I'll rescind that affair.

 

[Jackie Bee]

I agree with Brian Turner that the plane crash needs to have a more immediate impact upon Grace, perhaps contemplating the fate of the people on the plane. I am not sure why we have no confirmation that the plane has crashed. I do not fully understand your explanation above. I feel you are slightly denting the emotional impact if we do not know. I would also lose the guy with the phone. Just focus upon Grace

The idea was that it happened so fast she didn't quite believe it, and it felt to her not much more real than a plane crash in a movie. But I'll see how to add emotions. Thanks!

 

[Jackie Bee]

Obviously your treatment is different but just be aware that Frank Herbert wrote The White Plague, about a virus that is engineered to kill only women. In that book, women are reduced to breeders apparently - I say apparently, because I couldn't face reading it after what I heard about it, although I was able to read books based on similar setups written by women, such as Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the series by Suzee McKee Charnas.

I loved Handmaid's Tale! Never read White Plague, through, I'll check it out, thanks for telling. I remember, there was also a Scarlet Plague book. Apparently, plague is a popular topic. Maybe I should pick a color for the one in my book

 

[millymollymo]

Oh wow! So much potential. ¬.¬ yep I hate that word too. It's a creative code word for "you need to do more work!"

Some food for thought...
It was an awfully quiet plane. Is there a reason for the silence as it goes overhead. Is it low? Threatening? 'Rattle your heart in your chest' loud? Ghostly, eerily silent like fog?
Were the engines running? Smoke... ? More like a gradual yet scarily unnatural decline straight toward the densely populated area?


And then your characters just carry on? Would you?
Is this our world, our now? Are they carrying phones... wouldn't it be accessible via social media? We're addicted to people jumping over a puddle... so I suspect this would hit a few social media stream BEFORE the news.

BUT! If they have access to social media, why don't they know about the "prank news" etc already?

If they don't have their phones/access...why?

Keep digging, exploring and writing. Make it work for you

 

[Jackie Bee]

Oh wow! So much potential. ¬.¬ yep I hate that word too. It's a creative code word for "you need to do more work!"

Some food for thought...
It was an awfully quiet plane. Is there a reason for the silence as it goes overhead. Is it low? Threatening? 'Rattle your heart in your chest' loud? Ghostly, eerily silent like fog?
Were the engines running? Smoke... ? More like a gradual yet scarily unnatural decline straight toward the densely populated area?


And then your characters just carry on? Would you?
Is this our world, our now? Are they carrying phones... wouldn't it be accessible via social media? We're addicted to people jumping over a puddle... so I suspect this would hit a few social media stream BEFORE the news.

BUT! If they have access to social media, why don't they know about the "prank news" etc already?

If they don't have their phones/access...why?

Keep digging, exploring and writing. Make it work for you

Well, the plane was so far from her she didn't even hear it fall, so she couldn't hear its engines or something... as for social media, it would take a few minutes for the news to spread. People at her work read on the news about the virus, not the plane, Grace just doesn't know about that yet. They tell her eventually about the virus. Anyway, I'll see how to make it clearer. Thanks!

 

[Loren]

Well, the plane was so far from her she didn't even hear it fall, so she couldn't hear its engines or something... as for social media, it would take a few minutes for the news to spread. People at her work read on the news about the virus, not the plane, Grace just doesn't know about that yet. They tell her eventually about the virus. Anyway, I'll see how to make it clearer. Thanks!

You have to consider that if a breaking event like a swift and lethal virus was on the news that people with mobil phones very likely would get that same news very fast. So your bystanders at the beginning of the story could already be getting informations that something is up.

I like the story, but you have to consider the timeline for the events (not that you need to write them into the story) to make sure everything seems plausible.

 

[Jackie Bee]

You have to consider that if a breaking event like a swift and lethal virus was on the news that people with mobil phones very likely would get that same news very fast. So your bystanders at the beginning of the story could already be getting informations that something is up.

I like the story, but you have to consider the timeline for the events (not that you need to write them into the story) to make sure everything seems plausible.

What I had in mind is that the news of the virus has been available for about half an hour, so people on their way to work haven't found out yet. Maybe I'll have one of the characters mention that somehow...

 

[Loren]

What I had in mind is that the news of the virus has been available for about half an hour, so people on their way to work haven't found out yet. Maybe I'll have one of the characters mention that somehow...

Whatever you chose it just has to create what we call in my line of work - a suspension of disbelief for the reader.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Be warned. I have teeth. Comments in bold

The following is the beginning of my first novel's prologue.
The genre is post-apocalyptic.
I'd appreciate a fresh opinion on this. How does it read? Too slow? Too fast? Writing amateur? Would you keep reading?
Any feedback is appreciated!


PROLOGUE


"Take a look! Quick, quick, over there!"

"Oh my God!" starting with dialogue is always a risk, and agents don't like it.

Grace slowed down and looked up, Early veiling of the actions - I'm in agreement with Brian, that this could go and the start would be stronger curious as to what had caused such excitement. A couple of teens, a boy and a girl, both dressed in jeans and similar similar repeats the theme that they're dressed the same and isn't needed. white tee shirts, stood right ahead of her. They were pointing at something above and behind her, squinting in the morning sunlight.

She turned arounddrop around - turned is enough on its own. In general, I think you could review this for tightness (have you entered any of the writing competitions? They're great for making you think about exactly what words need to stay and go) just in time to see a plane cut a strange path in the sky. It aimed down – not straight down, but still at an angle obviously too sharp for a successful landing. This is all quite leisurely. A plane cut a strange path in the sky. Coming down, too sharp for a successful landing. It disappeared behind... - see how shortening the sentences and taking out the filter of her actions - we don't need glimpse if you go on to explain its a split second, for instance - it becomes much faster, as if it was a real plane crash?) She caught a glimpse of it for only a split second before it disappeared behind distant skyscrapers.

She froze, was she moving? expecting to hear an explosion or to see a cloud of dust and fire, but neither happened. If the plane had crashed, it must've had happened too far away for her to see or hear anything.

Goose bumps rose on her arms. Could she really have just witnessed a plane crash?

"Did you get it?" the girl said.

Grace turned and saw that the question was addressed to a man standing a few steps away, looking up, filming with his cell phone.

"Don't think so," he said miserably. "Happened too fast."

"Too bad, that could have been a rare footage," said the guy in the tee shirt, and pulled his girlfriend by the hand. "Let's go, it'll be on the news in minutes."

"Did it crash?" Grace heard herself saying.And how does she feel? Shocked, chilled, anything? "Did it really crash?"

"So it seems," said the guy with the phone, reviewing his footage. "Not something you get to see every day, huh?"

Grace swiped her employee card by the door at the back of the building and walked to the elevators. Just a minute ago, she'd been planning her chores for the morning, obsessing about that meeting summary she was supposed to have finished yesterday. But now, she couldn't care less.

After swiping her card at yet another door on the second floor, she stepped into the familiar open space. The halogen lamps shone brightly over the huge room. Usually, by the time she came to work, the place was quiet with only a few employees sitting in their cubicles, surfing the web, drinking their coffee, the only sounds being the occasional clicking of a mouse or tapping on a keyboard.Where's the urgency gone? Shouldn't she be thinking of seeing if help is needed in the city, blood donors. think of NYC on 9/11 - people piled to where it happened. They wanted to help. that's the human urge, not to shrug it off and get on with the day.

But today, the place seemed seemed or was? lively. Small groups of people gathered here and there, some of them you could drop of them for tightness talking, others looking at their computer screens and their phones.

Walking to her desk, Grace felt a sting of disappointment. They'd obviously learned about the crash already, so she wouldn't be able to break the news. Oooh, a bit shallow. People will be dead. Maybe in the city, too. Still, she had seen what had happened with her own eyesShe didn't actually - it happened out of her sight while the others had only heard about it. Maybe she had something interesting to share, after all.

She placed her bag on her desk and pulled off her throw-over.A lot of actions could go, I think. This, the second door being swiped. Keep things moving as fast as you can, this is an opening scene, keep it going.

"I saw it," she said, addressing the group of four engineers hanging by the nearby terminal. One of them – Colin – sat in his chair, while his friends from another department crowded behind his back, eyes on his computer screen. Once Grace had spoken, two of them raised their heads and glanced at her distractedly before resuming their focus. Does this last line add anything?

So, again, very leisurely. She just saw a crash. Could you halve the words here? Does it matter that Colin's sitting, for instance? Also, the action is all mixed up. She speaks, then we get a description of the before, then we get the after.

A group of four engineers were gathered at a nearby terminal.

"I saw it," she said. (If you wanted you could show a little sign of tension - grabbing her necklace chain, voice shaking, whatever...)

Colin from accounts (or wherever, but make him real) focused on the terminal. "Saw what?"


"Saw what?" Colin said, not looking at her.

"The plane," she said, trying to sound nonchalant, spreading her throw-over on the back of her chair, smoothing the wrinkles on it.nervously? I like this show, but I need to know what it's showing.

"What plane?"

"The plane that crashed," she said.Said is an invisible word, but it's nice to mix it up with action tags when we don't get told who said things. I think it's clear here that she's speaking, so maybe drop it? They didn’t react. She walked over and tried to peek at the screen, but couldn't see anything from behind their backs.

"What are you looking at?"

"Just a second," Colin said. "Holy crap, this can't be real. It's a joke!"

She turned away, annoyed by their lack of attention, and headed for the small kitchen adjacent to the open space. There's a lot of actions that I think take away from the urgency for you. Here, for instance, Martha could come up to the desk and save this one? Just a thought. Idiots, she thought. Probably fussing about a sports game or something of the kind, while she had a really interesting story to tell.

In the kitchen, she stumbled upon Martha, a woman so big it was impossible to steal past her unnoticed.

"Good morning." Grace placed a paper cup in the coffee machine and pressed a button. "You know, I've just seen a plane crash."

Martha widened her eyes. "Oh my!" She put her cup of water down on the counter. "Are you serious? Where?"I like Martha - nice and natural in her reactions.

"I was just outside the building. I saw that plain plane aiming down, but I didn't see any explosion. It must have fallen beyond the city limits."

"Holy Jesus!" Martha breathed out. At last, Grace seemed to have found someone with the proper reaction.Yes - so why hasn't she reacted like this? "That's horrible! The poor people on board! Do you think it was a terrorist attack?"

"Probably not – I mean, it didn't hit a skyscraper or anything…"

"What a morning!" Martha picked her cup back up and finished her water in one gulp. "All that prank news and now this…"

"Prank news?"

"Haven't you heard? About the strange news? Our boys say it must be a prank, they say --"

She was interrupted by a low, loud sound coming from the outside. For a second, Grace couldn't quite understand what she was hearing, but then she figured out that it must be the city alarm. The siren started somewhat stealthily, but it steadily increased, quickly reaching a scary, deafening volume. Both women turned to the window, but it overlooked the back yard of the building, and nothing interesting was happening there.Here it starts to grip me - if it were me, I'd try to get here much quicker

"Oh, my." Martha pressed her palms to her chest, her voice barely audible above the wailing siren. "Now, what is that? What's going on?"

Suddenly, Grace wanted no coffee. Leaving her cup in the machine, she hurried back to her desk.

It was quieter there, with almost all the windows closed. She saw Colin locking one of them at the end of the passage between the cubicles. His effort had further reduced the noise, but the wailing outside still sounded strong and ominous. The siren must have distracted Colin's friends from whatever they'd been reading, for now they stood with their backs to the computer, looking around hesitantly. Grace stopped in front of them.

"What's going on?" she demanded. Too many strange things were happening at once for her to keep playing cool, and her voice was shaking now, in a very un-cool manner. "What's happening? What did you read?"

"Haven't you heard?" one of them said.

She had their full attention now, but their expressions were somewhat strange, as if she was asking them something she should already know better than they did.

"I haven't heard anything – can't you just answer a question, damn it?"

"There's some weird stuff on the Internet," Colin said, coming back from the window. "We thought it was a prank, that maybe someone had hacked the major news sites and published that bullsh**, but it's on the TV, too, and now this…"

"But what kind of bullsh**?"

"It says there's some kind of an epidemic," he said. "Some kind of a virus – most likely airborne – spreading quickly, sort of washing over the country, so they claim."

"Good thing we've closed the windows," said one of his friends – a tall, skinny guy, dressed in a blue sweater and a matching pair of jeans. He looked around with a weak smile, which nobody returned.

"And it mostly affects women," Colin added, looking at Grace attentively. "Like, almost exclusively women."

"But that's bullsh**," the smiling guy said. He was very obviously trying to wipe the grin off his face, but it seemed to be stuck there against his will. "There's no such virus."

"But how does it affect women?" Grace said. "What happens to them?"

"They die, basically," Colin said, watching her warily.great last line

….

Okay, I have a lot of bold but don't be put off by that - most of it is around tightening things. Once the reveal of the virus comes along, this is good. I also have no trouble with the plane crash then the virus, I'm assuming they're linked. I think the first bit is way too leisurely, and I'd be inclined to cut the living daylights out of it, if it were me (but hey, wordcount and me have issues. I mean, 70,000 words for a novel. I'd be happy with 50...) but once the last part comes along it zips along nicely.

 

[Mad Alice]

Well, the plane was so far from her she didn't even hear it fall, so she couldn't hear its engines or something... as for social media, it would take a few minutes for the news to spread. People at her work read on the news about the virus, not the plane, Grace just doesn't know about that yet. They tell her eventually about the virus. Anyway, I'll see how to make it clearer. Thanks!

I have to disagree with this. If you can see it, you can hear it. You would feel it in the earth as well. A car crash can be heard for blocks. At least a kilometer. We had a gas main go up and heard it from two miles off on the other side of the village. They were talking of the report of sound from as far away as the next city.
My first thought when I heard something or see something like that is people died today.
I wouldn't have described her as disappointed, but more - cast adrift. The horror she held inside of the plane had to be shared somehow to make it real.. That way it would stop hurting.

Nice story! I see what you are going for, and it just needs a bit of work.