Hey there!
What a good idea for a story Here's what I thought of it:
Mack and Officer Collins dialogue is smooth and believable. You have a natural talent there
And you prove it again when you mirror the message of your story through the death of Mack's dog. This is really good writing:
“Some teenagers roughed Dog up real good, they hit him with sticks, kicked him, poured beer on him and kicked him some more, I don’t think he’s gonna make it Charley,” Mack sobbed, “Dog is family . . . what am I gonna do?"
Charley sat down next to Mack, he reached out for Dog’s throat. “No pulse, I’m so sorry Mack,” the words caught in Charley’s throat, “looks like dog has got him a new home, I’m sorry Mack, real sorry.”
There are a few editorial points that could use a tidy up so as not to distract the reader from your story:
Charley was stunned, “Hi Mom, Hi Dad, I thought you had . . . uh . . .”
“What?” His dad asked, “passed on, gone home . . . died?”
This is one of the places where you went from double spacing between dialogue to single. It's little things like this can give your story a sense of lost structure and don't take much time to fix.
There were also several places where you changed the primary character's name from 'Charley' to 'Charlie'
You may need to look at the structure of your sentences and see if you can make them a little smoother to read, eg.,
Charlie, and two other homeless adults, Emma, Mack and Mack’s dog, simply named Dog shared some space at the back end of the park behind a tall hedge in a ten foot by one hundred-twenty foot space up against a red-brick building.
The Waffle house conversation between Miguel and Charley contains a lot of exclaimation marks which results in quite a shouted conversation to the reader.
This may seem like I'm picking up on everything but it is only meant to help because I really did enjoy the tale of Charley and his homeless friends. You were very successful in creating interesting and realistic characters.
Thank you so much for sharing. I look forward to reading more of your work. Write on and take care, Acme
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