Monster: Beginning with a stand-alone, fast-paced, and dramatic break-in scene, which turns murderous quickly, this sort of on-screen, push-yourself-in-a-chair kind of story immediately grabs your attention and makes you wonder what will happen next. Tight tension is kept up via the unexpected because the protagonist is forced into a life of crime.
The story is good, but the pacing feels uneven in some spots, especially as the story moves from a home invasion to the protagonist’s abduction. This shift in the scene is so noticeable and abrupt that a better transition would keep the reader moving.
Character Development: The protagonist/antagonist, Kevin, is given some depth as an everyday person in extraordinary circumstances – the transformation from mild-mannered bank clerk to reluctant hitman numbs bodies (and, by extension, the reader) quite effectively.
The inner conflict as Kevin slips into his new role and finds himself having to kill people is hinted at but never really touched upon. This is where some interesting development of his character might be introduced – what is the hero afraid of here? How does he feel about resolving his financial issues by killing people? Is he full of guilt? What is he experiencing emotionally in these moments? Why, and does it affect his decisions? A hero could have and should have some moral complexity, intertwining him in a fascinating argument about morality.
In this story, the hero is matched with an interesting antagonist, but each character lacks depth. Take the mob boss, Frank, for example – he isn’t despicable in an exciting way – he is despicable in an almost clichéd way. The hero could become more attractive if Frank had something about him that stood out – his backstory, for example.
Dialogue: The dialogue is primarily good at communicating the characters’ personas and advancing the plot. For example, we get a sense of Frank’s threatening nature and Kevin’s mounting desperation. A few lines, however, come off as cheesy.
For example, ‘This is an offer you cannot refuse’ is a particularly overused line in pop culture that, as used here, significantly decreases its effectiveness.
Try finding ways to rephrase it to make the dialogue feel unique. Furthermore, more subtext – what a character does or doesn’t say – could make the dialogue more complex.
Plot and Pacing: It kept me guessing with a few clever twists. The premise of an average Joe being blackmailed into being a hitman was also a good one, and the story's stakes were raised at various stages. For example, the unexpected reveal that Kevin’s wife, Linda, is an undercover detective increases the tension.
However, my main criticism is with the story's pacing, as was the case for The Dead Room, in which the action keeps rushing forward from one high-stakes scenario to the next with no respite, making the plot feel breathless. It might sound contradictory here, given that I said some twists came out of left field. A couple of these ‘twists’ were attempts at misdirection, like when Linda is revealed to Dennis and the reader to be undercover, but it also felt a little undercooked. Pausing at the right moments – when Kevin finds out Linda might be the target, for example – to have him think about whether he should pull the trigger or ditch his mission would further increase the pressure and would have increased his relatability as an everyman.
Emotion: The story's emotional punch doesn’t have as much impact because of the zippy pace, superseding the need depths of Kevin’s inner conflict. It is, after all, a significant moment in the story when it dawns on Kevin that his wife has been the target all along.
Any chance of making this moment emotionally resonate is wasted by not moving into his panic, fear, and guilt at that point. In the same way, it feels like there are many tugs on the heartstrings – being left with Kevin and Linda left wondering about their future – that end on some note of indecision.
How does Kevin feel about himself because he has become that monster? Is there redemption left? If the pace could dial back even a little and explore profound emotional moments like these, the reader would be left with an impactful emotion.
** Here are some additional points that could be addressed to improve the chapter **
Tone: The work also veers between the external features of an action thriller and a turn inward to a drama of the soul: While the narration of Kevin’s mere external perception of things remains the same, after killing the two home invaders, his internal conflict is reflected: So, that was another thing I’d done. Two dead people. Two bodies. What was happening to me? My thoughts were mingled together in a jumbled mess. It seemed I’d done something I needed to feel terrible about …In this story, the switches between various tones are uneven.
Background Information: This short backstory to Kevin, explaining who he was before he was a hitman, tells us something about the man underneath the new, callous identity. Before the home invasion, was he morally upright, or was he so disillusioned with life that he was open to accepting this new identity, no questions asked? Inserting more background on Kevin would add an essential layer of texture that would make the portrait all the more effective and telling to your reader, who will know much more about what Kevin is sacrificing as he becomes a monster.
The Wife: Linda is introduced quite late in the chapter, and since we don't know much about her personality or relationship with Kevin up to this point, her undercover nature is a bit of an anti-climax.
For example, we don’t know enough about her to think she was on the brink of breaking up with Kevin.
Giving more detail about her personality and relationship with Kevin would make her character believable and her reaction (fleeing and hiding) more emotional.
Predictability: Some events feel a little predictable, especially if you have read crime or thriller novels in the past.
For example, when Kevin is brought to see the mob boss, it seems like a guess that he will be forced to work for him, though the wife twists and smooths this over a bit.
Adding more surprises or subverting genre tropes (common story elements within a genre) would perk up the piece.
The Mob Boss: Frank is the mob boss – he’s a bit of a cliché here (brash, threatening, use violence to get what he wants) – but it does work, just about.
You might want to ‘personalize’ Frank a bit, some aspect of his personality or character strategy that sets him aside from the usual mob ‘gangster boss’ archetype: he is related to someone who Kevin killed, or he adheres to some code of honor that makes it problematic for him to interact even with Kevin.
Visual and Sensory: The story also needs more sensory details to bring the reader to the scene. For instance, as soon as Kevin gets kidnapped, there aren’t any descriptions of what is happening around him or what he feels, even though he has been sweating at the office all morning. If there were some details, like the smell of cigar smoke in Frank’s office, how cold the ropes are connecting his hands, the dark lighting in the room, and the sweat coming down to his eyes, the reader would feel more connected to the story and the tension would rise.
Moral Dilemma: The issue is explicitly addressed since Kevin is unwilling to serve as a hitman, but his internal conflict could be more fully fleshed out. For example, does he plan to turn himself in? At some point, does he consider finding an escape route earlier? Does he suffer guilt over the lives that he’s taken, or is he more concerned about his family’s safety? He would have become more interesting if his moral conflict had been more deeply drawn.
Flashbacks: The transitions between past and present occur with little warning, mainly when the narrator describes the episode of the home invasion and Kevin’s abduction. Consider a time shift or a different literary device, such as a flashback, to reveal the events leading up to the bank robbery and home invasion, making it easier for the reader to follow the chronology. This would also develop some of Kevin’s reactions and feelings as they unfold.
Foreshadowing: I think the story might need more foreshadowing to create tension earlier on. For example, the story never mentions anything to suggest that the initially anonymous wife might be in law enforcement. Nor does it mention anything to indicate that the initial break-in might not have been a random holding up of a place or that it isn’t anything in particular. These details could be added to create a sense that something is about to happen. If the reader sees that things aren’t what they seem, a slow start might be made interesting.
Conclusion: There’s a good premise here and a sharp sequence of twists. However, the details of the characters are thin, and the emotions are weak at the core. The pacing of action and introspection might be adjusted for better effect, and some quirky dialogue could work to avoid the cheesy clichés. As is, it’s not quite a thriller, but with a bit of help, it might be much more exciting.
Well, I've rambled on long enough; thank you for sharing! I hope this helps. Happy writing!
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