Let me just start by saying, I really really like where you went with this. I think your portrayal of the lead protagonist was very realistic, and even though I absolutely couldn't relate to the scenario, I found myself anxious to find out what would happen to him. I think it is a great skill to be able to persuade the reader to feel for a character who is not necessarily virtuous or deserving.
I also really liked your portrayal of Paco. I had a pretty good visual of him from your description, and I think that you did a great job of developing my animosity towards him, which, in turn, further bound me as a reader to the lead. Though the character of Gina could use a little more fleshing out and possibly a slightly longer back story (e.g. who is she in relation to the lead? How did they get into this entanglement?)
Aside from this, I think your characters are possibly the strongest attribute.
That being said, your grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and spelling could do with some work. To start, you might want to run the piece through spell check, because you have made some rookie mistakes which imply you haven't proof read thoroughly enough. Just little things like capital letters, spacing after commas, and a couple of conjunctions.
There are also places I thought a semi-colon or full stop would be put to better use than a comma or space. Here are a few examples:
- "About five miles his cell rang and he anwsered,this I think I got the gist of it"
> This could be better revised perhaps as "After about five miles, his cell rang and he answered; I think I got the gist of it."
- "From the get go, Paco made me uneasy and it wasn't just the drugs screwing my mind either"
>"From the get go, Paco Made me uneasy; and it wasn't just the drugs screwing with my mind either."
- "Big fucker,three parralel scars on his left cheek,mean looking tattoes everywher,the kinda dude you don't wanna meet in a dark....anywhere."
> "Big fucker. Three parallel scars on his left cheek. Mean looking tattoos everywhere. You know, the kinda dude you don't wanna meet in the dark... anywhere."
Another thing I noticed, is that on a couple of occasions you used the same word twice in the one sentence. e.g.:
- "We had travelled about a hundred and ffifty miles when my travelling "companion" gestured for me to pull over."
Doing this is disrupts the flow a little, and will distract most readers from the plot. Maybe look at using some synonyms.
There are only two more things I wanted to comment on:
1). Tense.
> I found myself a little confused throughout as to which section of the story I was in. It needs to be really obvious to the reader, which parts of the story are past and being recounted, and which are actually happening in the present time when the story is being told. It was unclear to me whether the story begins when he is in the car with Paco before he shoots him, or whether he is recounting the entire series of events after they have all happened. As you are using first person, you can use the narrative voice as though you are speaking directly to the reader, which I think you have done in places anyway, it just seems a little jumbled at the moment.
2). Vocabulary.
> It seems to me (and I could very well be wrong), that you are intentionally altering the vocabulary for each person to better illustrate their nationality, and socioeconomic background. I think this is fantastic, because it really brings the story to life. The thing I found a little distracting, is that you are cutting in and out between your sophisticated writer's voice, and your character's uneducated, rough and colloquial voice. In a case when you were writing in second or third person, this would be fine, because you could change between the narrative of the surroundings and the character's voice. However, because you have written it in first person, it is really important that you stick to the voice you have given the character. e.g. if it is going to be rough and colloquial, it all has to be in keeping with this. It sounds a little out of place when one minute your character is narrating "(Shit I have trouble reading the headlines on the daily's let alone understanding Spanish)", and then the next minute despairing at the "wretchedness that had befallen [Gina]". By all means, use sophisticated vocab, but try to keep in context of the character you have created to make it more believable.
Sorry for lengthiness, I can get a little carried away with critiquing sometimes. I really love what you have so far, and with some fine tuning I think it has fantastic potential :)
Keep writing!!
~ GirlOnTheRun |
|
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
