I'm rather nervous but after much reflection decided to offer up for constructive criticism the short story I just wrote. The whole thing is currently ~5800 words. Here's the first 11 lines:

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The gavel slammed down and jarred Anslem away from his brooding. He glared at the clock and bit back a curse. Six hours.

How could it take so damned long to convict Debbie’s murderer? To make it worse, now this fool judge was granting that beast of a defense attorney a recess! How dare he sheath the swift sword of justice to indulge in a lunch break? The rage was enough to make the younger man scream and choke the portly fraud who had taken- stolen- murdered his Debbie.

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I was with you all the way until the sentence
[The rage was enough to make the younger man scream and choke the portly fraud who had taken- stolen- murdered his Debbie.]
at which point I felt
a) this is telling, not showing, and it's something that could probably benefit more from being shown.
b) though I assume unintentional, and possibly due to truncation at 13 lines, it reads like he screams and chokes the guy (the rage was not almost enough; it *was* enough) for which portraying the actual actions would be more powerful.
c) The repetition of taken, stolen and murdered is probably unnecessary. The reader has picked up that Debbie has been murdered, so whether it needs to be stated again here is debatable.
d) There's been no action (by the protaganist). Unless it's a passive, melancholy piece, a hint at there being some action in the story may be handy. Even if it were token action. What if instead of the last sentence you had "stepping down from the raised gallery, Anslem woodenly followed the steady train of people out of the courtroom, sure that the pain he felt in his stomach was not one of hunger."? (Though, even that has problems)

On a side note, you might want to explain why brooding was more important than maybe paying attention to the trial?

Does he shout his indignation? Does he throw something at the judge?

Most of the topics you both brought up I do take care of in the next, oh, 20 lines or so. I'm glad the first couple paragraphs didn't have any glaring errors in them that threw the readers for a loop.

BenM, the 'taken- stolen- murdered' was a bit of an experiment to see how people would interpret what kind of mental state Anslem is in. The idea is that every time he thinks about what happened he works himself up into a frenzy and has little self control. I have a few more ideas on how to present that point within that sentence and will see what I can come up with.

Here is how I would write the last sentence (you don't have to do it this way just a thought)

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The gavel slammed down and jarred Anslem away from his brooding. He glared at the clock and bit back a curse. Six hours.

How could it take so damned long to convict Debbie’s murderer? To make it worse, now this fool judge was granting that beast of a defense attorney a recess! How dare he sheath the swift sword of justice to indulge in a lunch break? The rage was enough to make him want to scream and choke the portly fraud who had taken- no murdered, it would always be murdered- his Debbie.

Yesterday he had learned that sating his rage would have to wait. Oh, the doctor still bore the crimson markings around his throat from the brief second Anslem had gotten his hands on

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I await your responses with bated breath.

(After Edit): To clear up any more confusion please let me state that I have written the entire piece. This is mostly putting out a feeler to see if anyone is interested in reading what I have written or if they feel the beginning of the story is engaging enough. Thanks again!

[This message has been edited by traven (edited July 30, 2009).]

I agree with what was said above, there is too much telling and not enough showing. If he throttled the doctor, it would be better as a scene rather than as an exposition.

I might not read on after the doctor incident as I'm not personally interested in people I don't like if there's no other perspective of story. There isn't here. Why is this guy so angry? Is it because of the murder? I get the impression that this is an angry guy most of the time.