[This message has been edited by Swimming Bird (edited October 01, 2005).]
 

Can't really think of anything else to add. The descriptions and feel of the scene are good, to me. Though I would like to see something that indicates what time of day this is to fulfill the scene in my head. Is this hooker coming up in broad daylight? Is that normal in this city, for them to be on the job in daytime? Or is it at evening/night and not too unusual of an event, besides her being persistent?
 

That's just me, though.
 

"I see her puckering up and getting ready for another kiss so I press a button on the dash to make the window retract, cutting her off"

Why try and impress a whore by saying "****"?

I didn't realize saying that was impressive to you or anyone else.

Why not just roll the window back up when she doesn't take the hint?

"The whore leans in through the open window, her bruised forearms reclining against the frame."

-----------------------

I had more lines here, I'm not sure why Kat deleted the rest of it since to me this is only about 6 lines and not 13. But within the span of those next 7 lines it is revealed that it's night, what the whore looks like, that she is really a he, and that the protagonist does let her into his car.

Thanks for all the crits.

[This message has been edited by Swimming Bird (edited September 28, 2005).]
 

I want to know what MC is feeling. He says "get the **** out of here," but he says it calmly. I don't get any other sense of what he feels. Delighted? Bored? Scared? Repulsed? Tell us.

You may have a good reason for 1st person present tense, but if not, I suggest past tense.
 

I also wish you had an email address, because I would be interested in reading more of your stuff, rather than just snippets.

IMORTANT NOTE ON THE 13 LINE RULE: everyone seems to get this wrong. 13 lines does not mean domain lines. It refers to manuscript lines - Courier, 12pt, about ten words per line - which works out at roughly 8 lines as they appear on this forum page. If you scroll back up you will, indeed, see that your fragment is exactly 8 lines.

[This message has been edited by Paul-girtbooks (edited September 28, 2005).]
 

I did read the text. I know the guy's nominal reason for rolling the window down in the first place. But that reason doesn't counter the fact that what he's lowering is something he regards as a "protective barrier".

I'm not impressed by "****", nobody is. The thing is, using an explicative for emphasis when talking to someone that you think is a whore is simply stupid. There are times when using an explicative can demonstrate that you feel strongly about something, and there are times when it only indicates that you wish (rather pathetically) to fit in. This is the latter case, and the character doesn't seem to realize it.

If someone leans into my car's open window without my permission, I don't see any reason I shouldn't roll the window back up. Particularly if words have already failed to correct the situation. Maybe I'm a bad person, but it isn't as though you're painting the narrator as a paragon of virtue and compassion here.

The point is probably that I shouldn't have bothered to comment at all on this opening. I particularly shouldn't have assumed that my comments would be as clear as I thought they were. But it isn't like I was deliberately being obscure...this time.
 

Rolling down the window could have been a laps in judgment. If his main concern is that he does NOT want this woman to put another lipstick smear on his window, then maybe for that moment that need out weighed his need for the protective barrier.

Cursing calmly seems to make perfect sense here to me. Using a vulgar expletive in a calm voice could be very unsettling. I don’t think we can assume by this amount of the story that the guy is trying to “fit in”. Even if he is, it could be to ensure that this whore does not see him as weak or overly polite. This may not work, I personally have never been accosted by a hooker, but then again, maybe neither has he.

I will say that there seems to be a conflict in tone between the “Please, get the **** out of here” and “No, Really … I’m not interested”.

All in all, I like it.

 

Besides, it also says a lot about a character in what language they use. Just like showing an illiterate character struggling to write and deliberately putting in the mispelled words, swearing shows a facet of personality, or simply what the character lives with and grew up with. That's all. While I personally believe that things get highly boring if it's used excessively--2 or 3 times per sentence--it can be a good character facet, and can sometimes lend that gritty feeling to a story.

On the matter of the protective barrier.. I like it all, I'd simply add something like he regrets lowering the window after doing so.. get across, perhaps, that he thought in that moment only of his window getting dirtied and didn't think of the consequences of lowering his 'protective barrier' until too late.

Otherwise, I'd probably be interested in reading this, if you're looking for readers.
 

The idea that he's cutting her off by rolling down the window didn't work for me. Perhaps that could be rephrased? Rolling the window UP would cut her off. Rolling it down, no.