Grimwood noticed the windows were rattling in their panes under the stress of the storm and wondered whether his choice to sit in the greenhouse was such a great one after all. A face full of glass would be most unwelcome right now, he thought, then stifled the urge to chuckle. Here he was sitting on enough plastic explosives to send him and the farm into orbit and he was worried about a few pathetic lacerations. If the bounty hunters got hold of him before he could detonate the box under his deck chair that would be the least of his worries.
Once again he checked the rig was primed and sat back, despite his impending doom, he felt strangely relaxed listening to the violence of the weather outside. There was rythm in all that howling chaos if he listened hard enough, the way the rain came
[This message has been edited by Zoot (edited September 27, 2006).]
[This message has been edited by Zoot (edited September 27, 2006).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited September 27, 2006).]
I also really like the tone throughout. Your narrative voice has an ironic sense of humor that makes this rather serious scene interesting.
I like the name Grimwood. Somehow it seems to fit with the ironic humor.
He's hanging out in the greenhouse with this ironic narrative voice, and he's about to blow himself up? Interesting hook.
I liked the piece overall, and I had next to no difficulty reading. It is, IMO, well written. My comments are minor.
Spelling nit: rythm --> rhythm
I thought some punctuation adjustment here and there could make it a tad easier to read. For example: "Here he was, sitting on enough plastic explosives to send him and the farm into orbit, and he was worried about a few pathetic lacerations."
Once in a while, I wondered at your choice of vocabulary, only because it didn't seem to fit with the voice you have established in this character's head. For example, I didn't get the feeling that he would say "most unwelcome" - I expected something less formal, like "pretty inconvenient". Another example: I wouldn't expect him to use the word "lacerations". Again, the less formal "cuts" seemed more in character. Then again, I could be waaaay off, and I recognize that.
All in all, I like it. Lots. If you're looking for readers and you don't mind waiting until the weekend, I'd be happy to see the rest.
the only thing i would do, and this is from someone who's been down, down, down that road, i to try to find a way to vary the sentence length, especially for emphasis, so that they do not all read the same, without losing that great narrative voice.
that is beyond my powers here, but i hope it might not be beyond yours.
Compare "send the farm into orbit" and lacerations, chiefly a medical term unlikely to come about in everyday dialogue.
The first sentence of the second paragraph is a run-on.
I stumbled a little on "most unwelcome" and "many-faceted surfaces" -- you could probably wordsmith these a bit to smooth the prose.
Overall, it was an interesting opening.
My one nit has already been said, just see if you can change up the sentence length.
Just a possibilty, maybe interject some storm noise to break it up?
I think this would be a lot more enjoyable with a little rearrangement of the sentences, so we don't have to wonder what's going on. See the first post in "Why the problem with the first 13 isn't that it's too short
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002662.html for what I mean.
As it is, I'm finding out a lot about how the storm sounds, but what I *really* want to know -- what's going on with MC, what he's planning, and why he's there -- isn't present. I'm all for getting the details of the storm, but first I want to know what's up and what will make me care.