Officer Reveres slapped her for head, “Son, just what the &%^$ were you thinking? You steal my police issued Maxwell Extinction laser carbine, re charge it, conceal it, bring it into school, and to top it all off open fire on your own class mates; do you know how completely and utterly stupid of a thing to do that is; and all this while your still serving toad juice probation!You’re just lucky you didn’t accidentally kill anyone or else you’d be facing murder charges on top of all that; than youd really be &^%^&^.” Def shrugged, “Funny, being locked up in this here jail cell sure doesn’t make me feel like I'm very lucky.”
Officer Reveres squinted her eyes, “What, do you think this is funny? You think this is some kind of joke. Well guess again Mr. because you are in some serious &^&* right now, you here? Were
[This message has been edited by Grand Admiral (edited October 19, 2006).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited October 19, 2006).]
Posted by cll (Member # 3673) on :
This was a rough read for me. Personal opinion says that four "@#*@" in the first thirteen is too much. What would the entire mss look like? I think the characters need more developement. I don't care about either of them at this point. Give me a reason. "Police issued...carbine" is too long of a description, pick one or two of the most important adjectives. "Toad juice probation" ??? Didn't seem to fit. Almost too cartoony for my interpretation of the tone so far. Still, the concept with a bit more fleshing out could be good. With all the school shootings of late, though, be reverent in how you approach this topic.
Posted by Sara Genge (Member # 3468) on :
Funny and interesting. I would avoid using profanity more than once in the first thirteen lines (this is arbitrary, but once gives the idea without making the reader uncomfortable) The first two paragraphs start with exactly the same two words. Fiddle with that, it doesn't look too good on paper. The tone is a bit preachy. If this is humor it might just work, if not it's a bit "As you know bob" (turkey city lexicon if you don't know what that means) Hope that helped
Posted by sojoyful (Member # 2997) on :
I have to admit, these characters in this situation feel somewhat cliche. Bad kid does something to rebel against overbearing parent. Instead of seeing the kid's need for parental support of some kind, overbearing parent just pushes harder. Kid can't do anything right, blah blah blah. Not interesting. I need something to make this situation unique.
...slapped her for head... Do you mean forehead? That confused me for a sec.
You steal my police issued Maxwell Extinction laser carbine... Real people don't talk like that. It felt fake. She would say 'gun', or at most 'carbine'. "You steal my gun..."
...re charge it, conceal it, bring it to school, and to top it all off open fire on your own class mates... This also didn't quite feel like something a real person would say. Given the immediacy of the situation and seriousnes of the crime, I feel like she would say, "You steal my gun, take it to school, and fire on your classmates..."
Those are two examples, but in general your dialogue doesn't feel realistic to me.
Each time the speaker changes, you should start a new line.
Also, this needs some basic spelling/grammar checking. - "while your still serving" --> you're - "than youd really be" --> thEn you'd - Etc.
There's a lot of shrugging and squinting and sneering and slapping going on. The nature of the dialogue makes it clear they are not being pleasant, so you can just use the less-distracting 'said' and we'll still get it.
Hope this helps.
Posted by Soulsmith (Member # 4061) on :
I think that the dialouge sort of out weighed the description. Yeah, it's rather interesting when two characters are squabbling, and the topic of the arguement can also be a factor. But as I'm reading the dialouge with hardly any description. All I got out of it was that the character were inside a prison. I'm picturing a scene where the characters are talking to eachother in the dark, or in light so dim that you can hardly see details of anything except the bars of a prison door. But I understand it is a challenge to try to convey it all in the first 13 lines.
[This message has been edited by Soulsmith (edited October 19, 2006).]
