Donegal Vilain’s head hurt and the knocks coming in staccato bursts weren’t helping. His brother Jean was in the habit of bringing over his latest attempt at a drinkable brew whenever he needed to talk. Donegal wished that Jean would find someone else to commiserate with or a way to broach his private concerns which didn’t involve the two of them trying to drink their way past a nasty taste. The red ache behind his eyes expanded until even the pauses between the knocks had echoes. His eyes were narrowed into slits when he came upright and threw himself at the door.
He stared in disbelief at the woman on his porch. Libby.

[This message has been edited by SavantIdiot (edited March 25, 2010).]

[This message has been edited by SavantIdiot (edited March 25, 2010).]
 

At any rate - here's a few pieces of feedback, feel free to take what works and leave the rest:

1) knocks coming in flurries didn't quite work for me as a visual. Just me, perhaps. Actually, maybe the issue is that knocks are audible, and flurries to me are usually visual (snow flurries, a flurry of fists, a flurry of fur as a cat streaks by, etc.) Could you use another cool descriptor that is more audio in nature?
2) Is the guy's last name really Villain? Is it supposed to be tongue-in-cheek?
3) I personally don't care for character names/nicknames that use apostrophes. You don't mention the genre - it's more common in fantasy, but having a nickname START with an apostrophe seems like it's going to be confusing.
4) The red ache is a good line, good visual.
5) I think you need a comma in the "'On wished that Jean" sentence - I'd put it after the with, before the or. I do that because it's a thought break. I have no idea if that's grammatically correct, though, you might want to check me.

Good luck, it looks a pretty good start, though I am hoping there's someone pretty darn interesting on the other side of that door...
 

I have a few chapters of the new beginning for DREAMER'S ROSE. The first three come to just about 2500 words. First draft, but I'd be interested to know if they're interesting enough to keep a reader going. (With the new beginning, Rose doesn't actually come into the story until about chapter 10.) We could do an exchange of first chapters if you're interested.

[This message has been edited by Meredith (edited March 13, 2010).]
 

His brother Jean had gotten into the habit of bringing over his latest attempt at a drinkable brew whenever he needed to talk.--had gotten made me stop dead. Maybe you could rephrase it something like this, "His brother Jean often brought his latest attempt at a drinkable brew over when he needed to talk." That gets rid of the passive voice. Did Jean make the drink?

‘On wished that Jean would find someone else to commiserate with or a way to broach his private concerns which didn’t involve the two of them trying to drink their way beyond a nasty taste.--Is that supposed to be "Don wished"? A nitpick: I think you can lose the "that" after wished.

The red ache behind his eyes expanded until even the pauses between the knocks had echoes.--I really liked the imagery here. You can change the ending to "the knocks echoed" to lose the "had".

When he went for the door his eyes were narrowed into slits.--went feels weak. Did he stumble, stomp, lumber? and you can just say, "his eyes narrowed to slits" to once again make it stronger by taking out a passive word.

Yes, call me the passive police because I suffer from it's curse.
 

Thank you all so much! Flurries will go away for sure and I will try to get rid of my passive voice.
 

I'm still working to edit my 1st 2 chapters but when I'm done (hopefully soon), if you're interested we can exchange work.

Good start!