Most folks lurk for a while then let their voices be heard as participants in discussions before posting. You can learn a lot that way about how things go around here. And old timers are often more likely to give their valuable time and trust to someone they know is invested in the group.

Anyway, about your snippet here:

I like the setup of a more ordinary situation into something that looks spy like.

Only a couple nitpicky comments.

"The 19-year-old millionaire" and " his neighbor and former high school American Literature teacher" -- depending on your pov these can seem like breaks out of pov or unnatural thoughts for the character to have at the time. Now if this is a more external pov, then that's not a problem, though the second one is a little wordy, imo.

Also "mc's name/pronoun/identifier did this" type of sentence structure gets a little repetitive. Consider altering one of them.

Finally, the "he" of "he said" needs to be lowercased.

Hope this helps,
Cya,
CC

I do rather doubt that mft is a pot-smoking millionaire, though 19 isn't an impossible age. And having a crush on a former high school AmLit teacher living next door...that's not probable at all.

I also really dislike giving out information just "for no reason," like "the 19-year-old millionaire."

There should be ample opportunity to SHOW us that he's 19, that he's a millionaire, who Sarah is, etc. Too much information packed into one tiny little space, and none of it revealed in context. When I can hear the writer's voice telling me things, addresses and dates and "it was his birthday" and stuff like that, I always react with negative vibes. that he's this way or that. Never tell. Show. Show. Show.

I do like the bit about his looking THROUGH his glass. Maybe show us how that makes the place look, or indicate he's looking at the place all bent because of the type of glass it is?

Another biggie, a HUGE one for me, is "Where are you, love?" You really ought to indicate HOW he said it. He could say it in the tone used in drawing room comedies, or he could be saying it in the fade-to-black last line of a creepy movie trailer. It makes all the difference in the world HOW he asks the queston.

For the record, the details referred to here by FM should be shown and not told. It's just that when people say "never" tell, I have to contradict that.

I think what our new friend is doing with his opening is typical of people of our generation when they first start writing -- they write things from a cinematic POV. We can't help it, with all the movies and TV we watch. I wrote an entire novel that way before being taught better.

I write as if the material I'm displaying is COMPLETELY UNKNOWN to the audience. If my characters don't know what a tank is, then it's a big metal object on wheels. If my character doesn't know what whipped cream is, it's white fluffy goo spraying out of an aerosol can (if they know what an aerosol can is to begin with or it's just a colorfully-decorated metal pipe that's capped on one end with a nozzle on the other).

Likewise, I absolutely despise when writers "reveal" information with me.

Bad:
Harry saw the old wizard standing on the steps of the temple. The wizard had long been regarded as famous among puzzle-makers, but had also been involved in curious and suspicious undertakings during the Goblin Wars.

quote:

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Another biggie, a HUGE one for me, is "Where are you, love?" You really ought to indicate HOW he said it. He could say it in the tone used in drawing room comedies, or he could be saying it in the fade-to-black last line of a creepy movie trailer. It makes all the difference in the world HOW he asks the queston.

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Now I thought Francis did a pretty darn good job of characterizing his POV character as a creep, a stalker type. So putting a dialogue tag that describes the WAY he says "Where are you, love?" is totally unnecessary. I can hear EXACTLY how he says it. I don't need to be told. I've already been shown.

And, besides... giving indications of tone isn't telling. It's showing, because you can't hear a book (unless it's being read by Tim Curry, in which case everything sounds creepy and stalker-y).

What's more, simply assuming the typical, STEREOtypical stalker tone "Where aaaaaaaaare youlooooooove?" is cliche' and trite, and by definition totally unacceptable. It turns the character into a joke, a one-note element that brings to question why the story is being written in the first place. "Why are we getting what we've already gotten?"

Stalkers don't typically sound like they do in the movies, anyway. Do a little research into the myths and stereotypes of stalkers and you will find that many of the most dangerous people in our culture were often portraying themselves -- even in private or in their own journals -- as nice, quiet, serene people. Therefore, it's also a question of whether you're going for realism or for cliche'.