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"Freeze that frame," Captain Valentine said. Sargeant Campos complied, and the captain stared at the picture of the female private, who had just left the munitions building.

"Rewind the film. Stop it at the last person entering."

The sargeant again complied, and the two airmen examined the monitor. On the screen was a middle-aged male in desert BDU's.

The captain picked up the phone and dialed a three digit extension. "Lieutenant Maldonado, this is Captain Valentine at the Surveillance Sector. I need you to check your logs and tell me if there's a PFC Jones on the sign-out sheet from 0324 hours."

"I'm sorry, Captain, the last person to enter and leave was SFC Toja. He signed out at 0319, sir."

^ Yeah I have all the reasoning in my head.. definetly need to add some things to make both versions similar. With the Jones, I need to add that Valentine saw that the female private leaving had Jones as her last name on her BDU nametags.. and since no one named Jones was on the log, and the last person to enter the building was a male in desert BDU's..

Although I DO echo Beth's misgivings, as well as one of my own. I'd like a sentence or two of scene setting before the dialogue starts. Build that tension by showing Valentine looking over the surveillance videos before he commands Campos to freeze the frame. Put in that backgroudn that Beth suggested on why Valentine suspects there's something wrong, why he's going over the videos in the first place.

Also picking a man from a security camera seems to easy to pick the shapeshifter. If though you show the identifying trait to mark a shapeshifter it would seem more realistic.

Hmmm.

Okay, there's a possible hook here, and a few things are preventing me from being hooked.

The first thing is misspelling "sergeant" as "sargeant". I know that sounds silly and pedantic, but grrr... grrr....

The next thing is the following sentence, which if skimmed a bit too quickly can be easily misread and take on a whole new meaning:

quote:

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Sargeant Campos complied, and the captain stared at the picture of the female private, who had just left the munitions building.

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Or maybe it's just my dirty mind, but I'd consider a slight revision to that italicized bit.

Third thing is mixing in different military branches. This actually happens in real life, but somehow it all feels wrong in this introduction. We've got airmen, PFC's, sergeants, SFC's, Lieutenants, and Captains. Slow it down a bit... give us time to assimilate the nature of this unit. We have no idea where we are other than Security Sector, and that just sounds completely non-military to me ears.

Fourth thing is who says this part?:

quote:

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"Rewind the film. Stop it at the last person entering."

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Valentine? Someone else?

quote:

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Sargeant Campos complied, and the captain stared at the picture of the female private, who had just left the munitions building.

---

If it's above and beyond that, then you'll have specialized units, probably. Really, units are designated a particular way, as you know from being in the military. So, invent a unit name that SOUNDS military.

For instance: SS-356. This could be Surveillance Squadron 356, and maybe they could be attached to Echo Company, Battalion whatever. Know what I mean?

I remember my squadron designations: MALS-26 and MALS-36. Or Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron -- we said "MALZ Thirty-six" by the way. Everything is an acronym in the military by default, it seems.

So, you know, make something up along those lines, and have your guys refer to it as those. You can always work in what the acronym stands for at an appropriate time.

I also blame the expression 'Sarge.' I recently read Starship Troopers by Heinlein, and for some reason spelling it with an a instead of e stuck... ;o

-
Captain Valentine and Technical Sergeant Campos had been reviewing the past week’s security camera footage for thirty-five minutes. The 362nd Surveillance Squadron’s policy was to review the tapes once a week to keep the night shift busy – though it had been weeks since anything unusual occurred.
All of a sudden the captain’s eyes lit up while watching the most recent tape of the base’s biggest munitions building.
“Freeze it here," he said and put his finger on the screen. Sergeant Campos complied, and they studied the picture on the monitor. It was a male entering the building in a desert battle dress uniform. His rank was Command Chief Master Sergeant.
“Fast forward the tape, sergeant. Freeze it at the next person leaving.” The sergeant again complied, and they looked at the person on the monitor. This time it was a female leaving the building; Senior Airman Jones, as her nametapes indicated.
The captain picked up the phone and dialed a three digit extension. "Lieutenant Maldonado, this is Captain Valentine at SS-362. I need you to check your logs and tell me who left your building at 0239 today, 29 April 2043.
“My logs show that the last person to leave was Command Chief Master Sergeant Toja, sir. He signed out this morning at 0238.”
“Was he the only person in the building at the time, lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
"Lieutenant, evacuate and call in the bomb squad. My tapes suggest a shapeshifter infiltrated your building between 0119 and 0238 this morning.”

-
A female had left the building, but the person who entered before her was a male. If no one else was in the building at the same time, Captain Valentine had a shapeshifter on his hands.

^ These sentences I'm thinking of adding in after the "All of a sudden the captain’s eyes lit up while watching the most recent tape of the base’s biggest munitions building." sentence. Any thoughts?

quote:

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Unfortunately, while I was in the military, I never had first hand experience with any security forces squadrons.

---

My husband just spent two years working with an Air Force security forces squadon. I bet he could answer some questions about procedure and whatnot, if that is important to your story.

Send me an email if you want to pick his brains.

Consider who is going to be the POV, and then think about dumping us right into their heads. In other words, who are we going to follow in this scene.

Then, think back to your military experience. I know the Air Force guys had a cushy time compared to we Marines, but mostly, we all felt the same about going to work: we hated it. We wanted to be off-duty so we could pursue the local women with reckless abandon. Usually, we were hungover from the night before; a good long nap would have helped cure that, but duty is duty. We suffered through it somehow, and microwaved frozen burritos to eat so we wouldn't fall face first into the deck (due to waking up too late and missing breakfast).

Right. So there's that. Why not make these characters come alive a bit by giving them some personality--some perspective/viewpoint as they work? Pick one of them, Valentine or Campos and think about what he did the night before, and what he wants to do later. He probably doesn't to sit there and screen videos. Maybe, the guy plays in a rock band when he's off duty, and he's thinking about the gig he had scheduled, but can't go to it because he was called in on duty at the last moment. (If that seems implausible, well I can assure you that it happened to me dozens of times.)

See what I'm saying? The hook is going to be about the character your choose, not so much the event. The event is important, but we need to see how one of those characters is going to react to it.

As it stands now, these characters are particularly devoid of humanness. They're sterotypical military constructs, and we both know that simply isn't the case with people in the military. Acting one way, thinking another way.