Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

quote:

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The brash electronic ring cut through the peace that Tracy Framer had been enjoying as he smoked a cigarette on his front porch. He put out the cigarette and entered the house, his knee joints complaining about the sudden movement. He swung open the screen door, and it banged shut behind him as he picked up the phone on its cradle by the door and hit talk, bringing it up to his ear. “Hello?”

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This opening seemed quite excessive to convey the relatively clear; "The phone rang and disrupted his smoke" That being said, I feel that it could be tightened a great deal, as there is nothing that unusual about that given situation. That real estate could be used to delve deeper into the POV, thoughts,scene setting, etc...

Or it could be that my focus, being on speculative fiction, is trained the the speculative, and it is my expectation to see more abnormal scenes and this opening paragragh is comparatively mundane.

I feel you're snagged between two worlds: the clean-cut writing of SF and a more literary feel. You're doing neither at this point and the sentences suffer for it. I had to reread the first one twice to get what you meant by "cutting the peace". Beware of mixed metaphors.

Decide where you want to go, choose a voice, a style, and swing with it.

The brash electronic ring cut through the peace that Tracy Framer had been enjoying as he smoked a cigarette on his front porch. Reluctantly, he put out the cigarette, loose , put in "and" swung open the screen door, picking up the phone on<- change to off its cradle by the door and hit talk. loose "by the door and hit talk" “Hello?”

“Mr. Framer? This is Alli.”

“Oh, hi, Alli, Heather's not here.” Heather was his daughter, and Alli her best friend. Come to think of it, Tracy didn't know where Heather was at thisthatmoment.

^ this paragraph is kind of messy. Seems a bit forced on explaining how Alli and Heather know eachother. You might consider leaving out the fact that Alli is a friend, since it looks to become obvious later on. I think you can lose the "at this moment" from the end ("this" sounds weird here, is it supposed to be "that"(?))

“I didn't think she would be,” Alli said hesitantly. “That's kinda why I was calling. She left my place a couple hours ago to go get some snacks? She hasn't come back.”

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Good hook, I like this opening, I think you just need to smooth some stuff out I'd be interested in reading it

[This message has been edited by Devnal (edited June 26, 2008).]