posted
Three loud bangs on the glass window woke Logifer in a confusing haze. He turned to his left, only to be greeted by the horrible smell of decomposing bodies, accompanied by the small pitter patter of small mice and flies chewing away at the corpse. Logifer attempted to rise from his bed, though Logifer’s body was rather weak. Logifer slowly recalled details of his murdering rampage he had been entrusted with. To his right, his hand still grasped his championed sword, though it was still dripping with blood. To his left a small packed suitcase remained disheveled, now freshly stained with unsettling amounts of blood. The warrior, the saint, the commander was now diminished to a dizzy and fragile being. Had anyone seen him with such lack of confidence, the entire town would be written with the word scandal all over.
[This message has been edited by valjean03 (edited May 05, 2009).]
posted
There are a number of issues with the tableau:
1. Woke in a hurry. He sounds pretty groggy to me as his head is spinning in confusion. So that doesn't make sense. 2. From your description of the body, with flies buzzing around a swollen head, how could the odor have been 'small'. It might have started, but it's not small. 3. He must not be a very good housekeeper if there are scads of flies in his home. If his window is open, why is someone banging on his window? 4. If the blood is fresh, why isn't the corpse? 5. The problem with the town scandal is that someone is banging on his window. His 'secret' is now out. 6. Where is the hook? We've got this guy waking up with a headache, groggy, with a corpse and someone banging on the window, yet we are not in the story.
My suggestion is to take some of the tableau out so you can get a sliver of dialogue from the person at the window or a thought out of Logifer's head so we get taken into his world.
Sorry to be so forthright in this, but these are my observations. Feel free to rip into my recent post in short stories.
[This message has been edited by Owasm (edited April 25, 2009).]
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