Alexander Darcy was lying in bed still, pretending he didn't have to go to work. "Five," he thought to himself, counting the number of sirens he'd heard this morning since being rudely awakened by one. He rolled over onto his side to see how late it was. "Only 10 o'clock, not too bad..." Alex thought, suddenly motivated to get out of bed, or at least sit up. "Goddammit," he thought as his head throbbed with renewed intensity. "I knew I shouldn't have had that many PBRs."
Alex had had a bit too much to drink last night when Kara's dad came home. Jeremiah Taylor, Kara's dad, and him were good friends from less than desirable circumstances since Taylor was a drug dealer. Alex had no intention of selling Taylor out, but many of his cohorts had needed to go down to provide a smokescreen, many of whom Alex had gotten to know, which only doubled his guilt when he saw them being led away in handcuffs. Alex had really liked Tyrone, he was an amusing fellow, and a bit gruff, but you could count on him. "You can't really count on me, can you?" Alex thought and sighed.
Alex was about to settle into a long afternoon of wallowing in his own guilt when the fire alarm went off. Realizing he had no clothes on, Alex quickly shoved on yesterday's clothes, hurried down the hall, and stabbed the elevator button. Remembering that you shouldn't take an elevator in case of fire, he looked around the hallway for the stairs. Finally, giving up, he went back to his room, pushed up the window, dropped down to the fire escape. Alex allowed himself a brief smile at the fact that someone was actually using the fire escape to escape from a fire. He went around to the front of the apartment building and saw a clutter of people, awkwardly he remained some distance away from them. Looking around he noticed a gruff man head towards the package store, feeling inspired by the idea, Alex followed. "What could possibly happen, right? My headache can't possibly get any worse...."
1- Your action writing flows very well, because you combine just enough description to allow your reader to know exactly how he follows through with his actions. I really liked this detailed sequence of events.
ReplyDelete"Alexander Darcy woke up with a start as the alarm on his phone went off. Fuck, Kara! He ran around the apartment putting yesterday's clothes back on and hurried down the hall to the elevator. No matter how many times he pushed the button for the damn machine, it still wasn't coming faster. Once in the small enclosed space of the elevator, he began tapping his foot expectantly, willing the machine to go faster. At some point a girl with wandering eyes got in and he almost ran into her, thinking it was the ground floor. She was studying him as they rode down the last few floor, but Alex had resumed his tapping and didn't care or seem to even notice her existence. The elevator lurched to a stop and the instant the doors opened Alex darted out, his coat furling out behind him."
2- You have hinted that something is missing, from his life. Alexander goes through life almost as if he regrets something. It may be beneficial to make that something (maybe his dream to be Humphrey Bogart) more explicit than implicit, because I am not too sure yet what that regret/missing/loss/mistake is.
3- Something that I really enjoyed reading about was his connection to the police station. I would love to read more about A. Darcy's relationship with the cops, and specifically with the Deputy introduced in the first post. I felt that his presence meant something. Great Writing.
1. I like that your character has something happening in his life. It gives a sense of purpose ans progresses him as a person. I also like his interactions with other characters. In particular, the little girl. It really shows his mixed feelings towards his life.
ReplyDelete2. It seems like your character has a lot of stuff going on but nothing on a consistent basis. There isn't one thing that always has a place in his mind.
3. Overall I think this is very well written.