Young Writers Society

(18+ for violence and strong language.)



Look:
Acre City’s littlest crime fighter was standing alone in the southernmost district of the Swats. He was watching himself on the television that was mounted on the side of a building. William Griffin, age eleven, had just closed the case of the elusive serial killer known as “The Eviscerator.” On the screen young William was being interviewed by a female reporter next to a defeated looking police officer in a beige suit. William had light brown skin and short nappy hair. He was standing with one foot on his skateboard and wearing his trusty blue backpack filled with all the tools a kid detective needs to battle crime. Dangling on the silver chain around his neck was the honorary detective badge he received after solving the mystery of Nursing Home Strangler. And of course his trademark eye-patch was covering his left eye. It was a black square held in place by a pair of elastic bands. In the high definition screen one could easily see the many intricate scars radiating from beneath the boy’s eye-patch like a spider web embedded in his skin.
In the background a handcuffed man dressed as a clown was being led into the backseat of a police cruiser parked next to an ice cream truck. The truck had an identical albeit much more cheerful looking clown painted on the side. Young William was explaining to the pretty reporter how the killer was able to conceal the time of death by using the equipment in his ice cream truck to flash freeze the severed torsos of the missing school children.
The reporter asked the officer how he felt about having so many high-profile cases being solved by a child. The officer wiped the sweat from his pink forehead and explained that the ACPD was proud of the good deeds of its citizens; it was a speech he’d given many times. The image on the screen returned to the news-station headquarters where a male and female anchor made cheerful banter about the story. The female anchor remarked on the potential for greatness of young William Griffin.
“Yes,” said the male anchor, “maybe next he can solve the mystery of the incompetent police force. Ha-ha-ha…uh…are we still on the air?”
William turned away from the building and looked out over the stone terrace which offered a particularly stunning view of the valley of Palmdale. Palmdale, of course, is the borough with the highest concentration of skyscrapers in the city. The thousands of lights shimmered like stars against the smog-filled backdrop of the night sky. Acre’s littlest crime-fighter was undoubtedly wondering what other adventures the evening had in store. A blimp hovered above the tenement rooftops; the LED screen on its side had a cartoon image of a Black man wearing a metal mask below the animated words, “BEWARE THE DOOMSTER!!! Live at Kafka Stadium.” William was observing the blimp when he detected a disturbance in the vicinity. Somebody nearby was screaming.

The sound was coming from the alleyway between the tavern and the derelict electronics shop on Fifth Street. William jumped on his skateboard and made his way down the alley, the detective’s badge hidden beneath his shirt. He reached the corner where the alleyway divided into a T-intersection at the wall of a third building, the abandoned warehouse with the broken water tower on the roof. There he found the source of the scream, a little boy and girl, both Hispanic, both around eight years of age. They were probably fraternal twins according to William. The children were being harassed by two teenagers wearing black clothes; one was white, very thin with messy red hair. The other was Black, very round with short nappy hair.
Young William thought the dastardly duo looked like this standing next to each other: 10
The red haired assailant was prying the pink Princess Pony backpack from the little girl’s fingers, while the little boy was being pinned to the ground under the weight of the round boy’s enormous foot. William demanded to know what was going, his face hidden in shadows. The red haired assailant dropped the backpack. He was about to run when he realized that William was just a child.
“The fuck you want kid?” asked the red haired boy, “You tryin’ to get yer ass beat too?”
“Probably lost,” said the fat boy, “Why don’t you run back to Celina before something bad happens to ya?”

William pulled out his badge from beneath the collar of his shirt and took a step forward so that his face was no longer hidden. The first assailant laughed and said that Will looked like a pirate. The second assailant was considerably less jovial.
“Holy shit! He’s that kid, that fuckin’ detective kid!”
The red haired boy kindly asked his friend what the fuck he was talking about. His friend replied that he’d seen the boy on the news several times. “He’s the kid who caught Monstro and The Striker. He had The Gambino in a fuckin’ headlock; I saw it on the internet. How’d you do that, kid? It was the most badass shit I’ve ever seen.”
William balled up his right fist and cracked his knuckles with his left hand. “I’d be happy to do a demonstration on you two.”
The fat assailant took his foot off the little boy’s stomach and stepped back. He assured William that there’d be no need for such a demonstration.
The red haired assailant threw up his hands. “Yeah dude; this whole thing was his idea anyway.”
The other assailant began arguing with his partner, ostracizing him for ratting him out to Griffin. William interrupted their conversation, telling the two boys to leave. As they cautiously backed out of the alley William warned them that he’d do to them what he did to The Nighthawk if they bothered anyone else. The two hoodlums disappeared into the night and their victims thanked William for his assistance. William told them that they were very welcome and that they should stick to the sidewalks from now on. William saw the children safely to the bus stop and then returned to the alleyway. He had planned to climb the fire-escape of the old warehouse in order to find a good vantage point from which to seek out more criminals to thwart. As he approached the metal ladder he noticed the wooden door to the back of the warehouse was slightly ajar.
Here’s an artist’s rendering of young William’s thoughts upon noticing the door:?!
Young William stared at the door for a moment, scanning the surrounding area for any clues as to why it might be open. He could tell by the sign stapled to the door that the building had been condemned. Like many of the buildings in the Swats, demolition of the warehouse had been postponed due to the spending deficit in the city. Still it was unlawful for any person to be inside a condemned building without proper authorization. Griffin would have to investigate.


Part 2: post773570.html#p773570

5000 words, thats a noble word count.

I am going to review one paragraph, and this review will be harsh. THis is becuase this is good, except for this one paragraph.

Acre City’s littlest crime fighter was standing alone in the southernmost district of the Swats. He was watching himself on the television that was mounted on the side of a building. William Griffin, age eleven, had just closed the case of the elusive serial killer known as “The Eviscerator.” On the screen young William was being interviewed by a female reporter next to a defeated looking police officer in a beige suit. William had light brown skin and short nappy hair. He was standing with one foot on his skateboard and wearing his trusty blue backpack filled with all the tools a kid detective needs to battle crime. Dangling on the silver chain around his neck was the honorary detective badge he received after solving the mystery of Nursing Home Strangler. And of course his trademark eye-patch was covering his left eye. It was a black square held in place by a pair of elastic bands. In the high definition screen one could easily see the many intricate scars radiating from beneath the boy’s eye-patch like a spider web embedded in his skin.

Telling, telling, telling.
That paragraph was all details that could easily be shown with some imagery and interesting description for the reader to see and emotion to feel.
Show the reader the setting, whats going on without all those details. Also, never start a sentence with 'and'. That is a preposition, mean to conjoin sentences.


Write On
~WickedWonder

Hey, BadNarrator,

First off, very nice job. You've created a story with plenty of action and an entertaining premise. It did not fail to hold my attention, but there are a couple of issues. Things I've added or changed are in red.

On the screen, young William was being interviewed by a female reporter next to a defeated-looking police officer in a beige suit. William had light brown skin and short, nappy hair. He was standing with one foot on his skateboard and wearingwore his trusty blue backpack filled with all the tools a kid detective needs to battle crime.

The first is a longish sentence, which is fine, but it includes a lot of briefly described information, and no commas to break it up. I would at least add a comma between "screen" and "young". Also, consider breaking it down into two smaller, more descriptive sentences. You left out a few other commas as well. Consider inserting your description of William at the beginning, or where you're talking about him. As it is, it seems to switch from discussing the people around William to describing William.

In On the high definition screen, one could easily see the many intricate scars radiating from beneath the boy’s eye-patch, like a spider web embedded in his skin.

Nice description here. It's a bit of a run-on, but with a few commas, it's fine. I could picture his face pretty well.

In the background a handcuffed man dressed as a clown was being led into the backseat of a police cruiser parked next to an ice cream truck.

Whoa, information overload. I would definitely break this into a few sentences. Something like this:
In the background was a handcuffed man dressed in a clown costume. A police officer led him forcefuller into his cruiser, which was parked next to an ice cream truck.
Just a suggestion. Feel free to play around with it.

Young William was explaining to the pretty reporter how the killer was able to conceal the time of death by using the equipment in his ice cream truck to flash-freeze the severed torsos of the missing school children.

Here again we have a jump from one set of actions to another. The clown man was being taken prisoner, now we're talking about Will? Consider using a transition, such as "meanwhile", to organize the timing and make it more clear. It's also a lot of information coming at the reader at once. Creative idea for the killer, though.

The reporter asked the officer how he felt about having so many high-profile cases being solved by a child. The officer wiped the sweat from his pink forehead and explained that the ACPD was proud of the good deeds of its citizens; it was a speech he’d given many times.

Good, but there's something here I noticed that you did a lot throughout the writing. In many instances, characters' dialogue is simply summarized by the narrator. Sometimes this is effective and necessary, but here, I think it would be better if you actually included some quotations. Not huge, just an idea.

Palmdale, of course, is was the borough with the highest concentration of skyscrapers in the city.

Change of tense.

A blimp hovered above the tenement rooftops; the LED screen on its side had a cartoon image of a Black man wearing a metal mask below the animated words, “BEWARE THE DOOMSTER!!! Live at Kafka Stadium.”

Not sure about the use of the semicolon here, it might be better just to make it two sentences. Also, while "Black" can be capitalized, nowadays it is commonly left lowercase. The ad is kind of random, I assume it's a band or something?

They were probably fraternal twins according to William.

You could leave this sentence as is, but a comma is needed after "twins". The wording, "according to William" sounds a bit funny. Something like, "...twins, William judged," flows better.

Young William thought the dastardly duo looked like this standing next to each other: 10

I haven't seen anything quite like this before. If it appeared in a book it would look strange. Consider re-wording.

Ok, so that's all my nitpicking. Sorry if I was a bit too critical. The only other thing I noticed was a few absent commas and the tendency to summarize dialogue. It's more interesting if we can actually read the characters' words.

Besides those minor problems, it's a very good story. William seems to be an interesting character. I look forward to reading the second part.

Keep up the good writing.

BadNarrator wrote:
Look:
Acre City’s littlest crime fighter was standing alone in the southernmost district of the Swats. He was watching himself on the television that was mounted on the side of a building. William Griffin, age eleven, had just closed the case of the elusive serial killer known as “The Eviscerator.” On the screen young William was being interviewed by a female reporter next to a defeated looking police officer in a beige suit. William had light brown skin and short nappy hair. He was standing with one foot on his skateboard and wearing his trusty blue backpack filled with all the tools a kid detective needs to battle crime. Dangling on the silver chain around his neck was the honorary detective badge he received after solving the mystery of Nursing Home Strangler. And of course his trademark eye-patch was covering his left eye. It was a black square held in place by a pair of elastic bands. In the high definition screen one could easily see the many intricate scars radiating from beneath the boy’s eye-patch like a spider web embedded in his skin.

I like the bones of this beginning, but there are lots of things you can do to streamline it. Definitely consider the active voice ("Acre City's littlest crime fighter stood alone in the southernmost district of the Swats") and deleting some of the unnecessary description employed-- William's eyepatch is his trademark, and the description of that alone can conjure up a working mental image of him without bogging the reader down with details so early on.

BadNarrator wrote:In the background a handcuffed man dressed as a clown was being led into the backseat of a police cruiser parked next to an ice cream truck. The truck had an identical albeit much more cheerful looking clown painted on the side. Young William was explaining to the pretty reporter how the killer was able to conceal the time of death by using the equipment in his ice cream truck to flash freeze the severed torsos of the missing school children.
The reporter asked the officer how he felt about having so many high-profile cases being solved by a child. The officer wiped the sweat from his pink forehead and explained that the ACPD was proud of the good deeds of its citizens; it was a speech he’d given many times. The image on the screen returned to the news-station headquarters where a male and female anchor made cheerful banter about the story. The female anchor remarked on the potential for greatness of young William Griffin.
“Yes,” said the male anchor, “maybe next he can solve the mystery of the incompetent police force. Ha-ha-ha…uh…are we still on the air?”

This moment, along with some of the other details ("trusty blue backpack") make the tone lean towards the satirical side. I don't know if that's intentional or not-- if it is, then that's a subtle success. If it isn't, then you may want to consider cutting some of the suggestive detail.

BadNarrator wrote:William turned away from the building and looked out over the stone terrace which offered a particularly stunning view of the valley of Palmdale. Palmdale, of course, is the borough with the highest concentration of skyscrapers in the city. The thousands of lights shimmered like stars against the smog-filled backdrop of the night sky. Acre’s littlest crime-fighter was undoubtedly wondering what other adventures the evening had in store. A blimp hovered above the tenement rooftops; the LED screen on its side had a cartoon image of a Black man wearing a metal mask below the animated words, “BEWARE THE DOOMSTER!!! Live at Kafka Stadium.” William was observing the blimp when he detected a disturbance in the vicinity. Somebody nearby was screaming.

I think this entire paragraph, apart from the last sentence, could be cut without the piece losing anything. We've already received weighty descriptions of William and his history-- a paragraph on background simply slows the pace. If anything, "shimmered like stars" is a cliche, one that doesn't mesh with the tone.

BadNarrator wrote:The sound was coming from the alleyway between the tavern and the derelict electronics shop on Fifth Street. William jumped on his skateboard and made his way down the alley, the detective’s badge hidden beneath his shirt. He reached the corner where the alleyway divided into a T-intersection at the wall of a third building, the abandoned warehouse with the broken water tower on the roof. There he found the source of the scream, a little boy and girl, both Hispanic, both around eight years of age. They were probably fraternal twins according to William. The children were being harassed by two teenagers wearing black clothes; one was white, very thin with messy red hair. The other was Black, very round with short nappy hair.

Couple stylistic things at this point:
--both William and this boy have "nappy" hair; that particular adjective is uncommon, so your two uses of it stand out
--there are excess words in this paragraph, especially where the action occurs. The note that William's detective badge was hidden is not necessary, especially when the reader wasn't even thinking about it. I also don't quite buy that he would take the time at this point to note that they were probably fraternal twins
--your tone has officially won me over. I'm really liking it!

BadNarrator wrote:Young William thought the dastardly duo looked like this standing next to each other: 10

This is such an interesting method of description. It's almost...Dave Eggers-ish, but not in an imitation or a bad way. I know that one of the other reviews suggested taking it out, but I can't see why. It's different and a little jarring, but it's such a deft way of providing information. Literally as concise as you can get. I say keep it at this point, and at most fiddle with the font, make it smaller so it's less conspicious and therefore more aestheticaly pleasing when the reader comes across it. Just a thought. It's your vision.

BadNarrator wrote:The red haired assailant was prying the pink Princess Pony backpack from the little girl’s fingers, while the little boy was being pinned to the ground under the weight of the round boy’s enormous foot. William demanded to know what was going, his face hidden in shadows. The red haired assailant dropped the backpack. He was about to run when he realized that William was just a child.
“The fuck you want kid?” asked the red haired boy, “You tryin’ to get yer ass beat too?”
“Probably lost,” said the fat boy, “Why don’t you run back to Celina before something bad happens to ya?”

Grammar:
"The fuck you want, kid?" asked the red haired boy. "You tryin' to get yer ass beat too?"
"Probably lost," said the fat boy. "Why don't you run back to Celina before something bad happens to ya?"

Also a bit of an inconsistency with the accent if the boys are meant to be speaking the same way-- one says "ya" and the other says "you."

BadNarrator wrote:William pulled out his badge from beneath the collar of his shirt and took a step forward so that his face was no longer hidden. The first assailant laughed and said that Will looked like a pirate. The second assailant was considerably less jovial.
“Holy shit! He’s that kid, that fuckin’ detective kid!”
The red haired boy kindly asked his friend what the fuck he was talking about. His friend replied that he’d seen the boy on the news several times. “He’s the kid who caught Monstro and The Striker. He had The Gambino in a fuckin’ headlock; I saw it on the internet. How’d you do that, kid? It was the most badass shit I’ve ever seen.”
William balled up his right fist and cracked his knuckles with his left hand. “I’d be happy to do a demonstration on you two.”
The fat assailant took his foot off the little boy’s stomach and stepped back. He assured William that there’d be no need for such a demonstration.

Haha. I'm loving the dialogue here.

BadNarrator wrote:The red haired assailant threw up his hands. “Yeah dude; this whole thing was his idea anyway.”

Semicolons within dialogue have a tendency to be awkward, because it's hard to visualize somebody saying a semicolon. Maybe two separate sentences?

BadNarrator wrote:The other assailant began arguing with his partner, ostracizing him for ratting him out to Griffin. William interrupted their conversation, telling the two boys to leave. As they cautiously backed out of the alley William warned them that he’d do to them what he did to The Nighthawk if they bothered anyone else. The two hoodlums disappeared into the night and their victims thanked William for his assistance. William told them that they were very welcome and that they should stick to the sidewalks from now on. William saw the children safely to the bus stop and then returned to the alleyway. He had planned to climb the fire-escape of the old warehouse in order to find a good vantage point from which to seek out more criminals to thwart. As he approached the metal ladder he noticed the wooden door to the back of the warehouse was slightly ajar.

Boo! I was loving the dialogue and am slightly disappointed that you shifted into exposition for the resolution of the confrontation. The result is a slightly unbalanced flow in the action. Maybe show the ostracizing and the interruption into the departure rather than summarizing it?

BadNarrator wrote:Here’s an artist’s rendering of young William’s thoughts upon noticing the door:?!

Hrm. This stylistic touch is different from the first one. It's more awkward and less believable...the first insertion works because it simplifies description and is woven very well into the story. This one is almost an aside, an unecessary depiction, and also less unique. I don't like it half as much.

BadNarrator wrote:Young William stared at the door for a moment, scanning the surrounding area for any clues as to why it might be open. He could tell by the sign stapled to the door that the building had been condemned. Like many of the buildings in the Swats, demolition of the warehouse had been postponed due to the spending deficit in the city. Still it was unlawful for any person to be inside a condemned building without proper authorization. Griffin would have to investigate.

I liked this one very, very much. It has a great balance of humor and darkness and savvy touches. Maybe the right encompassing word is attitude? Also, I stayed with it almost 100% of the time (a great success with a WIP short story!)

You deviate between two extremes in terms of description, the first being perfect sparseness and the second unnecessary overflow. I would suggest considering the descriptions of people very carefully before adding them; most of the time the reader doesn't need to know the color of a character's hair or their approximate age so long as they can sense their presence on the page. The same applies to locations. Who needs to know the history of the ground so long as we can see where the character's feet are?

The one time I was lost occurred near the beginning. Initially, I thought that some unknown character was watching William on the TV and I was on the brink of warning you that you were focusing too much on a background plot when I finally made the connection. Though I do like the introduction of William via him watching himself. That's clever.

My last suggestion would be to avoid getting caught up in the humor of the narrative. The story's got to carry itself too!

Great piece, dude.

Dissolved