About a quarter mile from the cabin Sheriff LeBoone pulled his Jeep onto the road’s weedy shoulder, turned the headlights off, and sat staring at the tired structure.
There was no movement, no signs of life, but as he got ready to turn the headlights on again he noticed Butch cocking his head and twitching his ears. The dog whimpered, staring at the place, so LeBoone rolled down the window and leaned out. Sure enough, strains of music could be heard in the night air. He’d no more than recognized the pulse of T-Rex’s Mambo Sun when a flicker of light flashed across a darkened front window. He turned to his companion. “Well, Butch, I guess we’re gonna earn our keep today.”
With the hound attached to the leash wrapped around his wrist, LeBoone approached the cabin with his gun drawn, flashlight in hand. He moved carefully, taking cover behind bushes and trees whenever possible, careful to avoid any branches or sticks that might snap or trip him while keeping Butch subdued.
At fifty yards he turned the flashlight off and worked his way onto the cabin’s front porch, freezing when the floorboards creaked. He eased his weight over their warped lengths while Butch wagged his tail. The music continued as LeBoone drew up to the front window and peeked inside. The fog on the glass obscured his view, but light from the three-quarter moon revealed a scarred padlock lying at his feet amidst splinters of wood and a smashed, dangling doorknob. Butch padded forward and sniffed the crack under the door before looking up at LeBoone. The music stopped and LeBoone stepped over, kicked the door open, and turned the flashlight on.
Shining the beam about, it took him awhile to recognize what he was looking at with the smoke so thick in the air. Nude, preadolescent torsos floated above him. Barely developed breasts, minuscule buttocks, flaccid penises so inconsequential as to appear atrophied, caused him to recoil and he nearly fell over Butch in the process.
Swallowing hard, he tracked wires running from the children’s lifeless bodies to the rafters overhead. Like macabre marionettes posed in never ending flight, their drained faces appeared frozen in confusion and pain and LeBoone wondered how long had it taken someone to stage the whole thing, hours? The place reeked of mildew and marijuana while crack pipes, bongs, pills, and other drug paraphernalia lie within arm’s reach. Used condoms littered the blood stained floor.
Someone giggled and LeBoone spun as the ghostly silhouette of a child emerged from a darkened hallway.
“Don’t be afraid, Mr. LeBoone. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“Don’t you move, you hear?” LeBoone could hear his voice trembling. “Take one step and I’ll blow you to hell.”
The figure appeared to pout, crossed its arms and stomped one foot. “You’re not being very nice.”
An abrupt jolt to the back of LeBoone’s head knocked him senseless and his gun fired as he fell to the floor. Someone shrieked. Moments later a gray figure bent down and pried his weapon from his hand. “Hurt my dog and I’ll kill you,” LeBoone muttered, then everything went dark.
Ratzlaff Writes 
Hi, Brad,
Just a couple of comments on the chapter. It’s well written storytelling-wise, but you’ve got some mechanical blips that you’ll want to take care of before an agent or editor sees it. You consistently put apostrophes where they’re not needed. For example, family names such as the Crowleys don’t take an apostrophe, which would make the name possessive (as in “Chad Crowley’s death” where you do need the apostrophe.)
Likewise the car brands in “Pulling their Mercedes and Porsches and Jaguars off to one side…” The apostrophes used as you did makes those words possessive, not plural. I see this a lot in workshop manuscripts; it’s common, but there are still editors who will toss a manuscript out for that not to be mean, but because it throws them out of the story and suggests the writer doesn’t know his tools.
Also, I’d put in more paragraph breaks especially when a character is speaking or you’re change the subject slightly.
With regard to the story itself, so far, I think two things are worth mention. One is that I thought the portrayal of affluenza was a bit heavy handed. The characters were walking stereotypes. The other is that I got hooked on the mystery surrounding the Boy Scout Cabin (good job on the buildup with the Sheriff and dog) BUT I thought I was going to be reading a thriller or even a horror story. It was disappointing to find the Boy Scout Cabin was full of teens and preteens with a death wish. Now, I have to admit that I write urban fantasy and supernatural stuff myself and love to read it, so it maybe just personal disappointment. But if the reader is expecting oo-ee-oo and it turns out to be something else … well, one of my writing partners had a novel that failed because the setup seemed to be going in one direction and the story ended up going in another.
Obviously, it’s too early to tell where you’re going with this, but the cabin seemed like a set up for a gripping thriller, ala Dean Koontz and then turned out to be more horrible than horrific. By which I mean that your depiction of the kids’ sexual and drug activity was viscerally horrifying, but because the narrator is sort of glib and conversational, it feels as if you’re trivializing it.
Now, that may be exactly the ethos you’re going for, in which case, kudos—you nailed it.
Good luck with this and on a personal note, please do include at least one character that doesn’t give a rat’s patootie if she or he is considered a prude. They do exist.
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Thanks so much for your excellent critique and invaluable suggestions, Maya! They are greatly appreciated and definitely worthy of consideration. Of course, the advice on punctuation is spot on and I’ll be making those changes immediately! The novel is a modern day retelling of the classic story, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” if the title didn’t tip you off? Likewise, if you’re ever interested in someone reviewing any of your works-in-progress please feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to return the favor! For now I’m going to review your profile in hopes of getting to know you and what you do a little better…
All the best to you and yours,
Brad Ratzlaff
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Hello Brad
Your critic gave some good points and overlooked quite a few others. I myself am a published author. I also hold two master’s degrees, though they were of no help in writing my books. I spent a great deal of time reading publications on how to write.
This helped. I also paid a professional editer to guide me in putting my 400 page manuscript into book form. This was crucial.
I then paid an even greater sum to my publisher’s editer, even though I had been given an alternative of editing the book myself. I had my own reasons for this choice. He cut out 100 pages. I felt then that the book was as grammatically correct and as tight a storyline as I could make it. I could edit and critique your work. However, that might be doing you a great disservice. Although the cost of professional editing runs high, I’ve found it essential on the road to publication. I paid $1,500 to my first editer and $2,000 to the second. You may find an honest editer for a much lower cost. I did my best to do that as well. Nevertheless, your manuscript needs a higher level of editing than whatever you may solicit free of charge here. This is true for all authors seeking publication for their manuscripts. Of course this implies the author wishes his work well received and able to hold its place in the public marketplace. That clarified let me give you my opinion on the first three sentences.
I like your writing. Your opening is good but doesn’t grab. I believe it is because although it starts mysteriously and somewhat graphic, the mystery fades with a descrition of the teenagers. They are simply not physically robust enough and there is no action happening in the scene either. For instance, rape-hetero\ homo, and\or murder is the least we expect to find in the scene we’ve been holding our breaths to see. On the other hand you might depict a few corpses hanging from meathooks. We expect to be shocked by the stealth and statements of the approaching sheriff. The more shocking the better. You need a forceful, gripping opener to hold our attention and grab our imagination within the first three pages.
You grammatical structure is also poor. You not only make mistakes in punctuation, you write incomplete sentences e.g.
“Either flashlights or lanterns.”
If a reader in a publishing house finds a grammatical mistake in the first three sentences, the use of the same word in the first seven sentences or if his attention is not grabbed in the first three pages-he trashes the work.
Keeping this in mind, let us look at the first three sentences.
Your first sentence runs on with commas and needs to be broken into two. I would suggest a period be placed after the first use of the word,”…caller.” The following sentence could read, “High pitched and girlish(though this adjective is unnecessary), it was possibly that of a child.”
Your second sentence starts with, ” The caller…” Unfortunately, this is the use of the same word in just two sentences, when seven are the limit. The reason for this limit is because it acts as an attention grab and interrupts the reader’s train of thought.
The third sentence, as stated above, is an incomplete sentence.
Please do not be discouraged by my cold but honest review. I do like your writing. I merely wish to back up my statement requiring professional editing.
You may look at the first ten pages or so of my own book – free of charge and available on ebook with Barnes and Noble. Both my books are also available on Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com. They are entitled, “Autobiography of an American Orphan” and “The People’s Poet” respectively. My pen name is Walter James. I wish you the best of luck with your writing Brad.
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Dear Mr. Burns,
Many thanks for taking the time to review this critical first draft of my work. I sincerely appreciate your suggestions (feel lucky to have received such an honest critique) and will definitely consider all you’ve said. I’m also happy to review your work on Amazon (as suggested) and offer an opinion.
All the best to you and yours,
Brad Ratzlaff
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Good entry into a story line. This should be a good hook to capture the interest of your readers. Look forward to seeing more.
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Thanks for the kind words, Patrick! Likewise, I’m looking forward to reading more from you as well!
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