Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When I first got the call, I was annoyed. The ring of a landline phone that honestly belonged in a museum was grating, to say the least. I mean, seriously, what could be worth using this s****y landline for? The human race invented cell phones for a reason. Now, to be fair I was kind of half asleep, so I didn't question it at the moment, but I mean, come on. As if common sense wasn’t rare enough, people. At the moment, all I thought was ‘another problem for me to solve, great. More all-nighters, distraught loved ones, and more, and more, and so much more paperwork. Not like I've had plenty of those for the past way too long.’ I sighed. You honestly don’t understand how much filing and paperwork goes into policing. It was as if Satan and a printer had a baby. A very, ugly, time-consuming baby. Seriously, I was barely listening, let alone awake to start with. Hell, I barely cared about the call at first. Besides from the fact that it startled me awake, that is. I was fully ready and willing to just hang up the call and bide my time until I could clock out, or, even better, just take a nap until said time. It was all set in motion, ready for me to procrastinate my night away. Just as I was about to execute my master plan, though, I heard it. It wasn’t expected, not at all. I didn’t like how I noticed it. Honestly, as soon as I heard it, I wished I hadn't even taken it into account at all. My hand stopped moving once it fully registered in my head. It felt like it was in the room with me. “Jack, we have a situation. A very…” he sighed. “Look, I’m not dealing with thinking of a description. Just get your a*s down here ASAP. Bring your A game, too.” Then, the line went dead. I was frozen in place, my hand slowly returning the cord-strangled phone to its place on top of the landline. After listening to the undeniable shake, the true undertone of a mix of discovery and… i dont even know what else in the commanding deputy’s voice, I knew this wasn’t normal. Even though I never liked to admit when something wasn’t deceptively easy or boring for me, I couldn't pull myself away from the fact that this was new. Nothing shook that statue of whatever you’d like to call a man. That was, not unless he went more than ten minutes without hitting a drag off of one of his precious cigarettes. But this was different. I couldn’t tell what was the cause of this sudden morality that had to have been forcefully injected into the chief’s voice at the time, but something had to have done its magic. And it must’ve been specifically fucked up for this to have done it to him. Mind you, I've seen this man not even flinch at bodies, blood, threats, on and on and on. I liked to think I had an iron will and a “grow a pear” attitude, but the guy had me beat. Until now, that is. To say the least, I was interested. Unfortunately, of course, that interest (like the victim) immediately died after I got an email from my superior officer. It was a bunch of formal professional work hieroglyphics, but to make a long story short, I had realized I had to work with a ‘partner’. Honestly? I didn’t care that the little s**t was the regional manager’s kid. Or that this was his first night working here, even. For all I honestly cared, he could just run off somewhere else and get some other investigator to put up with him, maybe annoy them instead of my soon-to-be retired self. But no, when the chief says “you’re working with the kid and that’s final”, suddenly my input goes out of the damn window and down the woodshredder. Seriously, I’m THE Jack Hanson we’re talking about here. You know, world-renowned, caught multiple infamous serial killers, solving cases, yadda yadda yadda, and yet I'm being treated as some random stray dog the chief found on the side of the road. Whatever, I thought, I can just get this done with and go home to the family (or lack thereof, in my case), never having to come back to this hellhole ever again. It was a hellhole, I thought, and I wondered why I've been working in this place for so long. I mean, really. This police department was more like an abandoned crack house than anything else. I mean, seriously, there was mold and termites in some of the parts of the building! I get it, government funding is worse in small towns, yeah, yeah, but still, you can’t expect us to function properly when the coffee maker makes a group of our older officers look like a damn kindergarten. Well, screw it, I said to myself, let’s just get this done and over with. I stood up in my “office”, which was really just a little closet with a s**t load of plaques on the walls, and I grabbed the usual from my counter: my keys, gun, cigarettes, pocket knife, wallet, nothing new. It was all set up to be a usual, “disgusting”, and “vile” crime scene. Tch, please, give me a break. I’ve seen it all. Skinned bodies pinned to trees, decapitated heads that got driven onto pikes, so on, yadda yadda yadda. You name it, I’ve seen it. Can’t blame the convicts though, difficult to variate on killing somebody and sending a message in the same form. Plus, you can only say something is “groundbreaking” so many times before the ground below your feet is gone.” I know, glowering comedian. Anyways, besides that, enough of me yapping to nobody but myself. It was time to have to put up with the rookie, wherever the hell he was. Continuing my thought from earlier, surely, even though the commander seemed a little, no, fairly, scratch that, pretty shook, how bad could this be? After making sure I had everything I needed, I walked out of my closet-office and towards the front of the building where the entrance to the parking garage was. Weirdly, the place was abandoned. No chatty cops, lab geeks, investigators, anybody. This place was dead. Probably at the scene with the commander. I’d walked into the lobby, hoping and praying that I'd sneak past my ‘partner’, but, lo and behold, I saw the rookie out of the corner of my eye in the lobby. He looked like a pretty average kid, being around 5’10, give or take, 140 to 150 pounds, kind of stocky. He was black, had on an outfit his mom probably ironed before this, and had admittedly pretty good waves. We made eye contact before my antisocial b***h a*s looked away. He started to follow me. Great, an annoyance who knows he’s assigned to. There goes the hope that I'd just be able to pretend I was somebody else. Then again, I was pretty famous and renowned in this dump of a small town. Fair enough. I sighed as I walked. God, I hated this town. Sure, it’s where I grew up, but this s**t hole has had a serious history with killings and all. Well, surely can’t get any better than this, right? I left that stuffy police department and entered the (somehow) less ventilated parking garage with my rookie partner still in tow. I led him to our car and got into the police cruiser before he followed suit, getting in on the front passenger’s seat and buckling his seatbelt. Well, I give him props, he knows how to not talk. Makes for at least a decent ride to the scene of the crime. Although, I wonder. Why would they set the kid up for this of all things? The entire damn department is down there. Whatever it is, it’s something new, that’s for sure.

Reviews

[Rebecca hall]

You are such a great and talented writer, Thank you so much for taking the time to write stories and for creating such interesting ones for us. As an artist, I’d love to share some cover art ideas for your upcoming story, and I also have plenty of ideas in mind for the one I’ve already read. If you use any other platform like Discord, please share it with me so we can chat more comfortably there.

[L.G.Matthews]

Hello Rebecca,
I greatly appreciate your praise and offer for artistic collaboration. I would love to see whatever Artistry you have to offer. I will contact you further once I have a method of communication. Once more, I greatly appreciate your praise and offer, but for the moment I am unable to contact you. I will comment again when I am able to.
Thank you,
L.G. Matthews

[Rebecca hall]

Tysm for giving me a response, and yeah, I'll wait for your message, whichever platform you have, we’ll be able to talk easily on it, like DC, IG, or Twitter.

[JayG]

Wake up! That post is from a scammer. No one, on looking at this would label it as from a "talented writer." Do NOT deal with that person or you will be scammed.

This posting was, obviously, written by a newbie, who's making the mistake of transcribing themself playing storyteller. That works when you read it because for you, the storyteller's voice contains emotion the reader can't-know-to-place-there.

Here's the deal: The pros work hard to master the skills of the profession because, NOTHING ELSE WORKS...even for hobby writing.

So, while I fully support your desire to write fiction I also have to say that to write it, you need to grab a good book on the basics, like Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.

[L.G.Matthews]

Okay, rude.

[L.G.Matthews]

Also, who's being labeled a "scammer" here? Because I'm extremely curious as to how you view this situation

[JayG]

Wake up! This site, being unmoderated, is loaded with scam ads. And the one you responded to is pretty much identical to the others we see daily, as both comments, and sent via the mail system.

Feel free to send them your money, though.

That aside, as someone who has 29 books on sale, who owned a manuscript critiquing firm, and has helped more than one or two to publication, your writing is NOT "great." In addition to having no paragraphing, you're making pretty much all the expected beginner's mistakes.

That's no crime, of course. And it's curable with study and practice. But someone without the sense to capitalize their pretend last name because they don't speak English well is NOT going to praise your work as "talented, unless they plan to take advantage of you.

[L.G.Matthews]

I appreciate your concern, being aware of said information, I do appreciate your explanation and willingness to explain and warn others. As for my writing, I see and recognize your credentials, but I do fail to see my "beginner mistakes", as you say, being awake and all. I would greatly appreciate your elaboration and potential pointing out my flaws and mistakes wherever you may see them so I may attempt to improve.
Thank you for your understanding,
L.G. Matthews

[JayG]

• but I do fail to see my "beginner mistakes"

If you “saw” them, you’d not make them. 😆 So, take a deep breath. This will sting.

First, a solid block of text with no paragraphing is unreadable. Lose your place, and finding it again is a problem. Paragraphing serves a purpose. So, it’s not optional.

• "When I first got the call, I was annoyed."

Here is where the rejection would come, with no more read. Why?

1. “The call?” That this person won the lottery? That their parents were dead? That their car was ready for pickup? Without context this is meaningless as it's read. And because you can’t retroactively remove thatconfusion, the reader turns away.

2. We don’t know where we are in time and space. We don’t know what’s going on. And, we don’t know whose skin we wear.

Those are the three issues we must address quickly on entering any story, if the reader is to have context.

3. This is not the protagonist getting that call. It’s the author, pretending to have once experienced the events, providing a secondhand retelling. Had that same narrator said, “When Jack first got the call, he was annoyed,” nothing would change, but that the reader would have a name at the start. The data presented would be exactly the same. So who cares which personal pronouns the narrator uses, given that they’re not on the scene, just talking about it?
4. With this line you establish that we’re not living the scene, only hearing about it. For you it doesn’t matter that you’re playing storyteller, because as you read it, the narrator’s voice—your voice—is filled with emotion that the reader cannot-know-to-place-there. So, it works...for you. The reader? They get a storyteller’s script, with no idea of how you would perform it.

• The ring of a landline phone that honestly belonged in a museum was grating, to say the least.

Who cares that an unknown person, in an unknown location doesn’t like the ringtone of a phone we can’t hear? It’s the conversation, and what it motivates the protagonist to think/say/do that matters.

• I mean, seriously, what could be worth using this s****y landline for?

This isn’t a meaningful part of the story. It’s what YOU think of landlines. But no one cares. And the story events would change not in the smallest way had the call come on a cell, or even as a text.

You used 327 words, which means over 90 seconds worth of reading to say:

“I was relaxing, and hoping to keep at it, when I got a call from the chief to come to the station.”

That would read close to 15 times faster and have 15 times the impact. Worse, the story doesn’t actually begin till he gets there. So this is 95% you talking on and on about things that don’t move the plot or meaningfully set the scene. In fact, after reading the entire 1342 posted words, the reader doesn’t yet know what the crime is, doesn’t know the rank and experience of our avatar, or even the country we’re in. And that’s after 7 minutes of reading.

And as a minor point, If you’re going to write about the police, you need to know how they really work. Always, write what you know, or, take the time to know it.

Bottom line: To write fiction you need the skills of the profession because nothing else works—especially the nonfiction writing skills we’re given in school.

No way around that, and, there are no shortcuts.

So, grab a good book on the basics, like Jack Bickham’s, Scene and Structure, and dig in. It will make a HUGE difference, and, make the act of writing more fun.