Mark Sidell stood by a brushed metal railing and thought into the inky, 2AM darkness below him – thinking, raw, unfinished, like the edge of the span itself – and wondered why, oh why, none of the bridges in Chicago were far above the water enough to snap his spine upon impact.
Mark was a burnt-red Greek, with rusty stubble growing out of maternal roots somewhere on the Emerald Isle. His mother had died when he was three, an ironic victim of a rain-slicked St. Patrick’s Day DUI combined with the 450 cubic centimeters of a Ford Mustang’s engine, and the slow-motion memory of his big brother Bobby’s culmination of birthday present whining: hair-pulling and a good old-fashioned yank on the steering wheel. His father was an alcoholic hypocrite with a disciplinarian streak – or, on his good days, an alcoholic disciplinarian with a hypocritical streak. Mark, unlike his brother, preferred the beatings to the hypocrisy, which is why, in accordance with the logic of reshaping and remolding that goes on in a social worker’s head, Mark was sent to the wealthy suburb of Winnetka while big brother Bobby ended up with one of the few Bridgeport Catholics who remained observant – in name, to the good book; in practice, to Torquemada. By contrast, Mark received a good schooling at New Trier, and went from West Side tough to North Side prep in a manner that would have made Ryan Atwood proud. When he went to Northwestern, his adopted parents had beamed with pride, and offered him his first car – a red 1988 BMW.
His first trip had been to pick up Bobby from Cook County holding. Throughout the ride, his brother had attempted, first, to wisecrack, then, to scream, and beat on the dashboard, and finally, to cry – but Mark remained stoic, unflinching, and told him he could not help with getting a good lawyer and to please leave the vehicle. The public defender pled Bobby down to twenty-two years, fifteen with good behavior. Mark did not attend the trial.
Bobby did not behave well in prison, and now, Mark’s near-two decades of soft, gentle hypocrisy were catching up to him. Or had caught up to him, and passed him – him and his third Beamer in seventeen years, parked on the side of this lonely Chicago bridge somewhere close to where he had grown up - and receded, like one of the garbage trucks that used to rumble past his childhood apartment, into the tangerine glow of a sleeping American city.
The boots were heavy now, heavy and set, and the tingling lack of circulation in his toes told him the concrete was holding his ankles as tightly as it would ever. Mark Sidell, ex-Salomon vice president and star rainmaker of The Horus Group, jumped into the Chicago River at 2:17AM. He was thirty-five.
I found this rather painful to read. Ive never seen so many describing words in a single paragraph. But the main problem I had with the piece was that I didnt care about this Mark fellow. You cut into the history of his life and I just didnt have any reason to care. Prologues that I've read, from popular series or what have you, were almost entirely attention grabbers. No history, no explanation. They'd perform some sort of heroic feet from the past or future to have the reader genuinely interested in wtf just happened. Its like you threw me into a biography of a man I dont even know. Oh, and when he 'jumps' into the river with some concrete shoes, I found that rather hilarious to picture.
Or had caught up to him, and passed him – him and his third Beamer in seventeen years, parked on the side of this lonely Chicago bridge somewhere close to where he had grown up - and receded, like one of the garbage trucks that used to rumble past his childhood apartment, into the tangerine glow of a sleeping American city.
This is all one sentence?
I dont wanna berate on it too much because it was still a pretty solid scene. But mostly because this is a writing style I have never seen before. The sentence I spoiler'd alone, is something I could have never written. Sorry if I was too harsh.
I also found your piece a bit difficult to read, though it seems as though you don't have much practice and as such a lot of room to improve. It's entirely too descriptive; concrete details about a characters life (especially for the protagonist) should not delineate him so sharply and so quickly. I think it's a common mistake that a lot of popular authors make, (notice how every time a gunslinging hero is introduced we learn the make and model of their weapon?). I would encourage you to offer a more internal perspective (or, conversely, simply less external facts) , as it allows the reader to build the character as more truly human. Right now, your piece reads as weird pulp noir, which it need not be. You have so much freedom with fiction, but this opening bit is very constrained! Looking forward to future installments.
On July 29 2013 09:15 Entertaining wrote: I found this rather painful to read. Ive never seen so many describing words in a single paragraph. But the main problem I had with the piece was that I didnt care about this Mark fellow. You cut into the history of his life and I just didnt have any reason to care. Prologues that I've read, from popular series or what have you, were almost entirely attention grabbers. No history, no explanation. They'd perform some sort of heroic feet from the past or future to have the reader genuinely interested in wtf just happened. Its like you threw me into a biography of a man I dont even know. Oh, and when he 'jumps' into the river with some concrete shoes, I found that rather hilarious to picture.
Or had caught up to him, and passed him – him and his third Beamer in seventeen years, parked on the side of this lonely Chicago bridge somewhere close to where he had grown up - and receded, like one of the garbage trucks that used to rumble past his childhood apartment, into the tangerine glow of a sleeping American city.
This is all one sentence?
I dont wanna berate on it too much because it was still a pretty solid scene. But mostly because this is a writing style I have never seen before. The sentence I spoiler'd alone, is something I could have never written. Sorry if I was too harsh.
That's called stream of consciousness (I'm pretty sure it's the style Shady intended) it's a way of allowing the character to think outloud and in stream rather than forcing the thoughts of the character to conform to grammer. Much in the same way our thoughts get carried away, the prose does too. It's intended.
EPT
, please post as you go, I'm looking forward to this.
