The man in the window (Part 1)
It had been one of those dreadfully long days that seemed to drag along with about as much speed as a bee after stinging. I had just finished off my shift at the hospital and was desperate to get down to the coffee shop to get my caffeine hit for the afternoon.
As I walked past the window I saw an unfamiliar face in a fairly familiar looking environment, in such a small town, you don't often see new faces, so I was naturally intrigued. Being the nosey person I am, I ordered my coffee and approached him.
"Hi there, I'm Bella, not a lot of tourists in this part of the countryside, what brings you to our quaint little town?" he looked away from his laptop with a mixture of annoyance and surprise written across his face, " Business mostly but the town further up had no appealing accommodations, so I'm staying at the guest house down the road" I took in how unprofessional he actually looked and began to doubt his story, shaggy brown hair, stubble and casual clothes, " Oh I see, is Mr Sullivan treating you well?" I asked trying to fish if he was really staying at the guest house, " You must be talking about a different guest house, Mrs Benedict is the only lady I've met there"
" Oh I must be confused" I said as I silently let out a sigh of relief " Anyway, it was nice meeting you Bella but I must be off" he said while packing away his laptop and finishing his coffee in one large gulp, he pulled some cash out of his pocket, "Wait, I never got your name?" I said as he was about to walk out the door, "Oh, my name is John" He smiled and left.
There is just something about him that I didn't trust and I was determined to find out why.
Thank you for reading this and I will write Part 2 as soon as I can, I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to leave a comment about what you thought!
Hello @aimee-louise-j - a nice start to your story. :-)
But you are here for more than just a pat on the back and a 'well done'. You want to know how to make your writing better right?
So here are my suggestions:
This is all in italics - that's ok for emphasis. But trying to read the whole thing in italics is hard on the eyes. It makes your reader work for the story, and you want to avoid that.
Separate out the speech from the rest of the narrative - again this makes it easier to read and more obvious for the reader, especially when they need to switch voices in their head.
Also look for opportunities you add a full stop instead of a comma. Shorter punchier sentences often work better than long rambling ones. You can mix and match it a bit. one good trick it to read the sentence out loud and notice where you need to draw a breath, or where you pause in the reading. That's where your reader will want to pause as well.
You have also chosen to write this in the first person - that's a hard style to write well in. You have made a really good start so far, so very well done.
Please note that I have made these suggestions at the request of @giantbear to help you in your challenge.
If you want to see where I'm coming from in terms of writing, here are some stories I have written on Steemit. They are far from perfect. But it would be unfair to critique you without offering you the opportunity to do the same. ;-)
And you may pick up a few pointers by looking at the stories critically.
Running Deer - part 1
Running Deer - part 2
Stranded
Hi there,
Thank you so much for your advice, I really appreciate it and will definitely use it in my part two.
Nice story.
Worth waiting for the second part!
Thank you
This is good! I will reblog this for more exposure. Please add the tag gedwriting to all your posts so that I can easily find your work. Thank you for the effort, and I do hope that you will enjoy this as much as I do! Monday I will show you properly how to add pictures to your posts. xx
Thank you so much ma'am! It means so much