What do you think of this beginning?

Question

It started at one thirty on a cold Tuesday morning in January when Martain Turner, street performer and, in his own words, apprentice gigolo, tripped over a body in front of the West Portico of St. Paul’s at Covent Garden.  Martain, who was none too sober himself, at first though the body was that of one of the many celebrants who had chosen the Piazza as a convenient outdoor toilet and dormitory.  Being a seasoned Londoner, Martain gave the body the “London once-over”... a quick coat and shoes, had just pegged the body as a drunk when he noticed that it was in fact missing its head.

	As Martin noted, to the detectives conducting his interview, it was a good thing he’d been inebriated, because otherwise he would have wasted time screaming and running about... especial once he realized he was standing in a pool of blood.  Instead, with the slow methodical patience of the drunk and terrified, Martin Turner dialed 999 and asked for the police.

The police emergency center alerted the nearest Incident Response Vehicle and the first officers arrived on the scene six minutes later.  One officer stayed with a suddenly sober Martain while his partner confirmed that there was a body and that, everything else being equal, it probably wasn’t a case of accidental death.  They found the head six meters away where it had rolled behind one of the neoclassical columns that fronted the church’s portico.  The responding officers reported back to control,who alerted the area Murder Investigation Team, whose duty officer, the most junior detective constable on the team, arrived half an hour later.  He took one look at Mr. Headless and woke his governor.  With that, the whole pomp and majesty that is a Metropolitan Police murder investigation descended on the twenty-five meters of open cobbles between the church portico and the market building.  The pathologist arrived to certify death, make a preliminary assessment of the cause and cart the body away for its postmortem. (There was a short delay while they found a big enough evidence bag for the head.)  The forensic teams turned up mob-handed and, to prove that they were the important ones, demanded that the secure perimeter be extended to include the whole west end of the Piazza...

? · Accepted Answer

Not poorly written but difficult to follow because a lot of your run-on sentences don't have proper punctuation so they can be read the wrong way. It's also a bit rushed in the first two paragraphs and the overall opening line: "It started at one thirty on a cold Tuesday morning" reminds me of those overused  "It was a dark and stormy night" openings.

But again, it would do your excerpt justice if some of the wordy sentences were revised and you used punctuation to break up the sentences, and if you focused more on character development instead of trudging quickly through the scene (I mean you start with Martain tripping over, then frisking a body, to calling the police, to the polices' arrival all in a matter of 250 words roughly...its rushed..and I know nothing of what Martain is thinking..so there's no character development).

Good start and good luck. :)

EDIT: *nods* haha I and AC (one of my contacts), were discussing this the other day. He suggested sticking up an excerpt from Tolkien to see all the people rip it to shreds (which they'd have every right to in my opinion), but we, in the end, thought.."what does it matter? It's YA and a lot of these people wouldn't care.

I stand by my opinion on this excerpt, it's not great. A LOT of crap is being published these days, not that this is "crap" per se. But it's why I get so frustrated when I see genuinely good, talented writers who don't have the ambition to sit down and write a complete novel...they'd shame 90% of the published authors out there. But eh. Just makes other peoples' "chances" of getting published higher if they're talented and can surpass the garbage being published today.

So what was YOUR point in doing this? Trying to suggest YA users don't know what we're talking about? *chuckles* If so then it failed. Like I said, garbage is published every day.Any ways, Happy Easter.

Anonymous · Answer

The actual excerpt itself could have been written a bit better but I am going to assume you were just trying to get the idea out on paper. So no biggie. The idea itself sounds like a great suspense novel. Perhaps mystery? Martain reminds me of Mark Twain, a clever alias:) 

Just make sure that everything in your story flows and is consistent throughout. I haven't and don't write thrillers/suspense/mystery, type novels but I have heard they are bit tough to write well. I am sure you can do it though:)

Keep writing.

Hiya · Answer

I agree with the first guy and it sounded more like those newspaper articles. If you want it to be like other stories then add more description and what is Martian Turner thinking through all of this.

Old Pine · Answer

I think it's very well written. I like the way you described Martain's (Martin's?) drunk outlook. It seems quite original.

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What do you think of this beginning?

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