After having to read the criticisms from the imperialist big game hunter in the comments to the last post, I'm not going to expose any more of my wonderful writings on this bloggy. But I've just re-written the opening. Only sixteen more re-writes to go. Here it is:
PROLOGUE
The walls of the Saracen’s Head hadn’t been repainted in over forty years. The double doors were straight across from the bar and the only patrons apart from the man asleep with his head on a formica tabletop were sitting in the corner, more or less facing the doors. The barman had just slipped through the back.
The detective sargeant was wearing a dark suit with an overcoat more expensive than you might expect and he was flanked on either side by two other men of slightly smaller stature. None of the three men seemed seriously intent on their drinks and gave the impression of waiting for someone, or something.
The double doors burst open and a traffic warden almost ran into the bar then stopped. He wore a beard, which seemed on the point of falling off, and his face underneath was reddened, the sweat pouring out of him. The whisky and the massive quantities of multifarious stimulants he’d been taking made his eyes like saucers on stocks, the pupils hugely dilated. He pulled a gun from inside his tunic and started quickly towards the table where the three men sat, firing as he went.
Bullets went into the throat and head of the men on either side of the detective sargeant, and he was shot in the shoulder, but then the gun jammed and the man dropped it. Pulling a sharpened chisel with a custom made hand guard from inside his tunic, he grabbed the detective sargeant by the hair, knocked over the table as he dragged him onto the floor, stabbing him on the head and neck as he went.
A furious madness gleamed out of the face of the man doing the stabbing, his lips pulled back, the gnashing teeth bared. He held the head down by the hair and the detective sargeant came to rest on his back as he was stabbed in the throat, then many times in his face, then several times through both eyes. He was dead by the time his forehead was stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and the stabbing didn’t seem to ever be going to end. The skull collapsed there and the traffic warden didn’t stop stabbing then. There was blood all over the traffic warden, the corpse and the floor by the time he finally stopped stabbing and scooped out a handful of the policeman’s brains. He stood up and threw the brains, still in a mad fury, at the wall. Then he stood up and stretched out his arms, one hand still holding the chisel and shouted in exultation.
Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass!
Two other traffic wardens came running through the door then, one with a red blanket which he threw over the killer’s shoulders. The other picked up the gun and the beard and all three traffic wardens rushed out.
The drunken man asleep with his head on the formica topped table claimed later that he never heard a thing and neither he did.
No idea why the indents copied like that.
The last sentence is very Cormac McCarthy. That's the trouble with reading stylists when you write. Maybe I'll see if I can get him out of my system before I go on.
Hotboy sat on the big bay with Jack the Spam Robot hanging onto his shirt and they rode down through the pass and by the clump of mesquoosh bushes near the side of the canyon walls and there did not seem to be a better way in all the world to travel in a starlit night than on such a fine animal as the big bay which blew and snorted and rolled it's eyes to the heavens as they came to rest by the creosote clump. Hotboy hobbled the horse and spoke to it in Spanish all the time while Jack the Spam Robot laid out a blanket for him and a tea towel for himself since spam robots are very small. They lay there and looked up at the stars. After a long while, Jack spoke.
Do you think there's a God?
I reckon there might be.
Do you think he's outside all them stars and looking down on us?
No, I reckon it's inside us and looking out at all them stars.
But it don't usually feel like that.
No, it don't.
Why do you suppose that is?
I reckon we get in the way.
The Observer once ran a competition to see who could do the best parody of Graham Greene. Graham Greene's brother won first prize. Graham Greene was third. I love that story.
5 comments:
That opening will have the reader hooked. The Sarry Heid, traffic wardens, polis and guns- all ingreediments in a recipe for success.
Like many non-writers, I'm a brilliant editor and can offer such services (for the small fee of 10% off the top). I'd suggest you change 'nearly running' for a specific term, and excise redundancy from 'flanked...on either side'. Etc. etc.
But most important is that you should write it all down first, so the non-writer can finagle later. It sounds brilliant already.
Ion: It'll be fun. I think your ten percent off the top would have to wait for my ten percent off the top of your ten percent. That'll be 5/6 please in old money to you. Hotboy
The first rewrite, presumably by a monkey at the hut, has introduced computer code and random formatting, I can hardly wait for 16th rewrite.
I'm not sure that real traffic wardens have beards, but they do have moustaches.
Albert? We'd have been better sticking to the bird feathers. Hotboy
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