“Colin!” Uncle Felix yelled up.
Colin tossed his pen on to the layers of bills spread across his desk and pushed his head into his hands.
“Colin! Come down here. It’s our best customer.”
Colin opened up his top left desk drawer – his father, Patrick Swift, had made the desk; it was blue, with birds and leaves and twigs carved into it, and also, it had a fantastic amount of drawers. Out of that top left drawer, the seventeen-year-old pulled out his lock-picking tools. He stood up, stepped over several toys his siblings had left lying around, ducked through the doorway of his room, and sprung down the creaky, spiral staircase, into the hardware and locksmith shop.
Uncle Felix nodded towards the front of the store.
Colin looked passed the shelves of inventory to where Mr. Smith stood. Despite his forgetfulness, Mr. Smith always had a tidy appearance. Today, he wore a white suit, a blue hat, and polished, brown leather shoes.
“Is this a bad time?” Mr. Smith asked.
Colin smiled. “Not at all.”
“It’ll cover the cost for tonight,” Uncle Felix mumbled.
“What about money for taxes?” Colin asked.
“What’s more important, taxes or friends?”
“Friends,” Colin answered.
Uncle Felix gave Colin a pat on the back. “That’s my boy: so remember to pick up a barrel of beer on your way back.”
Colin hoped over the counter and joined Mr. Smith in the front of the store. They headed out, on to the narrow street. The air smelled heavy with rain, and a thin layer of mud already glistened over the cobblestones from an earlier drizzle.
Mr. Smith couldn’t move very fast, and Colin had to force himself to a slower pace.
“We’d better have you inside before the storm hits,” Colin said.
“That would be nice.” Mr. Smith adjusted his hat. “Thank you.”
“Why don’t you hide yourself a spare key?” Colin asked, glancing over his shoulder. His famous friend, Hugo Fitzpatrick, was following them. “It would save you both trouble and money.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” Mr. Smith said.
Hugo caught up to them, and Mr. Smith came to a full stop and turned around. “Hi there,” Mr. Smith said to Hugo. “What’s the best stick-fighter in all of Correnstrait doing in our neighborhood?”
“Don’t mind him.” Colin encouraged Mr. Smith on forward.
“Did you lock yourself out, too?” Mr. Smith continued.
“Of sorts,” Hugo said with a smirk.
A sudden downpour interrupted them, and Hugo and Colin did their best rush Mr. Smith home. Finally, they were able to duck under the ledge of the old man’s house, though rain still dripped from the gutter on to Mr. Smith’s shoulder; Colin gently tugged him in, then went to Mr. Smith’s front door. Hugo and Mr. Smith watched while Colin unwrapped his tools, a dozen or so slender metal sticks with different heads and wooden handles. He selected two, slid them into the lock and, within a few short moments, had opened Mr. Smith’s door.
“He’s pretty good at this, isn’t he?” Hugo said.
“He’s the best. Even better than his dad was.”
Colin turned to Mr. Smith. “You’d better go in before you’re all wet.”
“Thank you.” The old man shoved coins into Colin’s hand, walked up two steps to his front door and dismissed the young men with a wave of his hat.
Colin walked away, but Hugo stayed under the ledge.
“So,” he called out. “Can you help me?”
“Sure,” Colin answered. “As long as you pay me, and it has nothing to do with the Sparrows.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Colin noticed Mr. Smith at his window, eve’s dropping on their conversation. Colin eased away; by this time, he looked like a mess: water saturated his hair, dripped down his face, and soaked his clothes.
“Is it for the Sparrows?”
Hugo stepped into the rain and stood face to face with Colin. “You know I wouldn’t ask you unless it was important.”
Colin turned to start back on his way, but Hugo put a hand on his shoulder and held him back. “This will help your family.”
Colin pushed Hugo’s hand off his shoulder.
Hugo leaned up against Mr. Smith’s house. “The pay will be excellent: one hundred gold coins.”
Colin’s jaw tightened and he kicked a little rock over the cobblestones.
“Meet me by the Straight Street Bridge tonight, at one.”
Colin didn’t answer.
“What’s it gonna be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Never mind the Straight Street Bridge,” Hugo continued. “Fred and I will be at your place a little past midnight.”
Colin walked away. Once he made it to the liquor shop, he purchased a barrel of beer for his uncle, heaved it over his shoulder and walked home.
Ellen Brock 
You’ve got me curious with “The Sparrows”. They sound like a mysterious family or cult that has mega power over the town/city. There are some grammatical errors that need fixing. Also, there were a few times where obvious words were missing from sentences (like the word “to”) that jumped out at me, but this all can be fixed with some proofreading. The paragraph mentioning his father’s desk had the word “drawer/drawers” mentioned a lot to where it kinda got annoying. When describing Mr. Smith as “forgetful” was odd since there was no representation as to why he was forgetful. Later, Colin picks Mr. Smith’s lock so it was hinted that Mr. Smith had forgotten the key to his house, but it wasn’t clearly stated earlier as to why he was known as being “forgetful”. Maybe add in at the beginning Mr. Smith saying something like, “Locked myself out. Again. What’s that, the third time this month?”
Not trying to be picky, just trying to help out. Overall, this sounds like a good build up to establishing Colin’s life with his uncle, their business, and the fact that citizens are cautious around a certain group of people known as “The Sparrows” (which is a cool name btw). 🙂
Got my attention. Waiting for more. Interesting start. I think a good start to a novel gets the reader trying to guess what the plot is about and sets off a lot of guestions, and I think you’ve done that.
You’ve got me curious with “The Sparrows”. They sound like a mysterious family or cult that has mega power over the town/city. There are some grammatical errors that need fixing. Also, there were a few times where obvious words were missing from sentences (like the word “to”) that jumped out at me, but this all can be fixed with some proofreading. The paragraph mentioning his father’s desk had the word “drawer/drawers” a lot to where it kinda got annoying. When describing Mr. Smith as “forgetful” was odd at first since there was no representation for it. Later, Colin picks Mr. Smith’s lock so it was hinted that he had forgotten the key to his house, but it wasn’t clearly stated earlier as to why he was known for being forgetful. Maybe add in at the beginning Mr. Smith saying something like, “Locked myself out. Again. What’s that, the third time this month?”
Overall, this sounds like a good start to establishing Colin’s life with his uncle, their business, and the fact that citizens are cautious around a certain group of people known as “The Sparrows” (which is a cool name btw). 🙂
The first comment was mine too but my computer didn’t show that it was sent until after the second comment went through haha.
Thanks for your comment! If you have a submission here, I’d be happy to take a look at it. Just let me know!
You’re welcome! My submission is Black Owl under Young Adult Thriller if you wanted to give it a read 🙂
Okay, interesting.
The prose needs a lot of work. There is a lot of telling and not enough showing. You tell us who the father is, how old the boy is, and describe the drawer and nothing else. As the reader, when one prop gets more description than others, it implies that it has relevance. In this case, I figured out that the protagonist is a part of a group called the Sparrows which is referenced at the end of this snippet.
If that’s intentional, then mission accomplished, however, the prose is extremely dialogue heavy. There’s plenty of talking and not enough world building. Not having a lot of world building is OK, but when you start describing characters walking down streets, it’s nice to have an idea of where they are.
Correnstrait and Straight Street Bridge means nothing to the reader if they don’t know what the place looks like or where they are. Instead of dialogue, you should flesh out these places with details. What do the buildings look like? What time period is this? Are there people there? Anytime you mention an unfamiliar name or location, you’re going to need to add a little bit of world building.
There’s also a few typos throughout. Eavesdropping was spelled incorrectly along with a few other words.
All the negative asides, I think this story has a lot of potential. There are bits and pieces in your story that lead me to believe this can lead to something great. I’m interested in who the Sparrows are and I’m also curious as to what sort of mess Hugo is trying to get your protagonist in.
It’s strange because your prose is both good and bad. Good in the sense that I was able to imagine the rainy streets and was interested in this mysterious sparrow group. Even the dialogue was acceptable for me. But it needs improvement in terms of showing more than telling, cutting down the amount of dialogue, and the lack of world building which leaves the reader feeling lost.
Keep working on it, there’s definitely something here.
Thanks for the feedback! let me know if you have a submission here – I’d love to take a look at it!
Love it! Interested to read on. When will we be able to see the next chapter?
Really enjoyed reading this opening. Your story moves along at a decent pace and felt that the story probably starts in the right place. Something in Colin’s life is about to change. We get a sense of how things are normally, but also a sense that something big is about to happen with the Sparrows.
A few things to have a look at –
Names ar every overused through the piece. When we’ve established who’s in a scene and speaking, we don’t need a tag to say who is speaking or who is doing something each time. Look at where you can removed some of those. In particular, Colin is in nearly every line at the start.
Also much of the characters actions are very much stage direction. Readers don’t need such specific description of a person moving or what they touch or lift, unless it’s imperative to the story at that time. Many of the descriptions are static, not done either through action or from the MC’s perspective, and this lack of dynamism means the story slows. It’s okay to describe scenes, objects and people, but do so while your main character interacts with them, not purely as an observer.
Dialogue tags – most of the time, ‘he said’ works best. Said is an invisible word and people rarely register it as they read. I’ll give one example to have a look at,
Hugo caught up to them, and Mr. Smith came to a full stop and turned around. “Hi there,” Mr. Smith said to Hugo. “What’s the best stick-fighter in all of Correnstrait doing in our neighborhood?”
First, we don’t need – ‘Hi there.’ We don’t need mundane conversation in our dialogue. Get to the point, so cut this. Also cut the tag here. We know it’s Mr Smith and Hugo, so just put ‘Mr Smith said.’ Also the dialogue itself is very expositional and it’s too ‘on the nose’ in terms of telling us information we need to know as a reader. Try and make it less formal and think how you would address this character when you saw him, rather than thinking about getting all the info into it.
As I said at the top, this seems like a great premise and I did enjoy reading, but some work will need to be done on the aspects mentioned above to clean up the prose.
Ah, a caper! Those are always fun, especially with a reluctant lock-picker thrown into the mix. I think you have the makings of a good story here.
I think other reviewers have already pointed out the things that tripped me up. I don’t really get a sense for what sort of world we’re in. For some reason, I’m imagining Victorian England. Without a clearer (read: *any*) understanding of what Correnstrait is like, that’s purely subjective.
Prose could be tightened up. Description could be better employed. Less telling, more showing. (If Hugh is famous, I’ll figure it out by how people react to him. If Mr. Smith is forgetful, show him forgetting something. Maybe he has to pat around in his pockets before finding his money to pay Colin?) I’m sure you know all this.
Thanks for sharing! Since you seem to ask, I’ll go ahead and volunteer that my submission is “The Erlking’s Coffer” in the YA Fantasy section.
Thank You, Darrell! Looking forward to reading yours!
Truly excellent and charming!
Definitely want to read more!!!!
Only one thought–maybe Collin seems a bit young to have all those
bills–should he be slightly older? But then I expect things will make
more sense as one reads on…!
Bravo! Great job.
BTW just reading some of the comments above–the
“critics” don’t seem to understand that the English (prose) “mirrors” and reinforces the
characters (their speech, intellectual level etc)–be careful whose
advice you take! 🙂 It’s truly excellent. Really, really good and highly intriguing–should appeal to many age levels. Don’t stop!
Thank you!
It’s a truly charming opening all in all, and intriguing, but I think it’s lacking certain details that could make the narrative a bit clearer/more direct. It might be prudent to give the reader a hint as to Colin’s age. There are moments when I imagine he’s 12 or 13 and others when it seems like he could be 16-17, and it distracts me a little from the story. Also, while I like the movement in this piece and the way the characters slide into play, I think it could use a little more tension and a little more insight into Colin’s thoughts via physical reactions – his fists clench, jaw feathers, eyes narrow, more indicators on how he processes what the reader is seeing and the characters Colin is interacting with. It isn’t until the mention of the Sparrows that my ears really perked up and even then it’s hard to gauge how Colin feels about them.
Per the above from Sarah re age:
“Out of that top left drawer, the seventeen-year-old pulled out his lock-picking tools. He stood up, stepped over several toys his siblings had left lying around, ducked through the doorway of his room, and sprung down the creaky, spiral staircase, into the hardware and locksmith shop.”
I suppose, since this is for teen-agers (correct?), one wants them to be able to identify with Collin and so he is 17–sure feel sorry for him with all those bills! 🙂