I agree with your rewrite of sausage gristle! Consider it changed!
This is a first draft so anything can go. Thanks for the review!
Novel Treatments / Bardimax - Chapter 1 excerpt
I blow Snyder’s brains out on the eve of the millennium. It’s easy.
I march along the Barbie corridor, rip back the door and aim my revolver at his fat little face. I feel lucky. Six shots or only five ring out; his head’s blown clean off. Big blobs of brain and blood splatter against his oil painting on the wall behind and it’s not a pretty sight. He should have chosen watercolours. Still, he is quite dead, the end of the twentieth-century and the end of his miserable little life. Two for the price of one, bargain. I stand there, my face rippling a Cheshire Cat grin, eyeballs tracking strips of sausage meat gristle streaking down the walls, endorphins cart-wheeling along my veins. My hormonal high feels like the end of a sex-free month, only nowhere near as messy. It’s not amusing but I hear myself laugh anyway: the .44 Magnum in my hand and what’s left of the oozing headless corpse in front of me certainly make my day. I’ve done it. I’ve won!
Then I go and bloody wake up, don’t I?
The problem working for a drugs company is you never receive any: no caffeine to keep you awake; no Prozac to keep you up; no Viagra to keep you very up. Nor can you take any drugs to stop you dreaming about murdering your boss.
Perhaps I should start taking those?
The thing is, if you did my job you’d dream too – and I don’t mean about a 28 year-old Mask of Zorro Catherine-Zeta Jones and a jar of Nutella chocolate spread. Plus, if you’d endured the QA Manager’s suffering for the past 19 years and 364 days you’d definitely have the horrific nightmares splattered with zombies and vampires and chartered accountants. Quality is one of those almost imperceptible things we take for granted but can’t live without – like fresh air, electricity and kidneys – but whether it’s systems, compliance or assurance, it’s still quality, which means checking processes, documents and products are correct. And doing that – and only that – for nigh on two decades you start to go bonkers. Not clinically insane or anything. I don’t show the classic mentally unhinged signs of living in a padded room or wearing a straightjacket or enjoying Jeffery Archer novels, but I do have weird thoughts. And weird dreams.
Working for ZygniaPharma doesn’t help. Being the number one pharmaceutical company in the world, the structure of ZP means not so much I’m a small cog in a large wheel, more a tiny cog in a small cog in a large cog in a huge global wheel. And working as a tiny cog holding the entire company on my shoulders for almost 20 years guarantees two things: one, I know everyone and I’m sometimes bored; two, my shoulders hurt and I’m desperate for a pee. ZP is a huge global corporate machine, like those monolithic companies in the 1980s called British Telecom, British Rail, British Gas and, well, anything with the word ‘British’ in it before Margaret Thatcher privatised them and everything else not nailed down. ZP is also a dinosaur of a company. Yes, it has corporate mission statements as long as a toilet roll and an R & D budget the size of Australia, but it also has a thinking time of three weeks and a decision-making time of seven months. Don’t ask what its stopping distance is.
It’s my own fault. I left school after my A-levels in 1978 when the world had no email, no Internet and no George W Bush, thank God. There weren’t any graduates either. Well, there were, but you didn’t notice them back then so much as the only people who needed a degree were teachers and the prime minister. These days even the cleaner has a Masters degree (an MA in Medieval History). I blame the media for trying to convince us university entrance qualifications require only a pound coin and three tokens off a box of cereals. I disagree. When I sat my A-levels I just swotted up the night before and hoped for the best but now, now it takes real effort, the mental equivalent of being Arnold Schwarzenegger, 24/7. As if to confirm my theory, my teenage nephew has applied to the University of Bolton and spends all his time sealed in his bedroom and hunched over a desk and doing absolutely nothing other than devouring books, scribbling essays and cutting bits of paper off Corn Flakes packets. Yet the main problem with graduates is managers promote them early – so rising fast up, up the global corporate ladder – and when they’re promoted to be the boss of the QA Manager, you – or more specifically I – need to listen to their every tedious word. Which is exactly what I haven’t been doing for the last, oooooh, 90 minutes or so?
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duddbudda reviewed Version 1 -
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I’d say your style is eminently publishable. Matt is clearly and strongly defined, largely by the little touches you so easily insert. I especially love the Archer comment. The casual referencing to pop culture (eg the dirty harry moment in the opening line) can grate with some readers, but i find it allows a real sense of character and taste to be conveyed.
Quick note, wasn’t it Major who actually did the business of disassembling BR? I’m not bothered, but have the sneaking suspicion there might be people who will feel this metaphor break down.
I can’t really criticise this as i’d much rather read more: As an introduction this works superbly. My only concern is that the plot won’t live up to the quality of the style. If you’d like to send me a treatment, i’d be more than willing to offer some more constructive advice. Otherwise keep up with the good stuff.
Cheers
Josh
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scottsta reviewed Version 1 -
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8/9
your energy is SO high I think that’s good. I do wonder if there’s room to slow your rhythm down? Some of the sentences go a little too long. But all in all it’s good. let me find something concrete.
as great as this is – it’s a TOO MUCH to take in.
I stand there, my face rippling a Cheshire Cat grin, eyeballs tracking strips of sausage meat gristle streaking down the walls, endorphins cart-wheeling along my veins.
now – i’m a little tired and would be curious what others are saying. It’s a great line but MAYBE SOMETHING LIKE BELOW?
I stand there, my face rippling a Cheshire Cat grin, strips of sausage-gristle streaking down the walls, endorphins cart-wheeling along my veins.
The above edit works for me but I’m not the author. But I’m thinking a LITTLE less can go a long way. I don’t mean to do this to every line, but I PERSONALLY get more out of lines like that, otherwise I work too hard. Make sense?
I think that is my main issue. great setting.
tstone reviewed Version 1 -
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the 1st technical problem i noticed is: ”...and no George W Bush,” if it’s 1999, although he would be gov. of texas, and would be running for pres., he would not yet really be a major figure. especially in the UK.
besides that, there are a very few problems w/punctuation: ”...structure of ZP means not so much (PERIOD) I’m a small…”, for example.
overall, though, i think it’s a good set-up. now i’m ready for the story…!
AV reviewed Version 1 -
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The character definately seems like he has done his job before. The character’s personality is steady throughout as well. He doesn’t seem to waver off at all. An interesting read to say the very least.
BigMamaMags reviewed Version 1 -
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I loved it! It was a very good beginning. The place was of no consequence, because we all could relate to Matt and his dislike of his boss. The subject matter is very much in current events and a plausibe plot and story line. I think as far as where to go from here, you should continue on with his day and homelife away from the place briefly, and what lead up to his discovering the problems at ZP. Look foward to reading more.
Sparkles reviewed Version 1 -
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This piece is quite graphic in the beginning. The images are good and help to move the story along. I was saddened that this opening was only a dream. Your narrator seems to ramble on for quite a while and I wonder what your point is. It drags. Perhaps you could re-word a few bits and try to step it up.
chimchar214 reviewed Version 1 -
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You wrote:
The problem working for a drugs company is you never receive any: no caffeine to keep you awake; no Prozac to keep you up; no Viagra to keep you very up. Nor can you take any drugs to stop you dreaming about murdering your boss.
that part was funny. I’m sorry but this made me laugh. Viagra can keep you way up. Emphasis on the WAY.
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Any ways, excellent work using first person. In the beginning of the story the MC complains about work and he gives us information about this drug factory and it’s history and you add emotions to this piece without constantly using the pronoun ‘I’
I can’t give a critique on this, but I can tell you why I liked it.
JamesPatrick reviewed Version 1 -
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I love stories that start with a bang! I think the sentence structure could be reworked to emphasize the juxtopositon of what we expect to happen and what does happen. In specific example, the opening paragraph could be seperated into several short one-line paragraphs.
It’s an easy read, but I’d like to hear more detail about the company, details about why the QA is such a nightmare—remember in Fight Club when Chuck Pahunick (sp?)had the narrator describe the smelt of burnt flesh in car models that should have been recalled?
deon0608 reviewed Version 1 -
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Nice Story, definitely worth working on and elaborating, I didn’t like the excerpt ”...my job you’d dream too – and I don’t mean about a 28 year-old Mask of Zorro Catherine-Zeta Jones and a jar of Nutella chocolate spread.”
It makes sense but it’s not really necessary it just makes the paragraph more random. The paragraph contains alot of material, it feels like you jump from one idea to the next, leaving the reader behind completely.
Try focussing on what you want to say and then build that around your character, and then slowly take the character through all of the events.
At the moment it feels like your character is witnessing his life, you have to write it so that the reader is witnessing it. The piece leaves the reader confused try and refine it.
Thanks
deon0608
johnsherman3 reviewed Version 1 -
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Very Very nice! I love how you writing style.I hope to read more on this! I didn’t see no mistakes or Grammar error. Nice spelling.I think this is great,Could use some more work! Make a deeper Plot.
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