More Deaths Than One (an extract, revised version)

by Bryan Islip



Critique: Martyn Bedford



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Introduction


Given the number of extracts uploaded on to the YouWriteOn website each month, it is a testament to the regard in which your fellow writers hold your work for it to have rated among the top five, and so “win” this professional critical appraisal. Often we are so close to our own writing that we have no real idea whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent so it’s always a reassuring boost to the confidence to know that the work has been received well by strangers (all writers are strange) who have no reason to offer you false flattery. So, when I come to tackle what I consider to be the aspects of your extract which still offer scope for improvement, please hold on to the fact that you are among the select few this month, according to your peers. Also, I should stress that I too enjoyed the sample from your novel-in-progress and found plenty to admire in it but, if an appraisal is to be of most benefit to you it needs to concentrate on the areas that, in one reader’s opinion, aren’t working as well as they might. So this is where I have focused my attention, and it will inevitably skew the critique towards the negative whereas, in fact, my overall response is largely positive. Again, please bear this in mind when “digesting” the feedback. Finally, I should point out that there isn’t scope within this appraisal to offer detailed line by line annotations on the text itself what follows are some notes on each of the chapters and the synopsis which summarise my main specific and general observations.


Appraisal


(Chapter 1)

In general, you effectively handle the set-up at the start of the novel the ex-pat returning to Saudi Arabia to find himself in desperate trouble. It is a strong well-paced opener, introducing the protagonist and his situation (before and after arrest) and which gets the plot up and running. However, some specific aspects of the lead-in to the story are less subtly treated than they need to be, in my view. For example, the opening conversation on the aircraft between Thornton and the little old Asian guy feels like a device to: (a) let the reader know about the hero’s resident’s status in Saudi; and (b) to flag up the “death to drug dealers” warning. It is clumsy, in the first element, and telegraphed in the second. The same could be said of Thornton’s interior thoughts re the lifestyle he’s returning to, listing all his assets and benefits . . . would he, or anyone, really consider his life in this way at this point, or are you having him do so for the sake of imparting information to the reader? Likewise, when he reflects on his role as GM of Al-Sottar Marine. Too often, in this opening passage, you use the phrase “he thought about”, or a variation thereof firstly, this serves to flag up the fact that you are sometimes spoon-feeding us information by having him think things he might not necessarily be expected to think about, in relation to himself; secondly, once we are established in a third-person narrative viewpoint we know that any thoughts will be Thornton’s, so there’s no need to repeatedly remind us with these “he thought about” tags. So, I would suggest weeding out these tags, for a start. I would also suggest reworking some of the information you impart so that it evolves more naturally in the narrative and holding back other elements until further into the novel. We don’t need to know so much about Thornton right at the outset, just enough for now to get a hook on him and his terrible predicament.

Once Thornton is going through the customs and immigration process, and is then intercepted by the police and taken aside for questioning, you handle the mounting tension well, in particular the corresponding shifts in Thornton’s mood/tactics as the nature of the situation unfolds (for him, for us). The production of the drugs package from inside the tin of talcum powder is among several gripping moments in this scene. But, in the immediate aftermath of this scene at the point where Thornton has been placed under arrest and is being led in handcuffs to the police van, wouldn’t he be preoccupied (indeed, wouldn’t his mind be racing) with the fix he’s in? And yet, what we get here, is mainly his descriptive observations of the street scenes outside as he’s driven away, with little or no interiority. Then, within two paragraphs, we’re straight into the beheading scene. We, as readers, have had little time (and little narrative attention on the matter) for us to absorb the momentousness of Thornton’s situation or its effect on him when we are plunged directly into another shockingly dramatic episode (for Thornton, for us). I can’t help feeling that it is too much high drama, too soon, and that Hector’s public execution “crowds” the drama of Thornton’s arrest, diffusing rather than sharpening the emotional impact. I would suggest looking at some way to create a narrative space between the two events (the arrest, the execution) and, I would add, that the beheading scene itself feels somewhat under-described in terms of evocation of setting. And, again, there is a missed opportunity to take us inside Thornton’s head after he’s witnessed the beheading why doesn’t he, as he surely would, reflect at this point on Hector’s execution in relation to his own case? You have him do this later on, in Chapter 2, but I feel he would do so now as well.



(Chapter 2)

This is the stronger, more effectively managed of the two chapters, in my view. The pacing is better, so that the dramatic high points are less cluttered, and you give yourself more narrative breathing space to develop a sense of place and atmosphere (the prison is well evoked).You handle the references to Thornton’s military background well, and how his training stands him in good stead when it comes to enduring the circumstances he finds himself in and in developing a strategy for survival. It serves well as a characterizing tool, too. The flogging scene, in particular, is highly dramatic, visually well-realised and emotionally charged; the exchange with Al-Khomein is well judged, as is your development of the shift in Thornton’s reputation and status within the prison afterwards.

In general, the camaraderie among the inmates of cell 9 is convincing and you’ve come up with a motley and engaging cast of well-drawn characters. However, I feel that more could be made of the contrasting conditions Thornton encounters in the prison compared with the working/family life he had been expecting to return to when he stepped off the plane. He would surely be thinking: how did I come to be among these people, in this place? Not literally, of course, because he knows “how”, but for all his military know-how he would be struggling to adjust, emotionally and psychologically, to the shock of what has befallen him and to the daily, hourly small reminders of where he is as opposed to where he ought to be. You need to develop this, I would suggest, so that we the readers are more fully engaged with, and empathetic towards, Thornton’s predicament.

One final, very picky point in this chapter. You refer to the football results being conveyed to the Manchester United supporter “each late Saturday night”; in fact, a handful of Premiership matches take place on a Sunday and Monday each week, for Sky TV’s benefit. Man U.’s games are often among them, so their result wouldn’t necessarily always be known by the Saturday evening. Simply cutting “each late Saturday night” from that sentence would resolve this.



(synopsis)

The first thing I look for in a synopsis is whether the story, as outlined, has enough “meat” in it to sustain a novel-length treatment. Yours clearly has. In fact, one of your problems will be to navigate the various twists and turns of the plot in the “now” storyline, starting with Thornton’s arrest, and interweaving them with the necessary backstory of his military past, his relationship with Consuela and his sons, and the business affairs and colleagues in Saudi Arabia that are the context for the drug plot in which he has unwittingly become incriminated. It’s hard, if not impossible, to tell from a one or two page summary whether you have handled, or will handle, the unfolding of the narrative successfully. My concern, though, based on the outline, is that the novel seems a little too “busy”, a little too cluttered with plots and sub-plots, to be done justice even within the parameters of a 127,000-word manuscript within its particular action/thriller genre. You have a strong central character in a strongly involving and dramatic situation, it seems to me, and it’s evident on the basis of two chapters that you will bring a degree of authenticity to the setting and context for the novel. These are its strengths, and my anxiety is that in trying to bring in too many dramatic convolutions you might do more harm than good to the storytelling. I don’t know your novel well enough to suggest where some streamlining and simplifying might best take place, but you will be able to judge that for yourself (assuming, of course, you consider this to be a problem in the first place.)


Conclusion


As I said at the outset, the various criticisms in the appraisal need to be set against the fact that this novel has plenty going for it, as indeed do you, as a writer. And my observations are, after all, only one person’s opinion it is your novel-in-progress and you should feel free to accept or reject each element of what I’ve said. I hope, though, that the appraisal will prove of some use to you in reworking this novel. Best of luck with it.

Martyn Bedford