New Crime Drama.

[Joe Loomis]

Hay all I have been reading a lot of threads about writing, and I want to write well as I have all these stories in my head. I tried to show not tell during this beginning of the chapter. Let me know anything and everything as I have worked on this for about two months. I hope no spelling mistakes or anything ridiculous, but if there are let me know because I must not know it is wrong.

Thanks a lot for reading.

Max looked down at her rifle again. Her charge was full, and the safety was on. She looked over her shoulder at her partner. Jean was frowning and spinning his wedding ring with his thumb.

Max leaned over and whispered “Smile Jean. This is the culmination of five years of work, and I promise that you will see your wife and kids again.”

“You are the happy one, Max. I am the brooder that frets until after the bust,” Jean answered spinning his wedding ring faster.

“We are about to bring down the leader of the largest terrorist organization the world has ever seen,” Max smiled even bigger, “this is going to be a huge moment in history.” She looked down and checked the charge on her clip.

“Yea if you were so confident then why do you keep checking the charge on your clip?” Jean asked with a slight smile. “They always seem to be one step ahead,” Jean stopped talking just in time as a voice rang out through their earpieces.

“Alright, here I am. Now are you ready to make the sale?” an unknown voice spoke to their undercover agent.

“Do you have any proof that you are the Owl?” the undercover agent asked. Something got rustled around, and the undercover agent answered “You are the Owl? I expected you to be older,” that was the code phrase. The building was an abandoned factory with a large back room the led to a dock. Agents were hiding in several shipping crates that were strategically around the room. The containers looked to be in shambles, but only for authenticity sake. Max and Jean were in a small closet that was just off the place a short distance down a hallway.

“We are a go,” Jean called out as they burst out of the room and turned towards the center of the room. In the middle was their undercover and he was standing in front of a rather young man that had two bodyguards flanking him.

“Alliance Protectorate Agency,” Max yelled as she clicked the safety off on her rifle.

“Hands up and lay on the ground,” Jean followed up her statement. They both stopped near tall concrete support columns. The columns would provide cover if anything went wrong. There were similar calls from all around the room as the agents moved out from their hiding spots all around the room. They surrounded the four men, and their undercover threw up his hands.

A gunshot rang out, and Max acted out of instinct. Everything turned into chaos and Max aimed and fired at the three men. The only problem is that they had magically vanished. The undercover agent was falling to the ground. His head seemed to have disappeared. She looked around for the shooter. Voices were yelling out from all over the room.

Max activated the drones that were in stealthily locations in the room. They all buzzed to life, and she got an instant camera feed from one of them. It showed the entire room and every one of the APA agents were looking around for the shooter. As the drone turned, she then gasped and spun on the spot. Organization fighters filled the entire upper floor. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she twisted and began firing on the top level. All agents followed her lead and started to fire in the same direction. She moved to her column and spared a glance and saw Jean had done the same.

Her earpiece erupted with orders and cries of pain. “We need back up,” a voice called out.

“Fall back,” Max yelled as she continued to fire at the fighters above. Agents all around her began to move. Jean was still shooting when Max heard a click as her energy clip ran out of power. She moved behind the column to reload when it seemed like the column started to shake as concrete started to rain down on her.

She glanced over at Jean, and he was still firing when he suddenly grabbed his side. He dropped his rifle and started to fall to his knees. Max looked at her watch and ordered all the drones to form a wall between her and the fighters. She needed to get Jean out of here, and there seemed to be no Organization members down the hallway that Max and Jean had entered the room. She darted towards Jean when the chaos suddenly stopped. There was only one sound, and it was a quiet click of metal on metal. She spared a glance at the sound while still running towards Jean. As soon as she recognized what the noise was, she turned and threw up her arms. When the flash came, there was only pain.

 

[Penny]

Mmmmmmmm my honest opinion.
There seems to be a bit of passive voice going on in the later stages of the piece. for example.

She moved behind the column to reload when it seemed like the column started to shake as concrete started to rain down on her.

I think the column should probably either be shaking or not. not seeming like it is.

For an action oriented piece... I am not feeling it. if that makes sense.
it is disjointed.
For example, the action kicks off with a gunshot, everything is in chaos and then... she is controlling drones and there's no enemies to be seen.
its like someone revving a car and then stalling it to me. you have said everything was chaos and yet it's not.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I think you need to get more into the character's emotional state - at the moment you're trying to focus too much on visual cues, and they come across more like director's notes in a screenplay than a character experience. You're also infodumping at the start - don't try to explain background, just focus on the immediacy of the situation and drip in information as required. If you haven't already, take a look at Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer as that explains a lot of the technicalities involved in writing, such as the above.

 

[tinkerdan]

You have the beginnings of a good action scene. I'd agree with some that the front end sort of drags it a bit with too much info and maybe partially because it's inserted in dialogue. Take the info out of the dialogue and possibly if and when it fits put it back as narrative. If you can't fit it then drop it.

Your action scene needs to be cleaned up and trimmed. I would agree that this line is problematic.

She moved behind the column to reload when it seemed like the column started to shake as concrete started to rain down on her.

However for different reasons--too many words for an action scene and some of them are kind of waffle-y in the action such as seem to start to shake as concrete started- two actions started and somehow my brain has a freeze frame on both action that should be active.
Being more definite and concise could help.

For instance.
She huddled with the column to reload while it shook and concrete rained down on her.

A lot of your sentences need that type of trim; however the wording needs to match your style not mine. The action needs to be concise and well defined to keep the immediacy.