A sample of your writing.

I created This topic in a Why the hell not? frame of mind. I know quite a few chewers that frequent the site write as a hobby so I thought it'd be nice to have a topic where we could put down pieces of works in progress for comments on character, writing style, and grammar(something I really suck at). I kind of intend this thread to be what that long poetry thread used to be except this is for prose.

So post samples of your stuff (try to keep it short and sweet like from a paragraph to two or three double spaced pages in Word.)

Here is the begining of Theives' Honor. A short story I wrote that I am currently revising (i.e. trying to figure out what I like and hate about it.)

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Thieves’ Honor

It was dark. Not the type of elegant darkness one gets when the moon is full and people fall in love while sharing a single large plate of pasta. Nor really was it the type of dangerous darkness that comes at the new moon when assassins slip into the sleeping chambers of kings. It was overcast and there was a simple absence of light due to the not very romantic fact of it being the time of day when the sun shines on the other side of the world.

Wes was drifting along an alley he didn’t bother to read the name of, wondering where his next meal would come from. This was a bad part of town so he probably wouldn’t be going to any place fancy, but he’d happily settle for Chang’s down on 5th where the clientele were smart enough never to ask what the special was provided it was edible.

Food, though, required money Wes did not have. He could steal the food of course, but the last person who stole from Chang’s was found in the gutter with certain fleshy parts missing. Which was the reason that Wes was in a bad part of town. Thieves had considerably more cash on them than the average person. Career criminals don’t tend to carry charge cards, at least not their own.

Wes had been a thief for twenty years. He’d started off just stealing candy bars from newsstands and stuff like that. His parents didn’t mind, being too caught up in their own affairs to care. His father’s internal drive to find beer money could only be matched by his mother’s determination to find a hypodermic needle, preferably clean. In fact his parents went so far as to even encourage him to steal because it kept him out of their hair all day as well as having the added bonus of keeping him fed.

Life was good back then when he was twelve. The less Wes saw of his parents the better and a life of crime to his young mind offered a promising future career of excitement and adventure. Granted, all that excitement and adventure held the risk of being experienced behind bars. Even then, he had reasoned, jail wouldn’t be all bad with the regular meals and a warm place to sleep.

Then on his thirteenth birthday he got caught trying to smuggle a cake out of a bakery. In retrospect it had been a bad idea to try to stick a half-sheet black forest under his jacket. It seemed like good idea at the time to his thirteen-year-old brain that was steeped in the feeling of invincibility only the adolescent can create. There is no better cure for the optimism of youth than the big white suppository of experience.

The cops were called and he was taken to his house where the police noticed the odd air of detachment and faint joy his mother displayed at the seriousness of the situation. They also noticed the tracks left by the needles on her arms. When his dad got home to find the house torn apart, Wes’s mother in jail, and Wes himself in juvie, his father went out to the nearest bar and drank himself into a coma.

It always felt strange to Wes that his father was a pacifist drunk. Whenever his father got angry or was confronted with a problem he didn’t know how to handle, he’d go to the bottle for comfort and drink until he became a sputtering ball of depression muttering “Where did I go wrong?” and then cry himself to sleep. As he came to think of it, Wes couldn’t remember a time his parents had ever laid a hand on him in anger or, when it came down to it, love. They had pretty much kept themselves to themselves as he grew up.

After he was released from juvie Wes was put in a foster home. When he arrived he was hugged for the first time in his life by a total stranger. She, in return, got a broken nose as punishment for a violation of Wes’s personal space, a violation that felt so big that, to Wes, it was tantamount to rape. He ran away the same night after being sent to his room without dinner.

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I know that third sentence in the last paragraph is really awkward but I can't for the life of me find a way to fix it without making it even more incomprehensible.

^ Certainly attention grabbing.

Here is excerpt from a haunted house story I'm working on.

Identitiy House:

Page 15.

“Let me see that thing.” Amy moved in front of him and after a moment there was a clicking sound. Amy came into view through the lens. She stepped away and Drew was able to focus on the house.

“Ah, much better. What did you do?”

“Honey, I know I promised to be nice and all but stick out your hand.”

“Why?” Drew fiddled with the focus ring.

“You want to know why you couldn’t see anything?”

“Yeah.”

“You left the lens cap on.”

“That’d do it,” Drew shifted the camera’s weight on his shoulder and stuck out his left hand.

“I’m sorry honey but that’s really stupid even for you.”

Luke watched this lovers quarrel with fascination having never seen an exchange quite like it. He noticed that when Amy hit the back Drew’s hand it was with considerably less force than what she used when hitting him, it seemed as if she only hit Drew’s hand with enough strength to create a smacking sound. Then Drew said ow in such a way that it was obvious what he was responding to was not the slap, but the insult that came before it. Afterwards when Amy turned back to look at the house Drew caught Luke’s eye, gave a nod towards Amy then shrugged and rolled his eyes.

“All right,” said Amy turning again to face Drew, “have you gotten you’re your shot?”

“Nearly,” he said, “I need you to move out of the way.” She stepped aside and after minute or so Drew hit the stop button. “Okay now what Ms. DeMille?”

Amy either chose not to respond to the jab or didn’t understand the reference.

“Luke turn on the lights and aim them at me. Not too bright! We don’t want to be seen from the road. Okay, good. Now honey start filming me when I say but be sure to still keep a good portion of the house in view behind where I stand. Now when I start walking I want you both to follow at the same distance you are from me right now. Alright.”Amy paused to turn on her lavaliere microphone and then took a deep breath. “ Action!”

Amy looked at the camera and smiled.

“Hill House.” She paused and stared up at the building for dramatic effect. Luke half expected a roll of thunder or some similar response. “The inspiration for Shirley Jackson’s bestseller and the bane of all those who lived and died here. It has been a house for many things but never really a home. Ever since it was built back in 1849 by a lucky prospector, David Marshall, It has been rumored that a curse was placed on it by his former mining partner, Liam Murphy, who claimed Marshall had stolen the gold out from under him. Liam was a strange man who had carried over many superstitions from Ireland when he came to America, many people who knew him said he went insane the day the gold was stolen and then disappeared off the face of the earth. Afterwards Marshall’s family who were coming over form New York to live with him died on their way across the continent in mysterious circumstances. A short while after Marshall sold this house and went back to New York where he became a recluse. In his old age he became so paranoid that something was after him he committed suicide rather than let the ‘Them’ he mentioned in his will get him.

“Since then the house has gone through many owners, all not staying for more than a couple of years before moving out. With these owners have come many changes and remodels. Over the years the house has been used as a Private hospital, A small college, an inn, a church, and a brothel. This is a building suffering from an identity crisis and only recently has been declared condemned.

“So,” Amy started walking towards the house, “I’m inviting you, our viewers, to have one last look at a legend before it’s torn down.” She moved up the front porch and went inside with Luke and Drew in tow. Their lights slowly disappeared down the front hall and darkness reclaimed the entryway. The face made of shadows returned to the front of the house.

Funny thing really, If Amy had paid a bit more attention rather than concentrating solely on filming she would have realized that overcast nights are just like overcast days, in that there should be no shadows to speak of.

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Keep in mind that Amy, when talking about the house's history, is making it up off the top of her head and what the three of them are planning to film is a spoof of all of those ghost hunting shows appearing on television nowdays.