Short excerpt - critique requested (contains minor profanity)

Pepe LeFrits

Well, I've finally decided to take the plunge and have a real stab at writing a novel. The below is an excerpt from the one of the chapters. I'd say it's fairly indicative of the novel as a whole so if there are any major issues with it I'd love to know so that I can avoid repeating them over and over again...



‘**** sake,’ Ulick said to himself. ‘Where is this place?’
He hadn’t been wandering for long but it was a bitterly cold afternoon and Ulick wasn’t a man with reservoirs of patience. He hadn’t realised it but he’d passed the place twice already. The first time was just after he hopped off the bus and the second was when he was looping back whilst cursing the bus driver’s apparently bogus directions. In his defence what he was seeking was a small unmarked, unnumbered doorway but it neighboured two that were numbered, so it shouldn’t have been that difficult. He’d arranged to meet Frank there to discuss their project. Ulick couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just meet in a coffee shop again but Frank had been insistent. It was a commercial area which made him wonder if Frank had a dentist’s appointment or something of that nature. The street was littered with interior design studios, media places and law offices. His frustration was building when his phone started to belch.

‘Frank, hey.’
‘Where are ya?’
‘On the street you said, but I can’t find the damn place.’
‘Where?’
‘Hang on,’ said Ulick, searching for a building number. ‘Seventeen.’
‘Right.’
‘Right?’
‘Hold on.’
Ulick muttered an acknowledgement and continued to inspect the adjacent buildings, as if he’d suddenly find it now after twenty minutes of abject failure. There was the sound of door-latch opening behind him so he spun around to find Frank standing in an unmarked doorway with his phone in hand.
‘You’re ****ing useless,’ Frank said, shaking his head disapprovingly as he liked to do. ‘Come on.’

Ulick pocketed his phone and followed Frank in, shutting the door behind him and climbing up the narrow, carpeted stairs. At the top of the stairs there was a set of glass double doors with blank wooden plaques fixed on them. Frank pushed through them and they continued on into what was clearly an office lobby. There were three old leather couches on the right bracketing a coffee table covered in magazines and a reception desk on the left. A small, skinny guy was sitting behind the reception, looking distinctly out of place.

‘Ulick, this is my cousin Al,’ Frank explained unprompted, gesturing at the previously unknown receptionist. ‘He’ll be manning reception for us today.’
Still confused, Ulick shook hands with Al and exchanged brief pleasantries. ‘So Frank...’
Frank was already half way through the door on the far side of the room. ‘Come on, we don’t have all day.’

Frank held the door open for Ulick as he entered. They found themselves in an empty office. It had the usual dark red carpet and plain white walls decorated with dull and uninspired pastel paintings. There were rows of varnished plywood desks accompanied by small, black swivel chairs. There were a couple of phones lying about too but no computers, or people.

‘What is this place?’ Ulick asked.
‘It’s a liposuction clinic, Ed.’
‘What?’
‘It’s an office.’
‘I can see that. Whose office is it?’
‘My cousin’s. It’s not rented at the moment so he said we could nab it for the day.’
Ulick frowned. ‘This is Al’s office?’
‘Nah, our other cousin. It’s cool. Come on.’ Frank said, gesturing towards a glass meeting room in the corner of the office.
‘So what’s Al doing here then?’
Frank shut the door behind them. The meeting room was a mess, with desks all over the place and stacks of chairs in one corner. ‘He’s in the doghouse with us at the moment, so he’s working off the debt.’
‘So we’re not paying him.’ Ulick said suspiciously.
‘Course not. Anyway enough questions, we need to finish setting up. They should be here soon.’
‘Who?’
‘The auditions.’
‘Auditions for what?’
‘The film.’
‘Wait, what? When did that happen?’
Frank lifted up the end of one the desks. ‘Help me with this here. Cheers,’ he said, moving the desk against the wall. ‘I put up ads on Gumtree and Craigslist there earlier in the week. Got a load of replies so I filtered out the obviously bull**** ones and arranged to hold auditions here for the rest.’
‘We haven’t even talked about anything yet!’
‘We can talk now.’
‘I was thinking a bit more in depth and in advance than now.’
‘Well, needs must. First we need to get this place ready. Hang on.’
Frank disappeared out the door and returned a few moments later with three longneck study lamps.
‘What the hell are these for?’ Ulick asked.
‘Lighting.’
‘They’re ****ing student lamps! I had one of these during my Leaving Cert!’
Frank stared at him dispassionately. ‘Yeah well, now they’re lighting. Put one on the desk in that corner there. I’ll sort these ones.’

They set out the lamps in the corners of the room and plugged them in. After adjusting them a little bit, Ulick had to admit that they did light up the centre of the room pretty well.

‘You see?’ Frank said. ‘So where’s the camera?’
‘What camera?’
‘Ah jesus Ulick!’
‘Why the **** would I have brought the camera?’
‘To film the auditions!’ Frank shouted.
Ulick laughed. ‘You never told me there were any!’
‘Typically a film production has auditions, Ulick. It’s a fairly standard procedure.’ Frank sighed, rubbing his stubble thoughtfully. ‘You know what, it’s grand. I’ve got my mobile. We can record them with that.’
‘I dunno Frank, if this gets any more professional we may have to start worrying about our tuxes for the BAFTAs.’
Frank wagged his index finger at Ulick. ‘We don’t need that kind of negativity right now.’

TheCardHolder

I liked the humor in it but I got the feeling that it would work better off as a script than a novel. Sorry I don't have more input than that at the moment but I'm stuck for time. I'll post more later!

pickarooney

It does read quite like a screenplay and if the rest of the book is like this, then there probably is too much dialogue for a novel. If it's just one or two 'scenes' like this then it wouldn't really be a problem.

I liked it, the pace and intrigue was very good and the dialogue realistic. Will you post some more?

Pepe LeFrits

hmm, that could be a problem. Most of what I've written is pretty dialogue heavy. It's supposed to be a comedy for the most part and a lot of the humour (such as it is!) comes through the dialogue. I suppose I can look at replacing the parts that aren't intended to be funny with narrative.

I used to write teleplays and screenplays (for funsies) and I guess it shows. Love dialogue, hate narrative. Here's another segment, earlier in the book.

---

Aw, ****.

The roof of the taxi was starting to spin. Ulick took a deep breath and sat up straight. This was the longest five minute taxi ride in history. He squinted out the window to see if he could make out the colour of the traffic lights. The sun was low in the sky and was blazing straight down the street so he couldn’t tell, but they were stopped so it was a fair bet the lights were still red. Ulick grumbled a profanity and the driver snuck a quick glance at him before returning his gaze to the road and traffic ahead. He hadn’t uttered a word to Ulick since he got into the car, other than to ask where he was headed. Fair enough, some drivers weren’t the chatty type, but Ulick suspected that this driver was simply more concerned with the possibility of his passenger blowing chunks all over his dashboard. Given the nausea he was feeling, it was a fair concern. Alternatively it may have just been the smell. Or both. Yeah, probably both.

The cars ahead started to move off. The sun was so blinding that he couldn’t even tell where he was exactly, but he couldn’t handle the engine vibrations much longer. ‘You can stop just up there behind the white delivery van.’
The driver rolled down the window. ‘Great!’

They pulled up behind the delivery van and as it turned out, they were indeed outside his workplace. Ulick pulled a fistful of change out of his trouser pocket and dumped it into the driver’s hands. Happy to be rid of Ulick, he didn’t bother to count it. Ulick climbed out of the taxi and after sucking in another deep breath of the cold morning air, tried in vain to straighten out his crinkled suit. Realising only a dry clean would fix it, he settled for tightening his tie to the point where it almost looked like the top button of his shirt was fastened. This was about as respectable looking as he was going to manage today. He hurried into the office past the chirpy old woman at the reception desk and dived in between the closing lift doors.

Two girls were already inside and were nattering away. Ulick pressed the button for the third floor and the doors started to close again.
‘Did you see CSI New York last night?’ one of the girls asked.
The other girl’s face brightened. ‘Yeah! Gary Sinise is so gorgeous.’
‘I know. I just love New York too.’
The girls looked at Ulick and made faces at each other.
‘And oh my god, wasn’t that murder was so disgusting?’
‘Horrible.’
‘The smell off the guy’s body must have been horrendous.’
Both girls smirked. ‘Can’t you just imagine? Like stale beer and kebabs.’
The lift chimed as it reached the third floor and Ulick stepped off to a chorus of giggles. It was going to be a long day. The only things that could make it tolerable would be coffee and water. Lots of coffee, and lots of water.

There was a sizeable queue for the kitchen so he headed to his workstation, plonked himself down into his chair and switched on the computer. With luck he could just zone out for a few minutes and compose himself. That was his favourite part of the day, coffee making aside. Ron Livingston was his hero.

‘Morning there Mr Byrne!’

It was always likely to be a pipedream.

‘Wonderful crisp morning eh?’
Ulick mumbled something inaudible.
‘You look like you’ve been burning the candle at both ends. Work hard, play hard, huh!’ Martin was revelling in it. ‘Still, I hope you’ll be operating at one hundred percent at the call stats update at nine thirty. Division heads will be present and I wouldn’t want them thinking my team are a bunch of pissheads, would I?’
‘Probably not,’ muttered Ulick.
Martin started tapping his watch. ‘Certainly they think we’re a tardy bunch, what with it being nine-oh-eight already?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, you’ve got time so best take a quick shower, eh?’
‘I already had one.’
‘Have another.’ Martin insisted. ‘And here, use this.’ He threw Ulick a bottle of eye-drops and headed back to his desk. ‘Keep up the good work Ulick.’
Ulick tossed the eye-drops into his drawer. ‘Knobhead.’

Ulick stared at the icons on his monitor for what felt like an eternity until he noticed that the queue for the kitchen had dissipated. The kitchen itself was still busy enough, but there was sufficient room for him to chicane his way through the people exchanging small talk and he reached the counter unchallenged. He picked out his usual faded mug and loaded it up with an industrial strength dose of coffee and sugar. He lashed on the kettle and while he waited patiently for it to boil, he scanned the room, identifying the usual suspects. There were two newly pregnant girls, chatting enthusiastically about their morning sickness. There was a group of Indian guys by the fridge guffawing excitedly about a mistake someone made with the C++ compiler. At the back of the kitchen an attractive young secretary was fidgeting nervously, her escape route blocked by a manager intent on telling her about his new yacht’s roller reefing. Then there was Frank, slowly approaching.

‘How are you doing there Bernard?’ he said, without the slightest hint of a smile. He wasn’t a morning person, which probably explained why he usually spent the first half hour of every morning hiding in the kitchen. In retrospect, that seemed like a good move. Martin didn’t drink tea, coffee, anything with caffeine, anything compressed or anything that would indicate he had a soul, so this was generally a safe haven in the mornings.
‘What happened last night?’ Ulick replied forlornly.
‘**** knows. I lost track after your sambucas.’
‘Sambucas?’
Frank nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘What?’
‘What what?’
‘Sambucas?’
‘You’re a little bit retarded this morning aren’t you? You bought sambucas.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘You did.’
‘Really?’
Frank laughed. ‘Yeah, you bought a round of like eight of them.’
‘Ugh. I guess that explains why there’s nothing in my wallet this morning,’ said Ulick, almost mustering a smile, ‘and why I feel like death. I don’t even ****ing like sambuca.’
The kettle button clicked and popped up. Ulick filled up his mug and swished the coffee around with a spoon, a little clink sounding out every time it touched the porcelain.
‘Was a good night though, some craic.’ Frank said.
Ulick shook his head. ‘I just want to die.’
‘The sign of any good night out!’
Ulick took a loud sip of the scalding coffee. ‘Yeah.’
Frank took a step closer and lowered his voice. ‘So, what did you think of our little idea?’
‘What idea?’
‘Our film project.’
‘Film project?’
‘Yeah. The one we talked about last night.’
Ulick stared dumbly at Frank. He studied Ulick’s stupid expression for a moment, and laughed.
‘Jesus, you really were bollixed last night weren’t you? Take a few minutes.’
‘I’m not being funny. I think it’s possible I drank the pub last night.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ Frank admitted, gesturing towards the door.

They manoeuvred their way out through the hordes, carefully making sure not to spill their coffees and headed to Ulick’s desk.

‘So, what film project?’ Ulick asked earnestly as he sat down.
Frank laughed again. ‘Don’t worry about it. Just mend your head and I’ll mail you later.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I’m bored of talking to you now.’ Frank joked. At least Ulick assumed he was joking. He often had trouble telling.
‘Okay so.’
‘Talk to you later.’

Frank floated down the corridor coffee in one hand, newspaper rolled up in the other, turned the corner, and was gone. Ulick stared into space in puzzlement. He tried to scour his brains to remember what Frank was talking about it, but there was nothing doing. He just didn’t have the capacity. He sipped at his coffee. Instant wasn’t really up to his usual connoisseurial standards, but it was better than nothing. Going out and getting some decent takeaway was a possibility, but the walk and the effort that entailed was still just a bit too much for him. Staying put and making some attempt at settling into the day was the least offensive course of action for now. His functionality just about stretched to reading email, so he double clicked the email icon and braced himself for a barrage of tedium.


<<<<<<<<<<< Some email stuff cut out >>>>>>>>>>>

**** balls.

His meeting reminder for the call stats update popped up, informing him that it was a mere five minutes away. He braced himself mentally. He’d just take it one step at a time. He rustled through his drawer for the call stat hand-outs and stuffed them under his arm. First, he’d head to the toilet for a quick splash-n-dash while simultaneously trying to avoid vomiting as well as getting splash-back on the hand-outs. Once that task was complete, he could deal with the ****ty meeting. He just had to break the day down into small, easily manageable segments and it would be a piece of cake.

The piss took considerably longer than he had anticipated so by the time he got into the meeting room it was already full. Inevitably, the only empty seat at the table remaining was next to Martin. Frank was strewn out across a chair opposite, in between two senior managers. Ulick couldn’t help but admire how little Frank gave a ****. His tie was barely on, his clothes stank, he didn’t appear to have shaved in days and he was virtually horizontal in his chair. If he slouched back any further he’d slide under the table.

‘Sorry about that gentlemen, bad dose of the scuts!’ Ulick joked nervously. The silence was deafening. Out of the corner of his eye, Ulick could see Frank shaking his head at him in disappointment. His disappointment was undoubtedly due to the lead balloon-like quality of his joke, not his lack of professionalism.
‘Yes, well nice of you to join us Ulick.’ Martin said. ‘As I was saying, it’s been a particularly busy month for us so far with the roll out of the upgraded User Helpdesk System, the new Content Delivery Module, the re-introduction of the Staff Scheduler, plus the post-holiday season increase in site traffic. We’ve maintained a high rate of call resolutions while largely retaining our return times. Frank, what’s the status on the newly released developments?’
Frank stared at Martin in distain. ‘They’re working.’
Frank’s reticence hung in the air uncomfortably for a few moments as Martin considered confronting him on it, but he decided against it. ‘Okay then. Ulick can you give us more on the January call stats?’
‘Sure Martin.’ Ulick nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’ve got a few hand-outs here so if you all would just share them around, I can explain further. Okay. So as you can see here, in the week past you’ve got two-hundred and eleven calls, one hundred and eighty seven of which were resolved within a timeframe of twenty four hours and –‘
‘Ulick,’ Martin interrupted. ‘These stats are for October.’
Ulick froze. ‘October?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Are everyone else’s October too?’ Ulick asked, his gaze shifting around the table, imploringly searching for backup. Everyone nodded except one balding senior manager, whose stats he said were for November. ‘That’s strange, my stats here are for, let me see...” Ulick flicked through his print-outs. ‘July 2007.’
Martin inhaled deeply. ‘I think it’s actually January 2009 we’re looking for Ulick.’

Ulick swore under his breath. Even hungover, he was sufficiently functioning to know that this wasn’t going very well. ‘Okay, apologies all. If you could just hang on a second, I’ll go get the correct hand-out.’ He bolted out of his chair and steamed out the door, spurred on by the sensation of everyone’s eyes burning into his back.

‘My hand-out is damp,’ another manager said curiously. ‘Is this... urine? Good god!’
‘Frank,’ Martin said coldly. ‘Could you go and tell Ulick not to bother. We’ll be fine without him.’

pickarooney

I completely forgot to respond to this the other week.

This bit was safely on the OK-for-a-novel-side of the line as far as dialogue is concerned. The bulk of it is very good, definitely has a 'so then what?' factor. It needs some tidying up and tightening, but what piece doesn't.

How much have you written in total?