Apologies for this. Am trying to fix the reformatting that's gone on here. It won't allow indents so it's standard Internet and not novel format.
Testing a rewrite of the opening to a novel. It's thankfully short. It's about an undercover journalist, obsessed with law and order, that loses everything he values after a raid on an animal research centre ends in tragedy.
Does it grab and entice? I've revised the opening section here, to reflect the changes made below.
PART 1 - 1999
The radio's counting down to Auld Lang Syne but it's hard to get excited with a shotgun pressing into the back of my head.
I'm facing a wall; been facing it for the last hour as the clock, above, ticks relentlessly. The gunman shifts his weight and the gun barrel scrapes the vertebrae at the base of my neck. He's prepared to scatter my brain across the laboratory and yet he mumbles an apology.
An image flickers through my mind, half-formed and unsettling. The walls of the research lab have crumbled and we stand isolated; a speck of light in a dark featureless plain. Above us, a single eye – red and primordial – watches.
The gunman pumps his shotgun with a loud clack and the vision is forgotten. I want my last thoughts to be about my wife and kids but the radio interrupts.
"Five, four, three, two, one. Happy new –"
Click!
-------
"Want a story?" Speed, my editor, threw an A4 file across his desk without waiting for my reply. "Animal rights mob want to expose conditions at the Bradfield research centre."
I picked up the file and scanned its contents with raised eyebrows.
While I read, he closed his office door, isolating the two of us from the hubbub of the open-plan press room. When Speed shut his door, everybody knew serious shit was going down. Some of my colleagues glanced up but his steadfast glare through the dividing glass persuaded them that their work-at-hand was more pressing.
Speed sat down, opposite me. "And before you say anything, yes, I know it's technically against the law."
"Technically? Your grasp of the law –"
He cut across my objection. "My grasp of the law is unimportant, Michael. What matters is my ability to put food on the table of my employees and their dependants." He put emphasis on the last word. He enjoyed reminding us of his pervasive importance in our lives, even away from the workplace.
He met my brief silence with his own, thin lips pressed tightly shut, and a blank stare that offered both approval and threat. I chose approval. I always did.
"Who's their contact at Bradfield's?" I asked.
"They haven't got one… yet."
"Then how do they plan on getting in?"
"We're putting our own guy in with the security firm."
"We?"
"Yes, I'm putting you inside."
"Shouldn't that be the role of the animal rights people?"
"Funny, they said that too."
"But?"
"I'm fed up with all their amateur videos."
I knew what Speed meant. I'd seen plenty of fuzzy colour- leached film taken during raids on laboratories and factory farms: the jerky camerawork inducing motion-sickness in its audience and vague gloomy images, as inconclusive as Loch Ness Monster footage.
Speed continued. "I told them if they want us involved, they do it our way. We get good quality reportage; they get the evidence to shut down the facility."
"But you campaigned to bring Bradfield to town."
"Your point being?"
"I'm confused. Where do you stand? For or against?"
"I stand for wherever there's a good story."
"So when do I –?"
"The interview with the security contractor is tomorrow, ten thirty."
"Wow, so I get a lie-in."
His grin deflated my optimism. "No. At nine, you're getting a crew-cut."
END
Does it read well? Any lines that seem unnatural?
Cheers.
