This is your chance to show everyone your critique skills. Below is a piece of writing of dubious quality (I can say that because I wrote it). Your mission should you chose to accept it is to give it the best critique you can. You have from now until 23.59 GMT on Saturday the 7th of June. Thereafter people will be invited to vote on who did the best job. Usual forum rules apply , also do make sure the post anonymously box is ticked, anything that's posted identifiably will be disqualified. Don't argue with each others critique asnd no other comments in the thread please, just critiques
The winner will get a shiny little medal and the approbation of his or her peers.
While good critiques are required to be constructive, there is a lot here to get your teeth into, i know its not my best work... i picked something like that deliberately as there wouldn't be a lot of point in using a piece that was so perfect it would make Hemingway weep.
Critique brief: This is the first chapter of Desolation Ridge (2247 words), a western novel set in the main Wild West period. You can critique anything you want about it but it should be noted that the first person narrator is a relatively uneducated gunfighter who doesn't talk in received pronunciation, so there isn't much point in correcting his contractions and so forth.
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There’s three things you always remember. The first man you killed, the first woman you had, and the first time you ran.
I killed my first man in Silver City, when I was just turned 18. we was playin’ poker and he lost a hand he thought he shoulda won. Said I was a cheat and no good coward like ma daddy. I called him out and an’ we took it to the street. Put two rounds of .45 through his heart ‘fore he cleared leather. That was the last time anyone said Kit McCann was a cheat.
First woman was the same day. A whore named Ali Queen in the Diamond Saloon. You kill a man fair like that, him or me, it gets you righteously hot when it’s him. Course you’d be righteously cold if it were ‘tother way around.
You’d think the effect would get less, the more you do it, but it don’. I’ve killed twenty four men one on one since that day eight year back, and its always the same. You drop a man who’s fixin’ to kill you and you just got to go lay it down low with a woman. Less a course you need to leave town a bit quick like, if your kill weren’t maybe quite lawful, much as there’s any law in these parts.
As to the third it used to be that people could say that Kit McCann never ran. But that late June day in ‘76 you couldn’t say that no more. I ran because if I hadn’t the Haggerdy brothers would have killed my ass stone dead.
It weren’t sposed to be this way. When I hired on with the Haggerdy gang it seemed like a good move. Tim and Isiah Haggerdy were talking big in a Briantville saloon, throwing back rotgut, still living high on the hog from their last job. Jethro and the last brother Daniel weren’t to be seen, doubtless upstairs with the ladies. Word was the Haggerdy gang were hiring guns. They didn’t have the best rep, but down to my last dollar I couldna afford to be too choosy.
I’d come to Briantsville cos a buddy said I could get a job as a shotgun lookout in a shithole saloon called the Little Hat. Prolly coulda done but it dinna look like a way to stay alive. When a no account cathouse is desperate to hire a lookout you got to ask why, and it dinna take long to hear that the last four lookouts had been blowed up by miners not to happy about the price they paid for the Little Hat’s girls or what they got for their money. So I looked for another option, and found it. Way it turned out i’da been safer facin’ down the miners.
I hired on to for a job taking off the Wells Fargo ship from Fort Jack’ down to Cooperstown. The Haggerdys, me, and a sawed off wannabe gun hand called Wes… he was vague ‘bout his family name, but I din’ hol’ that 'gainst him. I weren’t too accurate about mine. Ego’s a bad thing in this game, if you’re too concerned about making sure people know yo name, pretty soon they be knowin’ it from a wanted poster.
The actual job went off clean. Few minutes before the stage was due we dropped a tree ‘cross the road a mile out of Cooperstown, then the six of us went to ground in a wash along the road and waited for fortune to bless us with golden kisses.
Stage came up and stopped at the tree. Isiah shot the guard off his seat with his Winchester and then we all came out, scarves over our faces, hats low over our eyes. Ordered the passengers down and lined them up against the roadside, Merchant, a gunhand I vaguely knew called Gus, and a preacherman and his wife or mebbe mistress. We din worry none about robbing the passengers, that was chicken feed compared to the main event. We took the western union money bags off the stage, strapped them to Isiah’s horse then Daniel and I cut the traces and turned their team loose.
“Aint far to walk to town” I tole them
“Walk?” the girl said
“Less you wan’ come with us maam" Wes said
I wouldn’t have minded if she did, she was a pretty lil thing, all curls of blonde hair and big conflower eyes. Prolly a mistress, or mebbe a professional woman, dunno dun’ care. We left them there and lit out to the north.
Couple of mile further on we left the track and headed into the woods fore dismounting in a cottonwood grove, tied our mounts to the trees, and built us a fire for the night and looked to split the spoils in the mornin’. We weren’t too worried ‘bout a pursuit.. Cooperstown din’ have a marshal, and I couldn’t see those weak ass clerks and saloon owners getting up a posse any time soon, there were a detachment of Blue dogs a course but they din tend to come looking for outlaws, said ‘forcing the law was ‘neath em. We fried salt pork and beans and then we laid out our bedrolls and lay down for the night.
Next morning Wes was missing. Isiah said he must have got cold feet and split during the night. I had a suspicion that was a load of bull. For one thing his horse and rifle were still there, for another the blade that Isiah wore at his hip still showed droplets of red. Shoulda known better, but colour me greedy. I figured mebbe they’d had a beef. Not my concern. More treasure for us right? Wrong. The deal had been seven equal shares with Isiah taking double cos he was the leader. So I grinned stupidly at him an said “Six equal shares huh”
“About that” he said
The hair stood up on my neck and instinctively started to turn
That was when the cowardly piece of shit Jethro shot me. Because I was turning his aim was off and I only caught the edge of the shot cone.
I drew my Colt and put a round in his face, blew out the back of his head in a shower of red and grey, then I ran for the edge of the glade. Some lucky bastard shot the Colt of of my hand, leaving my fingers numb and tingling.
No time to try and recover it, I just ran.
Knew they’d be comin’ after me, they had to kill me now. You don’t double someone like me and leave em alive, cos if you do you can bet they’ll come huntin’ and be mighty pissed when they do. I was hopin’ that they’d be dumb enough to split up. They did that mebbe I could take one of them out with the Popper then take his gun and front on the other two. Not a great plan but the best I had.
Reckon I had no choice on it. I had to kill em or die trying, cos otherwise my rep wouldna’ be worth a plugged nickel. No one hires a man who runs. Figured I’d either kill the Haggerdys or they’d kill me and it it went that way when anyone tol' the story they’d say that Kit McCann went out standin’ up and fighting back.
Came as a disagreeable surprise when a gun cocked behind me
I did as he instructed, it weren’t one of the Haggerdys, he was big man, wild dark hair streaked with a little grey, he was wearing a canvas jacket with fur on the collar, which matched his hair. He had a revolver in his hand pointed straight at me, another on his left hip “You one of the boys took off the Fort Jack stage?”
Figured there weren’t much point in lyin,’ if he was asking he already knew.
“Ya”
He smiled “You ripped up a bit there?”
“Others trying to back fuck me outa my share” I said “Fuckin Haggerdys”
“How many?” he said
“Were four” I said “I kilt one”
He nodded “Don’t seem right three guys chasin down one like he’s a buck”
“Right aint got much to do with it mister”
His dark eyes held mine for a long moment then he stepped back and holstered his pistol “You can get up”. For tiny fraction of a second I considered shooting him with the popper and taking his guns. But that shit wouldn’t be right. I remembered my grandpop long ago telling me that whatever I did in my life I had to do it square. ‘You make your own way in this world and I be proud to call you kin whether you’re president of a fine company or you play piano in a whorehouse, but I’d hang my head in shame if you weren’t a man about it, heah?’ My life weren’t exactly on the straight, but I’d never been a backshooter, all twenty four of the men I’d killed had had a fair chance to kill me.
“Bear” he said holding out a paw
I shook it “Kit”
“Your three Haggerdy’s are that way” he gestured south “Mebbe a half mile” He pulled the pistol from his left hand holster, flipped it and offered it to me butt first. It was a Colt Peacemaker like mine had been, but when I checked the load they were .44-40s, man stoppers “I figure we should go say howdy”
I smiled “Why you helpin’ me?”
He shrugged “I ain’t got nuttin better to do”
“What now?” I said holding the pistol down by my thigh
“Reckon there’s two options” Bear said his peacemaker held like mine “I hired on to recover this treasure and bring it on to Fort Jax”
“That was quick” I said
“Fast rider” he said “those guys you turned loose walked into Cooperstown and the agent there sent a man north. I was with the agent at Fort Jax cuz I jus’ done some other work for him, he say Bear you bring that treasure in and it’s worth fifty dollars
“So what’re our options”
“you can surrender to me” he said “or we can see who’s faster”
“Or you and I could split the treasure two ways?”
Bear shook his head “ When I hire on, I stay hired less the client gimme good reason not to.”
“There could be thousands of dollars in them bags”
“Be millions and my answer still be the same” he said “Kin only sell yo honor once, and yo can never buy it back”
I smiled “Your life woulda been easier you ain’t given me a gun
“True” he said “But then I’d havta take all three of these shitstains on my own… what’s it gonna be Kit?”
I was fast… faster than twenty four other guys, twenty five now, but… I tossed the gun on the ground at his feet, and then pulled my popper out of my left hand pocket and tossed it next to it “I aint saying y’ faster than me” I said “but you treated me fair, and it wouldna be right to abuse y' trust.”
Bear nodded like something had been confirmed to him “You know those witnesses weren’t too accurate” he said “some of them said there were four gunhands, some said five, only one said six… descriptions are shit”
“What are you sayin’?”
“You’re a shooter” he said “and you know right from wrong. I could use a guy like that to have my back”
“You serious?”
“You want me to be?”
I nodded and held out my hand. We shook then Bear nodded at the carrion in the ground around us “pick yourself a gun” he said “looks like y’ got a choice of three”
The winner will get a shiny little medal and the approbation of his or her peers.
While good critiques are required to be constructive, there is a lot here to get your teeth into, i know its not my best work... i picked something like that deliberately as there wouldn't be a lot of point in using a piece that was so perfect it would make Hemingway weep.
Critique brief: This is the first chapter of Desolation Ridge (2247 words), a western novel set in the main Wild West period. You can critique anything you want about it but it should be noted that the first person narrator is a relatively uneducated gunfighter who doesn't talk in received pronunciation, so there isn't much point in correcting his contractions and so forth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s three things you always remember. The first man you killed, the first woman you had, and the first time you ran.
I killed my first man in Silver City, when I was just turned 18. we was playin’ poker and he lost a hand he thought he shoulda won. Said I was a cheat and no good coward like ma daddy. I called him out and an’ we took it to the street. Put two rounds of .45 through his heart ‘fore he cleared leather. That was the last time anyone said Kit McCann was a cheat.
First woman was the same day. A whore named Ali Queen in the Diamond Saloon. You kill a man fair like that, him or me, it gets you righteously hot when it’s him. Course you’d be righteously cold if it were ‘tother way around.
You’d think the effect would get less, the more you do it, but it don’. I’ve killed twenty four men one on one since that day eight year back, and its always the same. You drop a man who’s fixin’ to kill you and you just got to go lay it down low with a woman. Less a course you need to leave town a bit quick like, if your kill weren’t maybe quite lawful, much as there’s any law in these parts.
As to the third it used to be that people could say that Kit McCann never ran. But that late June day in ‘76 you couldn’t say that no more. I ran because if I hadn’t the Haggerdy brothers would have killed my ass stone dead.
–
I was running through the woods, north of Cooperstown, without my revolver, my rifle or my horse. My left side was torn up with shot where that back shootin’ son of a bitch, Jethro Haggerdy, had lit me up good with his 10 gauge, blood was soaking my buckskin shirt and dribblin’ down my left arm to drip off my finger tips. Knew I had to be leaving a trail that it wouldn’t take an Apache to follow, but there was nuttin I could do ‘bout that. Jus’ had to hope for somewhere to hide, somewhere to lay up and even the odds, or to lie down and die if I couldna get the bleeding stopped.It weren’t sposed to be this way. When I hired on with the Haggerdy gang it seemed like a good move. Tim and Isiah Haggerdy were talking big in a Briantville saloon, throwing back rotgut, still living high on the hog from their last job. Jethro and the last brother Daniel weren’t to be seen, doubtless upstairs with the ladies. Word was the Haggerdy gang were hiring guns. They didn’t have the best rep, but down to my last dollar I couldna afford to be too choosy.
I’d come to Briantsville cos a buddy said I could get a job as a shotgun lookout in a shithole saloon called the Little Hat. Prolly coulda done but it dinna look like a way to stay alive. When a no account cathouse is desperate to hire a lookout you got to ask why, and it dinna take long to hear that the last four lookouts had been blowed up by miners not to happy about the price they paid for the Little Hat’s girls or what they got for their money. So I looked for another option, and found it. Way it turned out i’da been safer facin’ down the miners.
I hired on to for a job taking off the Wells Fargo ship from Fort Jack’ down to Cooperstown. The Haggerdys, me, and a sawed off wannabe gun hand called Wes… he was vague ‘bout his family name, but I din’ hol’ that 'gainst him. I weren’t too accurate about mine. Ego’s a bad thing in this game, if you’re too concerned about making sure people know yo name, pretty soon they be knowin’ it from a wanted poster.
The actual job went off clean. Few minutes before the stage was due we dropped a tree ‘cross the road a mile out of Cooperstown, then the six of us went to ground in a wash along the road and waited for fortune to bless us with golden kisses.
Stage came up and stopped at the tree. Isiah shot the guard off his seat with his Winchester and then we all came out, scarves over our faces, hats low over our eyes. Ordered the passengers down and lined them up against the roadside, Merchant, a gunhand I vaguely knew called Gus, and a preacherman and his wife or mebbe mistress. We din worry none about robbing the passengers, that was chicken feed compared to the main event. We took the western union money bags off the stage, strapped them to Isiah’s horse then Daniel and I cut the traces and turned their team loose.
“Aint far to walk to town” I tole them
“Walk?” the girl said
“Less you wan’ come with us maam" Wes said
I wouldn’t have minded if she did, she was a pretty lil thing, all curls of blonde hair and big conflower eyes. Prolly a mistress, or mebbe a professional woman, dunno dun’ care. We left them there and lit out to the north.
Couple of mile further on we left the track and headed into the woods fore dismounting in a cottonwood grove, tied our mounts to the trees, and built us a fire for the night and looked to split the spoils in the mornin’. We weren’t too worried ‘bout a pursuit.. Cooperstown din’ have a marshal, and I couldn’t see those weak ass clerks and saloon owners getting up a posse any time soon, there were a detachment of Blue dogs a course but they din tend to come looking for outlaws, said ‘forcing the law was ‘neath em. We fried salt pork and beans and then we laid out our bedrolls and lay down for the night.
Next morning Wes was missing. Isiah said he must have got cold feet and split during the night. I had a suspicion that was a load of bull. For one thing his horse and rifle were still there, for another the blade that Isiah wore at his hip still showed droplets of red. Shoulda known better, but colour me greedy. I figured mebbe they’d had a beef. Not my concern. More treasure for us right? Wrong. The deal had been seven equal shares with Isiah taking double cos he was the leader. So I grinned stupidly at him an said “Six equal shares huh”
“About that” he said
The hair stood up on my neck and instinctively started to turn
That was when the cowardly piece of shit Jethro shot me. Because I was turning his aim was off and I only caught the edge of the shot cone.
I drew my Colt and put a round in his face, blew out the back of his head in a shower of red and grey, then I ran for the edge of the glade. Some lucky bastard shot the Colt of of my hand, leaving my fingers numb and tingling.
No time to try and recover it, I just ran.
–
Bout three hours later I lay dog behind the trunk of a deadfall, listening for footsteps as I tied my neck cloth around my wound. I weren’t totally defenseless, I still had my little popper. Lady’s two shot pocket pistol in .45 because it makes sense for all your guns to shoot the same round. Trouble was I had three enemies, and the Popper ain't much, 'cept at close range.Knew they’d be comin’ after me, they had to kill me now. You don’t double someone like me and leave em alive, cos if you do you can bet they’ll come huntin’ and be mighty pissed when they do. I was hopin’ that they’d be dumb enough to split up. They did that mebbe I could take one of them out with the Popper then take his gun and front on the other two. Not a great plan but the best I had.
Reckon I had no choice on it. I had to kill em or die trying, cos otherwise my rep wouldna’ be worth a plugged nickel. No one hires a man who runs. Figured I’d either kill the Haggerdys or they’d kill me and it it went that way when anyone tol' the story they’d say that Kit McCann went out standin’ up and fighting back.
Came as a disagreeable surprise when a gun cocked behind me
–
“Roll over slow” he saidI did as he instructed, it weren’t one of the Haggerdys, he was big man, wild dark hair streaked with a little grey, he was wearing a canvas jacket with fur on the collar, which matched his hair. He had a revolver in his hand pointed straight at me, another on his left hip “You one of the boys took off the Fort Jack stage?”
Figured there weren’t much point in lyin,’ if he was asking he already knew.
“Ya”
He smiled “You ripped up a bit there?”
“Others trying to back fuck me outa my share” I said “Fuckin Haggerdys”
“How many?” he said
“Were four” I said “I kilt one”
He nodded “Don’t seem right three guys chasin down one like he’s a buck”
“Right aint got much to do with it mister”
His dark eyes held mine for a long moment then he stepped back and holstered his pistol “You can get up”. For tiny fraction of a second I considered shooting him with the popper and taking his guns. But that shit wouldn’t be right. I remembered my grandpop long ago telling me that whatever I did in my life I had to do it square. ‘You make your own way in this world and I be proud to call you kin whether you’re president of a fine company or you play piano in a whorehouse, but I’d hang my head in shame if you weren’t a man about it, heah?’ My life weren’t exactly on the straight, but I’d never been a backshooter, all twenty four of the men I’d killed had had a fair chance to kill me.
“Bear” he said holding out a paw
I shook it “Kit”
“Your three Haggerdy’s are that way” he gestured south “Mebbe a half mile” He pulled the pistol from his left hand holster, flipped it and offered it to me butt first. It was a Colt Peacemaker like mine had been, but when I checked the load they were .44-40s, man stoppers “I figure we should go say howdy”
I smiled “Why you helpin’ me?”
He shrugged “I ain’t got nuttin better to do”
–
Isiah’s eyes went wide when we stepped out of the trees, the other brothers turned to look then all three of them went for their guns. I drew the borrowed Peacemaker from my holster, turned side on and exploded Isiah’s head with a single round. At the same time Bear put three shots into Tim slamming him to the ground. Daniel got two rounds off, both of which ripped through the space where I’d been a few moments before and then Bear and I both drilled him through the head throwing a pink mist across the glade. Bear walked across the the Haggerdy’s horses and checked the treasure bags and nodded“What now?” I said holding the pistol down by my thigh
“Reckon there’s two options” Bear said his peacemaker held like mine “I hired on to recover this treasure and bring it on to Fort Jax”
“That was quick” I said
“Fast rider” he said “those guys you turned loose walked into Cooperstown and the agent there sent a man north. I was with the agent at Fort Jax cuz I jus’ done some other work for him, he say Bear you bring that treasure in and it’s worth fifty dollars
“So what’re our options”
“you can surrender to me” he said “or we can see who’s faster”
“Or you and I could split the treasure two ways?”
Bear shook his head “ When I hire on, I stay hired less the client gimme good reason not to.”
“There could be thousands of dollars in them bags”
“Be millions and my answer still be the same” he said “Kin only sell yo honor once, and yo can never buy it back”
I smiled “Your life woulda been easier you ain’t given me a gun
“True” he said “But then I’d havta take all three of these shitstains on my own… what’s it gonna be Kit?”
I was fast… faster than twenty four other guys, twenty five now, but… I tossed the gun on the ground at his feet, and then pulled my popper out of my left hand pocket and tossed it next to it “I aint saying y’ faster than me” I said “but you treated me fair, and it wouldna be right to abuse y' trust.”
Bear nodded like something had been confirmed to him “You know those witnesses weren’t too accurate” he said “some of them said there were four gunhands, some said five, only one said six… descriptions are shit”
“What are you sayin’?”
“You’re a shooter” he said “and you know right from wrong. I could use a guy like that to have my back”
“You serious?”
“You want me to be?”
I nodded and held out my hand. We shook then Bear nodded at the carrion in the ground around us “pick yourself a gun” he said “looks like y’ got a choice of three”
