Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-6144667-20151230044644/@comment-25941663-20160103174554

"the shadowy figure concluded the man was now dead." - Remove the 'now'.

"That’s all really all I know" - You added 'all' twice. I don't know whether that's intentional or not.

"her short-shorts" - Again, I don't know if this is a mistake or not.

"trying to figure out what he happened." - Replace 'he' with 'had'.

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First of all, I suggest you read this: Pasta Submission Basics: Dialogue. Your dialogue punctuation is off.

In the first paragraph you say that the body was "lifeless" and in a couple of sentences you add that his eyes were devoid of emotion. This is redundant, as no lifeless body can have emotion.

It is absurd how much time Mike spend examining the empty crime scene. He must have been there for at least five hours. You must change it, it's very unrealistic, especially for a crime scene that you write has nothing to offer.

I'm afraid that, overall, the story has many problems. First of all characters are bland. I understand that this is just an intro, but Mike doesn't seem to have a distinct personality. I assume he will be like a protagonist, so you need to flesh him out more and make him unique.

Second, the story is unrealistic. I already pointed out that Mike spent way too much time on the scene, but that lawyer thing is unrealistic too. Maybe it will get explained later in the story, but it right now it seems off.

Finally, you need to improve your dialogue skills too. They felt hollow, you need to add a bit more personality in them.

On the positives, I liked the antagonist of the story. He remains elusive, but we got to know a lot about him. Nice work on him.

All in all though, this will need a lot of work. It isn't terrible by any means, but right now it is below average, I'm afraid.

Keep practising though. You have a firm grip on grammar and vocabulary, so you just need practise.