Note: This is the first scene of a science fiction story approximately 8000 words long. I'm posting it here to get feedback on its effectiveness as a hook. Does the scene draw you in? Does it make you want to read more? How could it be made more effective? Did anything in it turn you off or make you want to stop reading?
When Pastor Darl Johansen disappeared from his fast-moving car it had nothing to do with any Biblical Rapture. The driverless car going down the expressway at nearly 80 miles per hour had nothing whatsoever to do with any coming apocalypse. I promise. The pastor’s car actually did surprisingly little damage. The road was straight for the first mile, and by the time the car left its lane it had slowed to no more than forty.
A state trooper happened by in his patrol car and noticed Pastor Johansen’s erratically moving and rapidly slowing car. The trooper turned on his bubble lights, and followed the car as it slowed to thirty miles per hour, then to twenty before it crashed into the barrier that separated eastbound from westbound traffic and came to a stop.
The state police didn’t have a good explanation for how Pastor Johansen’s car came to be driving down the expressway with no driver in it. That didn’t keep them from trying to explain it. Their explanations were unlikely, but good enough that the mystery faded from the mainstream news after a few weeks. A few Forteans showed up and asked questions, then went away happily baffled. The pastor was unmarried, and other than church members and a few friends no one cared very much. Pastor Darl Johansen’s body was never found, at least not in this reality.
A few church members half-jokingly, half-nervously mentioned the rapture. Even his staunchest supporters in the church didn’t really believe that was what had happened though. They didn’t see the pastor as the kind of saintly figure that any reasonable God would single out as the only religious leader in the world to be saved from a coming apocalypse. Darl wasn’t really a bad pastor. He kept the church finances meticulously in order. He visited the sick and the shut-ins regularly, and said all of the right words both in public and in private.
There was something about him though. Some men sensed it, and chose their words carefully around him. Women in the congregation sensed it more strongly. They all looked at the pastor’s tall, lean frame, his broad shoulders, and his big hands. However, only a subset of women made it clear in subtle or not so subtle ways that they were available--women normally attracted to dark, dangerous, violent men.
After the police were done with the pastor’s personal things, one of his friends, Jimmy Sullivan, took charge of the pastor’s belongings. He also stopped by every morning and evening to feed the pastor’s small mixed-breed dog. After about a week, Jimmy stopped by and took the dog to his car. He went back to Pastor Darl Johansen’s apartment, looked around, then said, “I forgive you.”
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Comments: 6
Cathy
I like this a lot, like the narrative tone, the details that the women who were attracted to him usually went for dangerous guys, and the mysterious forgiveness at the end.
I would maybe look at peeling off or somehow reworking the transition from the lines about the non-Apocalypse and the pastor's car doing surprisingly liittle damage in the first graph - maybe make them two separate graphs or have some sort of transition sentence in there because the two ideas don't really go together.
I don't know what stage this story has reached, but your first paragraphs do need tightening.
Consider that first line as a stand-alone paragraph. Let it visually punch the reader.
The second sentence is a near duplicate of the first. You've only got 8,000 or so words to play with? I'd cut anything that doesn't reveal something new.
Paragraphs 2-5 read like a news report. Some real-time action or dialogue would help. You don't want to tell us a story; you want to invite us into the one that's here.
Use specifics. "A state trooper happened by..." is not as strong as, "State Trooper Timothy Evans nearly rear-ended Johansen's car..." Yet, this is still telling rather than showing. Make of car? Dog's name or breed?
An idea for streamlining so you can get to current action sooner—
When Pastor Darl Johansen disappeared from his fast-moving car, it had nothing to do with any Biblical Rapture.
I know that for a fact.
Yet, when state trooper Tim Evans nearly rear-ended the slow-moving Toyota, the driver's seat was definitely empty. And three weeks later, Pastor Johansen's body still hadn't been found, at least not in this reality.
The mysterious disappearance faded from the mainstream news after a few weeks. A few Forteans showed up and asked questions, then went away happily baffled. The pastor had been unmarried, and other than church members and a few friends, no one cared very much.
Except for a small group of women. Women attracted to dark, dangerous, violent men. But they didn't have much to say. At least publicly.
Jimmy Sullivan took to stopping by the pastor's home every morning and evening to feed his Maltese. One evening, after the pastor had been gone a week, Jimmy packed up the dog and all his supplies and settled them in his car. Taking measured breaths, he stepped back into Pastor Johansen's apartment, laid his palm on the pastor's recliner, and said, "I forgive you."
Don't know what I omitted that was critical to the story, but something like this will get us to your next scene sooner. A scene that probably is action in the present, with the narrator doing something? Just a guess.
But to answer the original question, the idea works as an intriguing hook.
Hope this is a help.