This story definitely has some promise to it. Your descriptions work well. There’s nothing that particularly stands out, but then nothing really needs to when you’re setting a scene. Your prose flows very well.

There are some changes I think you could make that would improve this. The first may be purely a matter of taste: I would move that opening sentence down three paragraphs after the goon locks the door. You know that something isn’t right, since you’re writing the piece, but there doesn’t seem to be a reason for Jeff to think something isn’t right until he’s inside and sees that there are more people than usual.

You also refer to the man who opens the door as lanky twice in a row. There’s no need to do it the second time (especially with the same word), as the reader already knows he is lanky. I would say, “Jeff walked through the door and turned to see the lean guard look outside…” You should make diversifying descriptions with different words a point in your writing process, as it reads better.

Other than that, I would change “Never had Jeff seen” to “Jeff had never seen” (verb follows subject). I would also change “Now sat ten that he could see, each with…” to “There were ten now, that he could see, each with…”

Last, I’m not sure what you were trying to say in your last sentence. You wrote “had come now come,” which I think is an artifact leftover from your own editing. My guess is you wanted to write, “…feeling the money he had come to lose.”

Please don’t take any of my comments personally; I’m just trying to help. Your bio says that you “don’t seem to have any talent” when it comes to writing. I disagree; I see lots of potential in just this one short piece. With practice, I think you will be writing some really interesting stuff!

Welcome to Ficly!

I also disagree with your profile comment. You show great promise as a writer (I’m begging that you’re not older than me coz I sound like your mother!)
Remember two things:
1. Don’t ever hold back. Write as much as you want. Detail, speech and great descriptions can unlock your imagination and hidden talent.

2. Don’t abandon a tale. If you have an idea and you think it’s worth your time you must give it every second that you can spare. It doesn’t matter if the end product does not satisfy you because it probably never will. You can only learn by posting pieces and absorbing criticism and praise.

I think the only thing wrong with this is your hestitation – go wild! Enjoy! After all: we wouldn’t write if we didn’t like it =D

Thank you for the comments you two. I really appreciate them. I’ve only really started creatively writing about two months ago after years of dreaming and having no confidence.

I tried NaNoWriMo this year and failed pretty miserably at that. Taking on something too big, too soon. So, I figured this would be a good place I could practice, get some honest and helpful feedback and maybe make a friend or two along the way. Thank you both.

i won nano last yea but failed this year, i’ve been on both sides.
ficly is a great place to practice! try out a few challenges.
this story seems to have lots of dark matter waiting to become gruesome action scenes and tense moments of fight or flight. :)

Confidence! Confidence! Confidence!

You have a talent itching to be released. You just have to believe in yourself. You might be surprised at what you can accomplish.

Not just in this piece, but in others also, you show an ability to adapt to a rang of styles, which should set you up nicely for the ancient art of sequelling and prequelling.

With regards to this story in particular, I enjoyed it, it has a creepy, tense feel to it that is a wonderful gift for whoever decides to sequel! I would recommend removing some of the more ‘spoiler-ish’ tags – if the story doesn’t tell us, we shouldn’t know! MH :)

I really enjoyed this, it has a detective/noir feel to it and there’s a healthy amount of tension throughout.

Kaellinn has pretty much summed up everything I was going to say but I’ll just add that I was also confused by the last line. Aside from that, good writing.

“feeling the money he had come now come to lose.”

That bit confuses me BUT up until that I was like “yeah, and then what? Yeah? Cool! What next?” so you’ve got something. It feels sneaky and subversive, but not fully articulated.