Also, I’d like to quickly clarify some traditional clothes and words used in dialogue since this book is kind of set in a different culture.
Si: Used in this context when someone is persuading someone else.
Aki: Used in this context to display earnestness.
Leso: Large, light pieces of fabric that women wrap around their heads and waists for modesty. Since they’re usually wrapped over a dress, it is common to remove them when not in the presence of men who don’t belong in the family.
I am unsure if this is a culture that exists in real life or one you invented for your novel, but either way, I’ll note that introducing terminology the intended audience may be unfamiliar with will only confuse them. And if it’s a fantasy culture with a made-up language, your audience won’t want to go back and forth between a glossary to figure out what the words mean (trust me, I made up a language for a book and it just confused everybody). So keep that in mind.
The voices spilling through the door reminded her of a pair of constipated dogs, and Akiba didn’t like it one bit.
Well, that’s one way to evoke an image lol. I would recommend using a different word than “spilling” though, personally. Spilling implies that the door was open. Since I assume the door is shut, you could probably even take spilling out completely. “The muffled voices through the door reminded her…” or “The voices arguing on the other side of the door reminded her…”
Like, in all honesty, why did men do that? Let their voices dissolve into unintelligible growls when they shouted?
Growling and shouting are two very different timbres of conversation, so this doesn’t really make sense. I would argue you don’t need these two sentences.
It grated like sandpaper on Akiba’s ears and did nothing for her nerves. Nerves that she needed to be ice-cold, now that she was in the process of creating an alibi.
I know what you’re trying to say here, but I would suggest a different word than “ice-cold”. An alternative: “Nerves Akiba needed to be as steady as her mother’s hands stuffing bits and pieces of skin…” You’ll notice I took out the alibi bit, but not permanently. I would move it (I’ll explain below).
Next to her, mother stuffed bits and pieces of skin into a jar and shoved it into a hole in the wall.
Akiba wiped the pool of blood they had created and sprayed the area with a scent-stealing potion. There. A few more minutes and it would be like they hadn’t stabbed, skinned, maimed or mutilated anything .
Did they create the blood? Or did it come from a corpse? I would choose a different verb here, just for clarity, or, better yet, you could let it be inferred. Also, a “pool” of blood probably wouldn’t come up with a simple “wipe” (maybe a “puddle” would). This is mostly preference, but when cleaning up a pool of blood, I think “mopping” would be more effective to indicate the quantity. “…mopped the pool of blood from the floor and sprayed…” or “wiped the puddle of blood from the floor and sprayed…”
This is when the alibi part would be really effective.
“A few more minutes and their alibi would be complete. It would be as if they hadn’t stabbed, skinned, maimed, or mutilated anything.”
Though, now I’m wondering if it’s really an alibi, since that’s indicating they were in a different place than where a crime happened, which doesn’t seem like it’s the case here. With that in mind, I would recommend using “evidence” instead of “alibi.” “A few more minutes and the evidence would be gone, as if they hadn’t stabbed…”
The grating growls outside intensified,
telling them that they didn’t have a few more minutes. That they would be lucky if they had a few more seconds.
I think you could take out the marked text above. It actually slows down your pacing when you want it to be really snappy to indicate fast-paced activity. The conversation following will indicate the urgency.
‘Si, you wait a minute?’ Father’s voice floated up, exasperation giving it a bite it otherwise never had. ‘How can you enter into a women’s lab just like that? What if you burst in and find them with their headscarves off, you leecher?’
This paragraph is…odd to me. I don’t mind your descriptive clause “exasperation giving it a bite…” but for the sake of wordiness, you might consider revising to something like “Father’s exasperated voice floated up with uncharacteristic sharpness.” I also am unclear on the “How can you enter into a women’s lab…” question. Why would he ask this question? Wouldn’t he tell the other “You can’t enter a women’s lab just like that! What if…”
I also would recommend changing “women” to “woman” or “a women’s lab” to “you can’t enter women’s labs”. I suspect you used it the same way people say “women’s locker rooms” but it jarred my reading experience.
I also suspect you meant the word “lecher.”
Akiba’s mother screwed the last jar closed and stuffed it into their hiding place. They started sliding a fake wall over the
entireensemble of jars of skin, blood, and the occasional, grisly bit of a body organ.
“entire” here is redundant. You could potentially take out “a body” too, because the blood and other scene-setting elements indicate a body is involved.
‘Bwana Malifedha, this is a huge pain in the neck for me too, you know,’ came Inspector Warsame’s lazy voice, ‘but aki I have to move quickly. I have to get home as fast as possible.’
A loud bang told Akiba that her father had thrown himself in front of the lab’s metal doors. ‘Wait,’ he grunted, ‘wait a few more minutes.’
Are they upstairs or downstairs? Since Father’s voice floated “up” earlier, I assumed they were on a second story, so make sure you have continuity there. Also even with metal doors, it’s likely they would hear a “thud,” not a “bang,” which is a sharper sound. If the Inspector is in law enforcement (of some kind or another), it’s likely he wouldn’t use empathy: “this is a huge pain in the neck for me too”. “I have to move quickly, I have to get home as fast as possible” again, coming from some type of law enforcement, wouldn’t likely be realistic here. If he’s trying to force his way in, he would be telling Father to get out of the way, to move, that he “doesn’t have time to wait.”
‘I can’t,’ Inspector Warsame groaned in return.
What were they doing out there?
Based on what the story is telling us, Father is trying to keep Inspector from coming in. I don’t mind this sentence terribly, but it’s a bit superfluous.
‘God, it’s just two minutes,’ father snapped, ‘a courtesy two minutes . Have some respect, man.’
With her mother’s help, she pushed at the fake wall a little more.Then it did the worst thing it could in such a situation. It got stuck .
You could take out that first sentence and combine it with the next. “As they hurried to push the fake wall closed, something jammed and the door refused to budge another millimetre.” Show, don’t tell in this instance. This is a critical moment. “Telling” us the door got stuck doesn’t have as much impact as describing it.
‘This is a matter of life and death!’
Sshouted Warsame.‘What is?’ Father yelled back.
‘Can’t you see ?’ Warsame shouted, ‘ Mtaka cha Mvunguni Sharti Ainame is airing in twenty minutes. I have to get home. Do you want me to miss an episode, you demon? Do you?’
I’m not sure if this is intentionally hyperbolic, but it seems a little odd to me that an Inspector wants to do his job so he can get home to watch a TV show, especially comparing it to life and death (also, if you’re adding a dialogue tag to the end of a line of dialogue, even if there’s punctuation like exclamation points and question marks, the tag should still be lowercase unless it’s indicating an action, not a tag).
ie. ‘This is a matter of life and death!’ shouted Warsame. vs
‘This is a matter of life and death!’ The Inspector tried to muscle past Father.
I would reconsider the reason the Inspector wants to get done and go home, and realistically, he doesn’t need to explain his reason, since he is the Inspector.
The pair
backinside the labtried throwingthrew their whole weight behind the fake wall. It let out a shriek reminiscent of wind tearing through the thorny leaves of a dry acacia, before coming to a stop millimetres before its destination.
“back” is redundant here. They didn’t “try”, they “did.” I like your description here.
The inspector
had tomust have heard the screech. What could they do? What story could they make up?
You probably don’t need the additional questions, but they’re not technically dealbreakers.
As if subsiding into a calm before the storm, the bickering outside the door stopped.
“Like the calm before a storm,” reads better.
Then the door crashed inwards, Father and Inspector Warsame tumbling before them in an untidy heap. Mother took the brief, elusive split second before they looked up to slot herself in front of the gap in the wall. As the pair on the floor untangled themselves, she clicked her tongue. ‘Disgraceful,’ she said.
I’d recommend “slammed open” instead of “crashed inwards”. That sentence probably needs to be reworked a little. “The door slammed open and Father and Inspector Warsame tumbled before them in an untidy heap.”
“Mother used the split second of distraction to plant herself in front of the gap in the wall.” Just a couple word change preferences.
‘Yes dear,’ said Father, getting to his feet and throwing Inspector Warsame the stink-eye, ‘he really is.’
‘Bwana Warsame,’ Akiba exclaimed, painting a brilliant smile on her face and getting ready for a dance she had done over and over the past few weeks. Of course, the dance had never included a gaping wall hidden behind Mother’s back.
According to the earlier description, it’s not technically “gaping”. “Of course, the dance had never included an exposed hiding place” or something like that.
But that…was nothing talking very fast couldn’t fix. ‘How wonderful, marvellous, beautiful, amazing and stupendous it is to meet you again for the fifth time this week! I have absolutely missed you. So, will it be a tour, or do you want to see what we did with the shipment of limiter ore we received? We managed to make an ultra-thin , ultra-small square with that limiter ore, actually. We’ve doubled our production, and…’
Behind the two of them, Mother and Father were having those internal conversations they always had.
Is this an actual internal conversation like telepathy or were they giving each other not-so-subtle glances? “Behind them, Mother and Father were communicating with pointed glances and facial expressions.”
Akiba glanced at them, wishing they didn’t look so obvious, before glancing back and finding Warsame also staring at her parents.
My conclusion:
Overall good. I suggested lots of word changes for the sake of either brevity or clarity–and that’s up to you to change–but be sure the words you choose are portraying your actual meaning (such as the growling vs shouting example). Your hook is good. What are they hiding (seems pretty bloody) and will the Inspector figure it out if the hiding place is open? I think there’s a little bit of hyperbole in here that you could trim down, but for the most part, your descriptions put us in the scene without being overdone. I would focus on trying to make the Inspector’s dialogue a bit more forceful/scary since clearly he can do something to them if he figures out whatever they’re hiding. As I mentioned earlier, I would reconsider if the words you described in the beginning are really necessary because, to me, they didn’t add anything to your overall story. You could always introduce them via dialogue later, but honestly, I would advise against it if your story is primarily in English.
