Ane's critique

( ) = suggest cutting
{} = suggestion/comment
[] = suggest adding


My first impression of this was good. I like the style. You have a natural story-telling ability and a good sense of suspense. While I felt it was author-narrated rather than in POV, it still began a "movie" for me of the action. That said, I believe this can be much better. Pull the reader inside this woman's head. Tighten it up. And RUE (explained later)

PROLOGUE

She wore makeup for the first time that night. (She didn’t know why.){{stronger without that}} Standing in front of the cracked bathroom mirror, she (surveyed) [studied] her face. {{The reason I suggest studied is this woman is obviously a bit mental. I know she has reason, but she isn't thinking straight. Everything is surreal. Survey – to me – is lighter in mood than study. With studied, I see her staring at each feature as a stranger. Survey makes me see an author telling us what she looks like}}The purple eye-shadow, ivory foundation, and glossy lipstick -- they transformed her. {{I think you can take this last sentence and draw it all out. HOW did it transform her? The eye shadow: what did it do to her eye color? Did it make her look exotic? Or mysterious?}}

Her pasty complexion was now a thing of beauty. A majestic painting. (Maybe that was it.The makeup made her feel like she was d)[D]isconnect[ed](ing) from herself, slipping on a costume. Masquerading (as a different woman). {{Sometimes, just the word bring up the image. Trust your reader to get it. RUE – Resist the Urge to Explain}}


An hour later she stood outside her ex’s front door, gloved hand wrapped around the knob. It would be locked, but (she knew) he kept the spare key under the welcome mat. At this time of night he’d be glued to the sofa, remote in hand, a football game blaring.

She pressed the key into the lock and [eased the door open](turned it slowly). {{That avoids an adverb}}(Once i)[I]nside the shadowy hallway, she listened. [The TV droned—nothing](Yes, there was the tv talking. Nothing) else. {{This way you're showing us what she heard and not telling us she heard it}}

[She reached](Reaching) beneath her coat(, she)[and] pulled out the loaded .38, its power burning in her palm. {{My first mentor always drilled into me that writing is linear. It is physically impossible to reach in and take out at the same time - they are opposite in direction. When starting a sentence with the "ing" form of a verb, be sure it is physically possible to do. :) }} For one moment she balked.

Once she crossed this threshold[,] she could never go back. [But then, n](N)either could he. Ever.

She curled her fingers around the gun’s barrel. (But it had to be done.) He['d] (could) never touch their child again.
(The)[A] pounding, (blaring) music {{blaring was used above, and one adjective is enough. Pounding infers blaring and loud}}(of a) truck commercial echoed through the house, and she crept forward down the carpeted hall(,)[, scarcely breathing](quiet as a cat.) {{again, your verb crept infers quiet and the simile feels out of place here. You already did a GOOD job of showing her creeping :) }}

Around the corner. Into the livingroom. And just as she guessed, (there) he [lay](was) sprawled on the sofa in his old gray sweatsuit, a half dozen dead soldiers littering the coffee table beside him.
She waited until she (was standing)[stood] behind the sofa, staring down at his greasy head. {{This is a tense, action packed scene. You need to use strong verbs instead of passive ones}}(Now.)

She gripped the gun with both hands, adrenaline surging through her limbs. {{How did she feel? Was she trembling? Was her heart in her throat? Put me inside her head. Unless she's cold and totally without feeling, and then you can show that. But I'm on the outside, watching this movie, not inside her head}}

She could still see the bloody stripes the belt made on his own flesh and blood, and she felt her child’s (too generic. Boy or girl?}} pain as if her own back was beaten. Never again.

She lifted her chin(, her lips pursing in boiling anger). {{Don't tell me, SHOW me her anger. Did her hands begin to shake with it? Her muscles tense, her finger start the squeeze on the trigger?}} (How dare he.) {{RUE - You SHOW this in the lift of her chin. Don't weaken it by explaining. :) Trust yourself as a writer}}
(Later, when she was once again before her bathroom mirror,) {{Weak transition}}she dipped a cotton ball into the jar of makeup remover and swabbed her cheeks[.] (a)[A]gain and again. Until she (morphed back into)[found] the unremarkable woman whose child needed a mother.


(S)[After s]plashing icy water on her face, she looked herself in the eyes.{{There's another one of those physical impossibilities}} Everything had gone according to plan, but there was one thing she hadn’t expected. And (it’s)[its] absence snuck up on her(, just like she’d snuck up on him). {{The last part weakens it}}
She felt no guilt.