Target Practice by Ronald R Nengere - Short, Thriller - A couple gets more than they bargained for when their romantic picnic turns into a desperate quest to get away with murder. 11 pages - pdf format

New writer interested in feedback on this work

Hello

First off - I like the story idea, innocent couple accidentally kill someone, try to cover it up. Simple idea but who doesn't like a good murder cover up?

Didn't much enjoy this one though, too much is unexplained, doesn't make sense.

Biggest put off for me, the dialogue - really on the nose, unnatural, I couldn't get invested in the characters. they didn't seem human to me.

right, the unexplained, why did the guy choose this spot? He says "I guess you will find out" - but we never do

Why is Lily so calm? there is a brief dialogue exchange which points to her hiding something from the past, but then... nothing, we never find out what it is, which annoyed me slightly.

Richard also appears too calm, he is supposed to be the one panicking, but even he is keeping his cool too much.

I didn't get a sense of the shock, panic that would come from the set up. They were also really quick to jump into cover up plan, no battling with their conscious.

I also didn't really understand their plan of getting away with it.

I would also suggest checking out proper formatting and get someone to proof read it.

The ending - I liked it, you ended it where it needed to end. A weaker writer might have dragged it on longer, the cop viewing the recording, confronting them blah blah - so well done on that. They did stop recording though before they said anything incriminating, so I would change that.

I wish you look with it. I look forward to a good rewrite.

Matt