Substantive editing sample 2:
The interrogation continues

In this mystery novel, I suggested that the author insert cinematic “beats,” descriptive actions that interrupt long speeches—often a character-revealing gesture or grimace or perhaps some other action. I also made other suggestions to liven up the dialogue. You can see (in BLUE BOLDFACE ALL CAPS) how the author responded to my suggestions.

Skip this sample and advance to the next one in the series.

This sample is presented here with the author’s permission.

Original
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Detective Martens filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee and set it down in front of me. “Maybe this will help you pay attention,” he said. He sat down and flipped through a short stack of papers he slid out of a thin manila folder. Martens wasn’t an attractive guy. His face looked like it took on an asteroid belt and lost, the legacy of persistent adolescent acne, I assumed. The bags under his eyes sagged from the weight of too many years of interrogating fools like me. He was wearing a grey suit coat that was some three sizes too big for him, probably a last-minute purchase at Goodwill when he needed something nice to wear to a funeral. Maybe he used to be bigger. “You look tired, Mr. Dodge,” Martens said. “Must have been one hell of a night you had. Tell me about it. How did you know Miguel Ramírez?” I took a sip of coffee. Yes. It had been one hell of a night, just another in a string of one-hell-of-a-nights. “I met Miguel at the Crooked Spine,” I began, rubbing my eyes and answering without looking up. “I got in town in the afternoon and went there for happy hour. I’d heard it could be an entertaining place at that time of day.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I went to the Crooked Spine specifically to meet Miguel; that wouldn’t look good. “Go on.” “I took the only open seat at the bar and tried to talk to the young lady sitting next to me, but she wasn’t the chatting type, at least with me, more interested in her friends, I guess. Can’t blame her for that. I chatted up the bartender when he wasn’t too busy; Noah was his name, I think, in a band of some kind. The group next to me left after they emptied their glasses, and two guys took their place. One of them was Miguel. The guy who came with him wasn’t interested in much except the screen of his iPhone, so Miguel seemed glad to have someone to talk to. We found out that we liked some of the same things.” “What did you have in common? You’re a lot older than him, after all.” The detective looked down and picked up a pen. “I’m not a lot older.” I paused before continuing, looking up at him. “Maybe you need to get out more, detective. It’s possible to have conversations, even friendships, with people who aren’t just like you. Miguel and I had similar tastes in music, for one thing. I had been listening to some songs from Iowa musicians lately; he knew who they were and was a fan of the same ones. He was also a student at Dickey training to be a chiropractor someday, and while I didn’t get to pop any backs in my previous life as a therapist, we found a lot of common ground between the two professions.” “OK. So you had a drink and talked to him at the Crooked Spine. What happened next?” “I was getting hungry and wanted to go to the Schnitzel Haus in Moline for dinner—I hadn’t had a good bratwurst in a long time—so I invited him to come along. He did.” “Why would he go with you there? You had just met, right?” “I didn’t really question it. Why wouldn’t he? He was hungry, too, and he was probably grateful to have an excuse to ditch the guy he came to the bar with.” “So you got to the Schnitzel Haus, and presumably you ate something. What else happened there? What did you talk about?” “When we got to the Schnitzel Haus, two long tables were packed with people who seemed unusually happy. They were singing something in German and toasting each other on every verse. ‘Prost!’ they would roar, then clang glasses and finish their beer with one long gulp. We watched for a couple of minutes before we were seated for dinner, ended up at a table across the room from them.” The detective fidgeted in his chair. “That’s entertaining, Dodge. Tell me what you two talked about during dinner.” “I asked Miguel about his family, and he wanted to know about travel writing. Shit like that.” The detective set the pen down and rubbed his temples. “What did he tell you about his family?” “He told me that he was from Texas, that his dad had been in trouble, did time in prison, apparently. He didn’t get into any detail about it, though.” “How long do you think you were there?” “I’m not sure. Maybe two hours. We were there long enough to eat dinner, and then join that group for a toast and a song—I almost mastered it; it was called Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder. Those people, the ones singing and toasting, it turned out they were German tourists passing through the area. They wanted to see the Mississippi River while they were in the US, so this was their first stop after getting through customs in Chicago. One night in the Quad Cities, that’s all. They walked along the river at LeClaire Park and dipped a toe in the water. That was enough for them, so they went to the Schnitzel Haus to eat and drink. I didn’t get it. They came all the way from Germany to see the Mississippi River and when they got there, all they did was look at it for a few minutes, then go eat food and drink beer to remind them of the country they’d literally had just left.” That wasn’t a lie. I really didn’t get it. Since abandoning my therapy practice, I ached for new experiences. I had no desire to do something just because it reminded me of things I had already done or to visit places I had already been to. I didn’t just crave novelty, I needed it. Martens looked down, picked up the pen again and began tapping it on the table. “Imagine that. People doing strange things. That’s a new one. Where did you go after you left the Schnitzel Haus?” I sat back in the chair. “We walked around the corner to Rolling Rapids Brewery. They were supposed to have a musician playing—someone from Minneapolis who has a following here—so we decided to check him out. He was awful. We hated him, or I did, anyway—just another no-talent Neil Young cover-hack—so we thought we might have a better time at the Locked Down Tavern.” “Ramírez went with you to the Locked Down, too?” “Yeah. He was still following me around at that point.” “You sure got around last night, Dodge; you’ve got good stamina for a man of your age. Tell me about the Locked Down. What did you do there?” “It was busy. Even Miguel’s friend was there, the guy who couldn’t get his nose out of his iPhone at the Crooked Spine earlier. Cody was his name, I think.”

Markup
Click to go to the author’s review.

Detective Martens filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee and set it down in front of me. “Maybe this will help you pay attention,” he said. He sat down and flipped through a short stack of papers he slid out of a thin manila folder. [Let’s put his actions in sequence.] Then he sat down, slid a short stack of papers out of a thin manila folder, and began flipping through them. [I broke the paragraph here.] Martens wasn’t an [the contraction “wasn’t” muffles the emphasis] Martens was not an attractive guy. His face looked like it took on it had taken on an asteroid belt and lost, the lost—the legacy of persistent adolescent acne, I assumed. The bags under his eyes sagged from the weight of too many years of interrogating fools like me. He was wearing a grey suit a gray suit coat that was some three sizes too big for him, probably a last-minute purchase at Goodwill when he needed when he’d needed something nice to wear to a funeral. Maybe he used to be bigger. “You look tired, Mr. Dodge,” Martens said. “Must have been one hell of a night you had. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] Tell me about it. How did you know Miguel Ramírez?” I took a sip of coffee. Yes. It had been one hell of a night, just another in a string of one-hell-of-a-nights. “I met Miguel at the Crooked Spine,” I began, rubbing my eyes and answering without looking up. “I got in town [“into town”?] in the afternoon and went there for happy hour. I’d heard it could be an entertaining place at that time of day.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I went to the Crooked Spine specifically to meet Miguel; that wouldn’t Miguel. That wouldn’t look good. [I'm breaking a number of your semicolon-joined single sentences into separate sentences. I think shorter sentences better convey the intimidating interrogation scene. (And also I think semicolons rarely belong inside dialogue, unless it’s an academic giving a lecture.)] “Go on.” “I took the only open seat at the bar and tried to talk to the young lady sitting next to me, but she wasn’t the chatting type, at least with me, more me. More interested in her friends, I guess. Can’t blame her for that. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I chatted up the bartender when he wasn’t too busy; Noah was busy. Noah was his name, I think, in a think. In a band of some kind. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] The group next to me left after they emptied their glasses, and two guys took their place. One of them was Miguel. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] The guy who came with him wasn’t interested in much except the screen of his iPhone, so Miguel seemed glad to have someone to talk to. We found out that we liked some of the same things.” “What did you have you two have in common? You’re a in common?” The detective looked down and picked up a pen. “You’re a lot older than him, after all.” The detective looked down and picked up a pen. after all.” “I’m not a lot older.” I paused before continuing, looking up at him. “Maybe you need to get out more, detective. It’s possible to have conversations, even friendships, with people who aren’t just like you. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] Miguel and I had similar tastes in music, for one thing. I had been listening to some songs from Iowa musicians lately; he knew lately. He knew who they were and was a fan of the same ones. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] He was also a student at Dickey training Dickey, training to be a chiropractor someday, and while I didn’t get to pop any backs in my previous life as a therapist, we found a lot of common ground between the two professions.” “OK. So you had a drink and talked to him at the Crooked Spine. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] What happened next?” “I was getting hungry and wanted to go to the Schnitzel Haus in Moline for dinner—I hadn’t had a good bratwurst in a long time—so I invited him to come along. He did.” “Why would he go with you there? [Or “Why would he go there with you?” (It depends on where the emphasis is: “with you” or “there”?)] You had just met, right?” [In his response to Martens, Frank is digging his lie (or his omission of the whole truth and nothing but the truth, in that he hadn’t divulged his real reason for meeting Miguel) even deeper. Perhaps his spoken responses can be interrupted by short mental strategies about making his fabricated (though mostly true) story as plausible as possible?] “I didn’t really question it. Why wouldn’t he? He was hungry, too, and he was too. And he was probably grateful to have an excuse to ditch the guy he came to the bar with.” “So you got to the Schnitzel Haus, and presumably you ate something. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] What else happened there? What did you talk about?” “When we got to the Schnitzel Haus, two long tables were packed with people who seemed unusually happy. They were singing something in German and toasting each other on every verse. ‘Prost!’ ‘Prost!’ they would roar, then clang glasses and finish their beer with one long gulp. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] We watched for a couple of minutes before we were seated for dinner, ended up for dinner. Ended up at a table across the room from them.” The detective fidgeted in his chair. “That’s entertaining, Dodge. Tell me “That’s entertaining, Mr. Dodge.” [OK to insert “Mr.”? (he addressed Frank as “Mr. Dodge” at the beginning of the interrogation).] The detective fidgeted in his chair. “Tell me what you two talked about during dinner.” “I asked Miguel about his family, and he family. And he wanted to know about travel writing. Shit like that.” The detective set the pen down and rubbed his temples. [I broke the paragraph here, keeping Frank’s last word echoing in the reader’s mind and putting the detective’s action in the same paragraph as his speech.] The detective set the pen down and rubbed his temples. “What did he tell you about his family?” “He told me that he was from Texas, that his Texas. That his dad had been in trouble, did time in prison, apparently. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps) perhaps some thoughts about how best to keep his story straight? —don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] He didn’t get into any detail about it, though.” “How long do you think you were there?” “I’m not sure. Maybe two hours. We were there long enough to eat dinner, and then dinner. And then join that group for a toast and a song—I almost a jingle. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I almost mastered it; it was it. It was called Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder. called ‘Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder.’ Those people, the ones singing and toasting, it turned and toasting? It turned out they were German tourists passing through the area. They wanted to see the Mississippi River while they were in the US, so this the U.S., so this was their first stop after getting through customs in Chicago. One night in the Quad Cities, that’s all. They walked They’d walked along the river at LeClaire Park and dipped a toe in [“into”?] the water. That was enough That’d been enough for them, so they went to the Schnitzel Haus to eat and drink. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps) maybe he sits up straight, moves forward to the edge of the chair? (a little later we have “I sat back in the chair,” which I am revising to “I leaned back in the chair”) —don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I didn’t get it. They came all They’d come all the way from Germany to see the Mississippi River and River, and when they got there, all they did was look at it for a few minutes, then go eat food and drink beer to remind them of the country they’d literally had just left. country they’d literally just left.” [Or “country they literally had just left”? (please decide; you can’t have both “they’d” and “had”)] That wasn’t a lie. I really didn’t get it. Since abandoning my therapy practice, I ached for new experiences. I had no desire to do something just because it reminded me of things I had already done or to visit places I had already been to. I didn’t just crave novelty, I needed it. Martens [up to this point (except when you first introduced him), he has been “the detective”; from this point forward, consider always having him be “Martens”] looked down, picked up the pen again and again, and began tapping it on the table. “Imagine that. People doing strange things. That’s a new one. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] Where did you go after you left the Schnitzel Haus?” I sat back I leaned back in the chair. [See my earlier comment. He never got up from the chair.] “We walked around the corner to Rolling Rapids Brewery Rolling Rapids Brewpub. [This is what you call it later.] They were supposed to have a musician playing—someone from playing. Someone from Minneapolis who has a following here—so we following here. So we decided to check him out. He was awful. We hated him, or I did him. Or I did, anyway—just another no-talent Neil Young cover-hack—so we cover-hack. So we thought we might have a better time at the Locked Down Tavern.” “Ramírez went with you to the Locked Down, too?” “Yeah. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] He was still following me around at that point.” “You sure got around last night, Dodge; you’ve got night, Mr. Dodge. [Again, OK to insert “Mr.”?] You’ve got good stamina for a man of your age. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] Tell me about the Locked Down. What did you do there?” “It was busy. Even Miguel’s friend was there, the there—the guy who couldn’t get his nose out of his iPhone at the Crooked Spine earlier. Cody was his name, I think.”

The Author’s Review
in BLUE BOLDFACE ALL CAPS
Click to go to the second-pass result.

Detective Martens filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee and set it down in front of me. “Maybe this will help you pay attention,” he said. He sat down and flipped through a short stack of papers he slid out of a thin manila folder. [Let’s put his actions in sequence.] Then he sat down, slid a short stack of papers out of a thin manila folder, and began flipping through them. [I broke the paragraph here.] Martens wasn’t an [the contraction “wasn’t” muffles the emphasis] Martens was not an attractive guy. His face looked like it took on it had taken on an asteroid belt and lost, the lost—the legacy of persistent adolescent acne, I assumed. The bags under his eyes sagged from the weight of too many years of interrogating fools like me. He was wearing a grey suit a gray suit coat that was some three sizes too big for him, probably a last-minute purchase at Goodwill when he needed when he’d needed something nice to wear to a funeral. Maybe he used to be bigger. “You look tired, Mr. Dodge,” Martens said. “Must have been one hell of a night you had. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] HE CLOSED THE FOLDER AND LOOKED UP AT ME. Tell me about it. How did you know Miguel Ramírez?” I took a sip of coffee. Yes. It had been one hell of a night, just another in a string of one-hell-of-a-nights. “I met Miguel at the Crooked Spine,” I began, rubbing my eyes and answering without looking up. “I got in town [“into town”?] LEAVE "IN TOWN" in the afternoon and went there for happy hour. I’d heard it could be an entertaining place at that time of day.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I went to the Crooked Spine specifically to meet Miguel; that wouldn’t Miguel. That wouldn’t look good. [I'm breaking a number of your semicolon-joined single sentences into separate sentences. I think shorter sentences better convey the intimidating interrogation scene. (And also I think semicolons rarely belong inside dialogue, unless it’s an academic giving a lecture.)] “Go on.” “I took the only open seat at the bar and tried to talk to the young lady sitting next to me, but she wasn’t the chatting type, at least with me, more me. More interested in her friends, I guess. Can’t blame her for that. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I SHRUGGED. I chatted up the bartender when he wasn’t too busy; Noah was busy. Noah was his name, I think, in a think. In a band of some kind. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I TAPPED LIGHTLY ON THE ARM OF MY CHAIR. The group next to me left after they emptied their glasses, and two guys took their place. One of them was Miguel. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I SEARCHED HIS FACE FOR A REACTION, BUT HE STARED BLANKLY AT NOTHING IN PARTICULAR. The guy who came with him wasn’t interested in much except the screen of his iPhone, so Miguel seemed glad to have someone to talk to. We found out that we liked some of the same things.” “What did you have you two have in common? You’re a in common?” The detective looked down and picked up a pen. “You’re a lot older than him, after all.” The detective looked down and picked up a pen. after all.” “I’m not a lot older.” I paused before continuing, looking up at him. REPLACE "LOOKING UP AT HIM" WITH "MAKING EYE CONTACT" “Maybe you need to get out more, detective. It’s possible to have conversations, even friendships, with people who aren’t just like you. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I LEANED BACK. Miguel and I had similar tastes in music, for one thing. I had been listening to some songs from Iowa musicians lately; he knew lately. He knew who they were and was a fan of the same ones. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I LOOKED AWAY FROM THE DETECTIVE AND AT THE ONE-WAY MIRROR. He was also a student at Dickey training Dickey, training to be a chiropractor someday, and while I didn’t get to pop any backs in my previous life as a therapist, we found a lot of common ground between the two professions.” “OK. So you had a drink and talked to him at the Crooked Spine. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] HE FLIPPED THE PEN AROUND IN HIS HAND. What happened next?” “I was getting hungry and wanted to go to the Schnitzel Haus in Moline for dinner—I hadn’t had a good bratwurst in a long time—so I invited him to come along. He did.” “Why would he go with you there? [Or “Why would he go there with you?” (It depends on where the emphasis is: “with you” or “there”?)] I LIKE YOUR REVISION You had just met, right?” [In his response to Martens, Frank is digging his lie (or his omission of the whole truth and nothing but the truth, in that he hadn’t divulged his real reason for meeting Miguel) even deeper. Perhaps his spoken responses can be interrupted by short mental strategies about making his fabricated (though mostly true) story as plausible as possible?] I DIDN'T WANT TO LET THE DETECTIVE PIN ME DOWN, SO I KEPT MY ANSWERS SHORT AND VAGUE. “I didn’t really question it. Why wouldn’t he? He was hungry, too, and he was too. And he was probably grateful to have an excuse to ditch the guy he came to the bar with.” “So you got to the Schnitzel Haus, and presumably you ate something. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] HE TOOK A SIP OF COFFEE. What else happened there? What did you talk about?” “When we got to the Schnitzel Haus, two long tables were packed with people who seemed unusually happy. They were singing something in German and toasting each other on every verse. ‘Prost!’ ‘Prost!’ they would roar, then clang glasses and finish their beer with one long gulp. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I THREW AN ARM FORWARD, MIMICKING A TOAST. We watched for a couple of minutes before we were seated for dinner, ended up for dinner. Ended up at a table across the room from them.” The detective fidgeted in his chair. “That’s entertaining, Dodge. Tell me “That’s entertaining, Mr. Dodge.” [OK to insert “Mr.”? (he addressed Frank as “Mr. Dodge” at the beginning of the interrogation).] The detective fidgeted in his chair. “Tell me what you two talked about during dinner.” “I asked Miguel about his family, and he family. And he wanted to know about travel writing. Shit like that.” The detective set the pen down and rubbed his temples. [I broke the paragraph here, keeping Frank’s last word echoing in the reader’s mind and putting the detective’s action in the same paragraph as his speech.] The detective set the pen down and rubbed his temples. “What did he tell you about his family?” “He told me that he was from Texas, that his Texas. That his dad had been in trouble, did time in prison, apparently. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps) perhaps some thoughts about how best to keep his story straight? —don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I NEEDED TO RESTRICT TALKING ABOUT HIS FAMILY TO JUST HIS FATHER. I WOULDN'T HAVE TO LIE ABOUT ANY OF THOSE DETAILS. JUST DON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT JOHN LOONEY, I REMINDED MYSELF. He didn’t get into any detail about it, though.” “How long do you think you were there?” “I’m not sure. Maybe two hours. We were there long enough to eat dinner, and then dinner. And then join that group for a toast and a song—I almost a jingle. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I SMILED AND LEANED FORWARD. I almost mastered it; it was it. It was called Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder. called ‘Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder.’ Those people, the ones singing and toasting, it turned and toasting? It turned out they were German tourists passing through the area. They wanted to see the Mississippi River while they were in the US, so this the U.S., so this was their first stop after getting through customs in Chicago. One night in the Quad Cities, that’s all. They walked They’d walked along the river at LeClaire Park and dipped a toe in [“into”?] the water. LEAVE "IN" That was enough That’d been enough for them, so they went to the Schnitzel Haus to eat and drink. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps) maybe he sits up straight, moves forward to the edge of the chair? (a little later we have “I sat back in the chair,” which I am revising to “I leaned back in the chair”) —don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I SHOOK MY HEAD. I didn’t get it. They came all They’d come all the way from Germany to see the Mississippi River and River, and when they got there, all they did was look at it for a few minutes, then go eat food and drink beer to remind them of the country they’d literally had just left. country they’d literally just left.” [Or “country they literally had just left”? (please decide; you can’t have both “they’d” and “had”)] COUNTRY THEY LITERALLY HAD JUST LEFT That wasn’t a lie. I really didn’t get it. Since abandoning my therapy practice, I ached for new experiences. I had no desire to do something just because it reminded me of things I had already done or to visit places I had already been to. I didn’t just crave novelty, I needed it. Martens [up to this point (except when you first introduced him), he has been “the detective”; from this point forward, consider always having him be “Martens”] looked down, picked up the pen again and again, and began tapping it on the table. “Imagine that. People doing strange things. That’s a new one. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] HE YAWNED AND LOOKED UP. Where did you go after you left the Schnitzel Haus?” I sat back I leaned back in the chair. [See my earlier comment. He never got up from the chair.] “We walked around the corner to Rolling Rapids Brewery Rolling Rapids Brewpub. [This is what you call it later.] They were supposed to have a musician playing—someone from playing. Someone from Minneapolis who has a following here—so we following here. So we decided to check him out. He was awful. We hated him, or I did him. Or I did, anyway—just another no-talent Neil Young cover-hack—so we cover-hack. So we thought we might have a better time at the Locked Down Tavern.” “Ramírez went with you to the Locked Down, too?” “Yeah. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] I CROSSED MY LEGS, THEN FLICKED A SPOT OF DRIED MUD OFF MY PANTS. He was still following me around at that point.” “You sure got around last night, Dodge; you’ve got night, Mr. Dodge. [Again, OK to insert “Mr.”?] You’ve got good stamina for a man of your age. [Consider interrupting the speech here with a short sentence of description (some character-revealing gesture or grimace perhaps)—don’t worry about the punctuation; I’ll take care of getting the close and open quotations marks fixed in the edit’s second pass.] HE PULLED OUT A SHEET OF PAPER FROM THE FOLDER AND SCRATCHED DOWN A NOTE I COULDN'T READ. Tell me about the Locked Down. What did you do there?” “It was busy. Even Miguel’s friend was there, the there—the guy who couldn’t get his nose out of his iPhone at the Crooked Spine earlier. Cody was his name, I think.”

The Second-Pass Result
Click to go to the next sample in the series.

Detective Martens filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee and set it down in front of me. “Maybe this will help you pay attention,” he said. Then he sat down, slid a short stack of papers out of a thin manila folder, and began flipping through them. Martens was not an attractive guy. His face looked like it had taken on an asteroid belt and lost—the legacy of persistent adolescent acne, I assumed. The bags under his eyes sagged from the weight of too many years of interrogating fools like me. He was wearing a gray suit coat that was some three sizes too big for him, probably a last-minute purchase at Goodwill when he’d needed something nice to wear to a funeral. Maybe he used to be bigger. “You look tired, Mr. Dodge,” Martens said. “Must have been one hell of a night you had.” He closed the folder and looked up at me. “Tell me about it. How did you know Miguel Ramírez?” I took a sip of coffee. Yes. It had been one hell of a night, just another in a string of one-hell-of-a-nights. “I met Miguel at the Crooked Spine,” I began, rubbing my eyes and answering without looking up. “I got in town in the afternoon and went there for happy hour. I’d heard it could be an entertaining place at that time of day.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I went to the Crooked Spine specifically to meet Miguel. That wouldn’t look good. “Go on.” “I took the only open seat at the bar and tried to talk to the young lady sitting next to me, but she wasn’t the chatting type, at least with me. More interested in her friends, I guess. Can’t blame her for that.” I shrugged. “I chatted up the bartender when he wasn’t too busy. Noah was his name, I think. In a band of some kind.” I tapped lightly on the arm of my chair. “The group next to me left after they emptied their glasses, and two guys took their place. One of them was Miguel.” I searched his face for a reaction, but he stared blankly at nothing in particular. “The guy who came with him wasn’t interested in much except the screen of his iPhone, so Miguel seemed glad to have someone to talk to. We found out that we liked some of the same things.” “What did you two have in common?” The detective looked down and picked up a pen. “You’re a lot older than him, after all.” “I’m not a lot older.” I paused before continuing, making eye contact. “Maybe you need to get out more, detective. It’s possible to have conversations, even friendships, with people who aren’t just like you.” I leaned back. “Miguel and I had similar tastes in music, for one thing. I had been listening to some songs from Iowa musicians lately. He knew who they were and was a fan of the same ones.” I looked away from the detective and at the one-way mirror. “He was also a student at Dickey, training to be a chiropractor someday, and while I didn’t get to pop any backs in my previous life as a therapist, we found a lot of common ground between the two professions.” “OK. So you had a drink and talked to him at the Crooked Spine.” He flipped the pen around in his hand. “What happened next?” “I was getting hungry and wanted to go to the Schnitzel Haus in Moline for dinner—I hadn’t had a good bratwurst in a long time—so I invited him to come along. He did.” “Why would he go there with you? You had just met, right?” I didn’t want the let the detective pin me down, so I kept my answers short and vague. “I didn’t really question it. Why wouldn’t he? He was hungry, too. And he was probably grateful to have an excuse to ditch the guy he came to the bar with.” “So you got to the Schnitzel Haus, and presumably you ate something.” He took a sip of coffee. “What else happened there? What did you talk about?” “When we got to the Schnitzel Haus, two long tables were packed with people who seemed unusually happy. They were singing something in German and toasting each other on every verse. ‘Prost!’ they would roar, then clang glasses and finish their beer with one long gulp.” I threw an arm forward, mimicking a toast. “We watched for a couple of minutes before we were seated for dinner. Ended up at a table across the room from them.” “That’s entertaining, Mr. Dodge.” The detective fidgeted in his chair. “Tell me what you two talked about during dinner.” “I asked Miguel about his family. And he wanted to know about travel writing. Shit like that.” The detective set the pen down and rubbed his temples. “What did he tell you about his family?” “He told me that he was from Texas. That his dad had been in trouble, did time in prison, apparently.” I needed to restrict talking about his family to just his father. I wouldn’t have to lie about any of those details. Just don’t say anything about John Looney, I reminded myself. “He didn’t get into any detail about it, though.” “How long do you think you were there?” “I’m not sure. Maybe two hours. We were there long enough to eat dinner. And then join that group for a toast and a jingle.” I smiled and leaned forward. “I almost mastered it. It was called ‘Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder.’ Those people, the ones singing and toasting? It turned out they were German tourists passing through the area. They wanted to see the Mississippi River while they were in the U.S., and this was their first stop after getting through customs in Chicago. One night in the Quad Cities, that’s all. They’d walked along the river at LeClaire Park and dipped a toe in the water. That’d been enough for them, so they went to the Schnitzel Haus to eat and drink.” I shook my head. “I didn’t get it. They’d come all the way from Germany to see the Mississippi River, and when they got there, all they did was look at it for a few minutes, then go eat food and drink beer to remind them of the country they literally had just left.” That wasn’t a lie. I really didn’t get it. Since abandoning my therapy practice, I ached for new experiences. I had no desire to do something just because it reminded me of things I had already done or to visit places I had already been to. I didn’t just crave novelty, I needed it. Martens looked down, picked up the pen again, and began tapping it on the table. “Imagine that. People doing strange things. That’s a new one.” He yawned and looked up. “Where did you go after you left the Schnitzel Haus?” I leaned back in the chair. “We walked around the corner to Rolling Rapids Brewpub. They were supposed to have a musician playing. Someone from Minneapolis who has a following here. So we decided to check him out. He was awful. We hated him. Or I did, anyway—just another no-talent Neil Young cover-hack. So we thought we might have a better time at the Locked Down Tavern.” “Ramírez went with you to the Locked Down, too?” “Yeah.” I crossed my legs, then flicked a spot of dried mud off my pants. “He was still following me around at that point.” “You sure got around last night, Mr. Dodge. You’ve got good stamina for a man of your age.” He pulled out a sheet of paper from the folder and scratched down a note I couldn’t read. “Tell me about the Locked Down. What did you do there?” “It was busy. Even Miguel’s friend was there—the guy who couldn’t get his nose out of his iPhone at the Crooked Spine earlier. Cody was his name, I think.”