Chapter 3

Thank God the station was between a crowded marketplace. I suppose that is why the car’s tyres didn’t get shot. I drove away as fast as I could. The only problem was I knew they would catch up. I knew no matter how well I drove or how fast I could never manoeuvre this huge car long enough to escape. I knew we had to do something.

I knew we had at least half a minute’s headstart . As soon as I turned into a corner ,out of sight of the pursuing  police jeeps, I stopped the car near the curb away from the road. Hopefully they would miss it and go straight on. We got out and tried to blend in with the crowd. I told Aditi to walk straight and not do anything out of the ordinary. She nodded still unable to speak because of the wound on her tongue. As we were walking praying to god that the jeeps would miss us, we heard the inevitable police sirens behind us. We kept walking straight on without looking back. I saw a taxi stand about half a km away. If only we could walk undetected till there.

The police sirens didn’t pass us. The jeeps stopped behind us. I guess because they couldn’t see the car they were supposed to follow anymore. We tried to walk as quickly as we could without standing out from the crowd. Not far now.

“The car is here. They’re in the crowd somewhere” I heard a cop shout out.

I could sense the policemen getting out of their jeeps. Judging by the noise they were making they were probably a 100 yards behind us. But the taxi stand was still a 100 yards ahead.

We quickened our pace. Out of the corner of my eye I saw half the cops go on the other side of the road to see if we had crossed and were trying to escape that way. If they would just turn this way they would see us. We were almost there.

As we reached the taxi we got in quickly. Just to find out that there was no driver in it. I looked out of the taxi searching for him frantically. Apparently the driver had gotten out to see what all the commotion was all about. I knew if I called out to him the cops just behind reaching the taxi stand would hear me. So I opened the door and banged it shut again loudly. It got the attention of the driver. I signalled him to come over. He got in the taxi.

“Where to?” He asked

“The railway station” I said. I looked out of the window and I saw  the rogue cop not 10 metres away looking over to the other side of the road. I sank in my seat and pushed Aditi down too as the taxi turned the meter down and drove. We had escaped.

Reviews

[irishsam]

I enjoy your story, I like the suspense. But, I would like the know how the main character is feeling. I want to know his thoughts. Also, include a setting. It's hard to imagine what your the scene looks like without a description. Sorry about the delay, my computer has been broken. :(

[Manan]

No problem. Thanks for taking the time to review! Now that you mention it, it does lack a setting. That makes sense. By thoughts, do you mean how he is feeling when he is being pursued? In that direction?

[irishsam]

Yes. How does he feel about the situation? Why hasn't he given up? Thoughts likes that. I want to know what he's thinking.

[Manan]

Do you think in a scene like this it would be appropriate? Considering its a more action based sequence? I am new to this what do you think?

[irishsam]

I think it would be appropriate to add in some thought in this chapter. It's okay to do that in any chapter.

[Manan]

Okay i'l try doing that. Thanks so much for your help :)

[irishsam]

Anytime. Let me know when you write something else.

[Trigorin]

Your writing is technically correct, but the chapter seems a little short. Ideally a chapter should be a single, solid block of the larger work, one that could potentially stand on its own, at least in terms of plot, but I'm really not seeing that here. You ought to expand on this more, there's plenty of room.

[Manan]

Thanks for your constructive criticism. Do you think making it longer would make it more engaging? I thought of making it longer but didn't want to overwhelm the readers as there are 2 chapters preceding this one.

[Trigorin]

If you look at pretty much any modern novel, you'd notice that the vast majority of the chapters would be longer than this. And while there's nothing particularly wrong with an extremely short chapter once in a while, the thing you need to remember is that you ought to approach each chapter as though it was going to be presented separately, as a short story or whatever. In that light, you need to make the arc in the chapter as contiguous and solid as you can so that it can stand alone. Obviously, it won't be able to because of the characters and other factors, but the story in the chapter needs to be well-thought-out and able to stand up.

[Manan]

That makes sense. I have completed the final two chapters now but i will keep this in mind in my next short story. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it