Writing Exercise Board

Simply because Def Lepard was playing when I wrote this, it is filed under Love Bites.

Jacob Monroe was driving too fast.  Jake always drove fast, but tonight he was trying to outrun the strange yellow eyes he saw in his rearview mirror where his own should of been.

The highway leading into Clay followed the winding and swollen Elk River.  More than one person he knew had lost a loved one to the Elk.  Briefly he recalled that his mom had lost a  sister in a whirlpool one hot summer day.  He pushed the thought aside as he pushed his mustang faster.  The river churned violently.  Fierce and relentless outside his window.  Like the eyes in his mirror.

Frantic, Jake dared a peek in to his mirror.  He smiled in relief when his own brilliant blue stared back at him.  He let off the gas just as he rounded the corner and the new funeral home came into sight. 

fear paralyzed him as the pulsing yellow light filled his mustang and the echo from the horrible laugh almost deafened him.  Jake never saw the logging truck that was coming on the wrong side of the road.  He felt the impact and his last thought as his car crashed into the whirlpool that had formed in the icy water was that her name was Janna.

The lights in the funeral home pulsed on and off, like a heartbeat.  Each pulse was brighter than the last.  A heaviness filled the air, the fog rolled in and the maniacal laughter became louder and louder.  As quickly as it came, the fog rolled out, the light show was over.  The laughter had quieted to the eerie sounds of the Dance Macabre.

Four days later, the laser-red Mustang was pulled out of the river.  The piece of eight Jake wore from the age of six was hanging from the rearview mirror.  Jacob Monroes body was never recovered.

A fast paced piece! I'm a great fan of the short story as life is so busy it takes me weeks to read a book anymore.

One suggestion which comes to mind is to show the action rather tell the reader what is going on. For example:

"Jacob was driving too fast.  Jake always drove fast, but tonight he was trying to outrun the strange yellow eyes he saw in his rearview mirror where his own should of been."

You could do something like:

Jake Monroe skidded around the curves going way too fast. Jake always drove fast but tonight (should this be that night- not sure if it's changing tenses maybe) he needed to outrun the strange yellow eyes he saw reflected in his rearview mirror where his own should be (? tense - perhaps if it's 'to' night than his eyes should be - If it's 'that' night his eyes should have been ?).

Your sentence structure seems a little confusing,(below) perhaps purposely, because both the river and the eyes and are outside the window. I made a suggestion, but then thought maybe you meant it to imply the eyes.

The river churned violently.  Fierce and relentless outside his window.  Like the eyes in his mirror.

(for what it's worth - I think it's a good idea to consider alternatives when writing, - Probably why it can take me four hours to crank out one paragraph LOL)

The river churned violently outside his window.  Fierce and relentless, like the eyes in his mirror.

Might want to break this up... let see how it reads...

"Fear paralyzed him as pulsing yellow light filled his mustang.  An echo from the horrible laugh nearly deafened him." 

I thought maybe make a new paragraph here because it seems to change tense and go from what is happening to what has happened.

"Jake never saw the logging truck on the wrong side of the road coming.  He felt the impact. "

"his last thought as his car crashed into the whirlpool that had formed in the icy water was that her name was Janna."

Above sentence tells the reader, you could show the reader with something like

"As his car plunged into the whirlpool which  suddenly had formed in the icy water, Jake remembered Jaana's name."

I'm not sure what this refers to (below) was something playing on the radio?

"The lights in the funeral home pulsed on and off, like a heartbeat.  Each pulse was brighter than the last.  A heaviness filled the air, the fog rolled in and the maniacal laughter became louder and louder.  As quickly as it came, the fog rolled out, the light show was over.  The laughter had quieted to the eerie sounds of the Dance Macabre."

The laughter quieted died  to the eerie sounds of the Dance Macabre."

The lights in the funeral home pulsed on and off, like a wild heartbeat each pulse growing in intensity..   A heaviness filled the air.  Fog rolled in.  A maniacal laughter grew into high pitched shrill cackle. The Fog receded the light show over.  The laughter died quieted by the eerie sounds of the Dance Macabre."

My suggestions are simply examples of an alternate way of writing where instead of using was which tells the reader the action, you write a phrase which shows the reader what is happening.

My main concern is that the tense seems to fluctuate from present to past, I'm uncertain as to whether you mean this to be happening at present or whether you are telling what happened.

You have a good concept and a tightly wrapped story which would benefit by just a little tweaking. I'm always amazed when reading stories like this as to the inventive mind of the author. (At least I hope this is purely fiction shudder ;)

<<My main concern is that the tense seems to fluctuate from present to past, I'm uncertain as to whether you mean this to be happening at present or whether you are telling what happened.>>

I agree with you completely.  This is actually just a summery of what I want this particular piece to be about, and is mostly just in note form right now so that I would not lose the general idea of where I wanted to go with this particular piece.  The tense is changing because I wrote about four different versions and pieced together what I liked.

Like I said, it is full of flaws and nowhere near being completed.

It is very nice to have some feedback, Thank you very much.