Taken For A Ride

I would have punctuated the opening line like this: - ‘Who are these people and why would they do this?’ Penny thought. In your next sentence – does the fact that this young woman is attractive have any relevance to the fact that she cannot see? One piece of advice you may find helpful is, “Always read your work aloud to yourself.” If you do, you will find that this opening paragraph is quite disjointed and in places contradictory. For example the penultimate sentence speaks of her distress manifesting itself and the next sentence speaks of her relief at her legs not being bound. Generally speaking, distress / tension, is something you want to build over several paragraphs, even chapters, before putting in some sort of release. So let the tension mount within the reader, make them share the panic and confusion before arriving at the eventual resolution. My impression is that you need to take a closer look at the construction of your sentences. For example: - Her father was strong-willed and pragmatic in business and in his social dealings. “Dealings” pertain to business. She clamped her immaculate white teeth together... Does the appearance of her teeth bear any relation to what is going on? Her abductors are more likely to have been inexperienced than amateurs. I won’t go on at length, I hope this is enough to convince you of the need to go over your work more carefully and look at: - Your choice of words and sentence structure. Your paragraph structure, (ask what this paragraph is trying to convey) The story – is it coherent? I hope these comments help and I encourage you to keep writing and above all else, reading. Good luck Bradley