Logline In March of 2003, America invaded Iraq. This is the story of a young soldier and the dog he saved and the bond they share, the heavy grief of parting, the harsh realities of conflict pulling them apart. The soldier’s dog is confused and the soldier having to walk away after 15 months together.
Entry
The desert was cold before the sun came. Ja’Hi stood upon a broken slab of concrete at the edge of the Iraqi Tallil airfield and lifted his nose to the wind. For weeks, he had known.
The other dogs knew it too, though none knew what it was. Something had changed among the men who lived among the ruined buildings and battered machines. The men no longer laughed as often. They moved quickly. They shouted more. Their sweat smelled different. Fear had entered into it. Fear was a smell Ja’Hi knew.
So was hunger. Each morning the pack came out of the desert to search among the remnants of the once-proud Republican Guard. They knew which soldiers threw scraps and which threw stones. They knew where water collected beneath leaking pipes and where scraps and bones could sometimes be found behind the kitchens. They knew the sharp smell of gun oil and the bitter stink of fuel. These were the smells of Tallil. But this morning the wind brought something new.
Ja’Hi froze. His ears rose. The wind came from the south, sliding low across the desert. He drew it deep into his lungs. Machine exhaust. Men.
Not the men of Tallil. Other men. Many of them.
Far away, beyond what his eyes could see, something growled across the desert. At first it was little more than a tremble beneath the wind. Then the earth beneath his paws seemed to answer it. One of the younger dogs whined.
Ja’Hi showed his teeth and went silent. The pack gathered behind him.
He knew nothing of armies. Nothing of borders or governments or the quarrels of men.
He did not know that thousands of soldiers and machines were moving north through the el-Muqayyar Iraqi desert. He knew only the ancient laws that had kept dogs alive long before men-built cities or drew lines across the earth.
There was his pack. There was hunger. This was there was territory. And there was danger. Ja’Hi lowered his head and stared south. The desert was bringing war.
Ja’Hi was the leader of the pack, and stood before the Great Ziggurat of Ur, where he had claimed the ancient lands of Mesopotamia as his domain. He stared east toward a dark smear of diesel smoke rising in the distance. The hair along his thick neck and spine rose stiff as quills. A rumble grew deep in his chest and climbed his throat. Foreigners.
Ja’Hi glanced at Bal Bal, his Sadiq, his trusted friend. Bal Bal paced back and forth, trembling, his own hackles raised. The ground beneath his paws carried a faint vibration.
Ja’Hi lifted his muzzle and howled.
The warning rolled across the ruins and out over Tallil. Bal Bal understood. He sprang away, racing through the southern Iraqi airbase, barking the alarm.
Dogs appeared from everywhere. They crawled from beneath abandoned vehicles, slipped from alleys and emerged from the rubble of fallen buildings. Mangy dogs. Scarred dogs. Half-starved bitches with hanging teats. Young dogs who had known nothing but hunger and the hard laws of the pack.
They stopped and lifted their noses. Strange smell of Men. Their hackles rose. Fear appeared in their eyes.
CRITIQUE INSTRUCTIONS:
Your RC1 critique has two parts: The Story Score rubric and a written review.
For the rubric below, give a gut-level reaction to each question: 1 means it reads like a first draft. 3 means it’s good, but not something you’d remember. 5 means it reads like a book from the bookstore shelf. For more info on how to use the rubric, remove the “dot” and type the following into your browser: readychapter1 dot com/critique-guidelines/
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The author’s Voice is confident and compelling. I’m sucked in to the story.
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The Characters feel distinct, complex, and relatable. I care about what happens to them.
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I sense that the Plot is headed somewhere intriguing, and I’m curious as to what happens next.
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Well-crafted Dialogue/Non-verbal Communication adds personality to the story. I’m intrigued by how the characters talk, think, and interact.
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Descriptions are vivid and detailed. Whether the world is real or imaginary, it feels like I’m really there.
This was beautifully written and I like that it’s from the dog’s perspective. Does it stay fully from his perspective or does it switch? One thing I kind of felt missing was the emotion. The telling that he knew hunger but the pain ans the growl of his stomach. But the descriptions were great.
I love stories from the animal’s perspective. I’m also curious if we stay in Ja’Hi’s head or if we get a human POV as well? Although I would totally read an entire story written from the dog’s POV, I think you might earn more readers if you also had the human POV, but that’s just a gut instinct.
A couple of other thoughts: You don’t need to tell us Ja’Hi is the pack leader. It was very clear to me before you even got to that line. And “Dogs appeared from everywhere” I think is too vague. It could mean there are a couple of dozen dogs, or a couple of hundred. For believability, you might want to keep the number kind of small. Feral dogs don’t tend to form huge groups. Maybe a few dozen, but they don’t really have the same instinct to form an organized group that wolves do. BUT that’s just my own basic understanding of it and I’m not an expert, so you’d probably want to do some research to figure out the details.
I think your prose is fantastic. I got a great sense of the setting and I thought the imagery of the dogs emerging from their hiding places was really cool.
This is clearly written, with short descriptive sentences depicting sights, sounds and smells. Something is happening. However, with a dog as a POV character there is limited opportunity to inject dialog, which is one of the mainstays of a novel. So I’m not sure how you could craft a full story this way.
This is from my experience when in Iraq in 03…there were stray dogs everywhere as the Iraqis don’t see them as pets. Many have them as guard dogs, but it was so bad on the Tallil Airbase, the Air Force started to shoot the strays (possibly because of rabies, etc.) Raqelle was allow to stay as my pet as the military vet gave her all the shots. Even a certain general (my top commander) heard I had a dog and asked if I could get him a puppy. I went to the caretaker of Ur and he gave me two pups. One went to my female soldiers and the other to a general (who will be nameless). Shame I couldn’t bring her back to the states…but another unit took Raqelle. RRR
Well done! Your prose is STRONG and it sucked me into the story immediately. It took me a couple of beats to realize this was being told from the dog’s perspective, but once I caught on, I was able to visualize the setting and supporting character easily. I’m already curious as to where the story will go, and I sense there’s a conflict on the horizon. Great work!
It’s mostly about my dog that I saved in Iraq and how we we lived and rode together during my 15 months in hell. He was a puppy when another soldier from a different unit shot and killed the mother (that’s later in the story) and I actually ran out of my tent with my weapon and pointed it at the soldier. He was about to shoot the puppy. I had him bury the mother dog…so this is more of the set up of the Airbase Tallil as the invaders (us) arrived soon afterwards and etc…I even drew pictures of Raquelle and the area where I worked and drove. But I couldn’t attach it to the story. RRR
Interesting perspective, I wasn’t expecting to read the story from the dog’s perspective.
You just buit incredible momentum to this moment, but this sentence falls flat. You just talked about all the things Ja’Hi doesn’t know, it doesn’t contextually make sense for him to suddenly know war is coming.
Three paragaphs in a row start with Ja’Hi, what can you to add some variety?
I think the overall idea of writing this from the perspective of the pack is a good one. I’m curious if you’ll be switching POV’s later on, but as far as an original voice for a war story this is a good one.
There are a few lines I could do without, but overall I think you’ve captured the spirit of a dog.
Ja’Hi was a pup from the Gulf War and has those memories. Once the Americans arrive (meaning us or me), the soldier will save a pup from Ja’Hi’s sire and then the story will really beginning of the dog and the soldier (he’s an MP) during the war.
This is a very cool concept and I would read this book. Writting about world events/war through the perspective of a dog is very interesting and I think it would appeal to young readers. Innovative way of telling a story!
I do think the narator could contrast human perspective and dog perspective a bit more. When 'the Great Ziggurat of Ur" is mentioned, perhaps it should say “what humans called The Great Ziggurat or Ur” Because of a course, the dog wouldn’t comprehend the idea of a proper name for something in this way.
I think some narration from human perspective contrasted with the narration from the dog perspective would make it stronger and more interesting. The more distinctly “dog” the perspective of the dog is described, the better. Does he scratch fleas? Does he sniff the other dogs? Do they fight for food? If the reader feels how his paws feel on the hot sand and how he pants and drools with the heat and thirst of the desert, the dog lover in all of us will be more drawn into the story. I would read this 100% and I think it would be great educational tool for young and reluctant readers.