on life & other inconveniences

As soon as he saw the flashing lights in his rearview mirror, Dent glanced down at the speedometer to confirm he was safely under the speed limit.
- OFFICER DOWN

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It is my pleasure to welcome guest blogger Stephen D. Rogers today. Stephen will be discussing the opening line of the short story, OFFICER DOWN, from his new short story collection, SHOT TO DEATH.

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So begins one of the 31 stories contained in SHOT TO DEATH. Within that beginning lurks the ending to the story and everything that happens between the beginning and the end. Or at least it seems that way to me.

I don’t know who this Dent is yet, but he assumes he can’t be speeding. The pace of his actions and the sentence that describes them leads me to believe that Dent’s not driving slowly just so he won’t be stopped and nabbed for a different crime. In this sentence, anyway, Dent strikes me as someone who simply drives under the speed limit as a general rule.

In New England, speed limits can drop from 40 to 20 mph in a heartbeat, which means Dent’s a careful driver, a careful person. He doesn’t get flustered when he sees the flashing lights behind him. He calmly checks his speed (before, I assume, pulling over).

Does he pull over? Perhaps he flees. Why then check his speed? So he complies with the flashing lights and pulls to the side of the road.

With a name like Dent, he’s probably not all shiny new. He’s been around, taken his blows, and survived.

Perhaps he’s a retired officer being taken to task by an eager rookie. That gives me some opposing and opposite characters. Perhaps the rookie has been sent to track him down. Perhaps he’s needed again specifically because he’s retired and thus out of the loop.

All that remains is the writing.

For a chance to win a signed copy of SHOT TO DEATH, click on over and submit your completed entry.

Then visit the schedule to see how you can march along.

And then come back here to post your comments. Phew.

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Stephen D. Rogers is the author of SHOT TO DEATH and more than six hundred stories and poems. He’s the head writer at Crime Scene (where viewers solve interactive mysteries) and a popular writing instructor. For more information, you can visit his website, www.stephendrogers.com, where he tries to pull it all together.

Tags: Officer Down, Shot to Death, Stephen D Rogers

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