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I saw three bodies bustling around in that old carriage. After a brief moment, the capacity changed pretty fast.

“Were there three of them in that carriage five minutes ago?”

Alex Pelletier shook his head and pointed at it. “Looks like there’s five or six now," he said.

“Pelle, we need to get in the house.”

He opened the front door and I followed him inside. There was a family in the living room, a mother and her two daughters huddled together on the couch. They gaped at us.

“How long has it been there?” I asked the mother. She hugged her daughters close and wiped away a tear running down her cheek.

Your opening is interesting. It makes me picture Alex Pelletier and partner as some sort of supernatural sluething duo, but it does leave me with a lot of questions. Here are a few:

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I saw three bodies bustling around in that old carriage

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"bodies" makes me think they are dead as a first impression, yet they are "bustling", so are they supernaturally animated? To me bustling implies movement of the whole person around a location ex. "he bustled around the kitchen" (I could be wrong about this though). Is the carriage quite large and the three figures are walking around inside making some kind of preparations?

quote:

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After a brief moment, the capacity changed

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To me, if the capacity of the carriage changes this means how much it can hold, rather than how many people are in it. Did it get bigger when there were suddenly five figures inside instead of three? (Given the genre this might be exactly what you meant, just checking).

Is the family in the house expecting the arrival of Pelletier and company? They "gape" at them when they come in as though surprised or frightened, yet don't ask their identity or why they've come. Are Pelletier and company recognisable public figures?

I really like the name you've chosen, Alex Pelletier. This is personal and subjective of course, but it sounds like the name of a strong and savvy character. One thing though. There are a lot of Pelletiers where I live, but not everywhere. Would it bother you if readers mispronounced the name in their heads?

I would enjoy reading what you've got if you want to send it my way, just know that I am very new to this forum myself, so don't take what I say too too seriously!

For good measure - you say "capacity" changed. Capacity is how many people the carriage COULD hold, not how man it DOES hold. If the capacity changes, then the carriage has actually changed size. I rather doubt that's what you mean - but there's so little information here that I can't be sure.

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I saw three bodies bustling around in that old carriage. After a brief moment, the capacity changed pretty fast.

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The problem with this sentence is the use of ambiguous nouns, bodies can imply living or dead, carriage could be a train carriage, or a road carriage with wheels? The use of capacity which implies a technical fixed amount seems to be used in an unusual way. With just some small changes you can anchor the view point. I saw three people bustling around in that old horse carriage parked by the side of our house. After a brief moment, I noticed the number of occupants go up pretty fast. It’s not a great example and I’ve only tried to change the sentence slightly, but at least now the nouns can only have one meaning.

quote:

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“Were there three of them in that carriage five minutes ago?”

Alex Pelletier shook his head and pointed at it. “Looks like there’s five or six now," he said.

“Pelle, we need to get in the house.”

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With these lines of text what are you trying to imply? That more people have entered the carriage? As a reader I’m not surprised by this, or feel any tension. Are you trying to say that people are popping up in the carriage seemingly out of thin air? That the character could see no way on how these people could be entering the carriage without being seen? If this is the case it should be made more explicit. You could even mention how the character is scanning the environment to understand if there are any blind spots where people could enter the carriage unseen etc

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He opened the front door and I followed him inside. There was a family in the living room, a mother and her two daughters huddled together on the couch. They gaped at us.
“How long has it been there?” I asked the mother. She hugged her daughters close and wiped away a tear running down her cheek.
“Maybe 6 hours. They looked...odd, and the carriage stood out in the neighborhood.” She sniffled a laugh.

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