What do you think about this for the start of a story?

[FuckingHell123]

Be as blunt as you like:

The windscreen wipers sweeped angrily from side to side, battling each violent raindrop as the heavens continued to open on that wet, torrential evening in April 1996. Everyone had been expecting an early heatwave that bank holiday weekend and the evidence of that was clear as Tom Williams watched the young adults of the town stumble clumsily across the pebble stones in and out of the various bars on Epney Road, shielding their summer clothing with last minute umbrellas and holding jackets over their heads. He was amusingly reminiscing his own youth as Ruby Collier yanked open the door and threw herself down on the back seat with a grateful sigh. He had been a cab driver for 25 years at that point and knew every street within a 15 mile radius. So when she asked to be taken to North Street he knew exactly what route to take. She had been his eleventh passenger that night, a night that had been nothing out of the ordinary. Except it wasn't, twenty years later it still haunted him and he still hated the association. Hanging around his neck like an unwanted burden that refused to go away like a wasp buzzing around his head. Because he had been the last link in the chain. His name was forever tainted to that night. After he dropped Ruby Collier to her destination on the outside of a disused train station, nobody ever saw her again.

Okay. So... and I'm not trying to ignore you because I appreciate everyone's advice... what WOULD make you care about the characters? A little more about their appearance? History? Some humour maybe?

It was a dark and stormy night. It’s a bit cliched, I’d start with something different

For me, what'd make me care is more of a 'voice,' or something that stood out from the expected narrative. If a young woman gets dropped off outside a dodgy location, you are not very surprised she's never heard from again; if the cab driver dropped her there, you are not very surprised (given the real-life news stories about cab drivers who were actually preying on young women) to find he's blamed. Your sentence at the end is structured as 'ta-dah! the surprise element!' but it isn't - so I think 'oh, so what then?'

Also, maybe this is just me, but if Tom and Ruby are meant to be names that belong to an older man and a younger woman, I would be wondering when the novel is set. Ruby is trendy for little girls now, but obviously that's too recent; before that, it's decades ago.

“The windscreen wipers swept angrily from side to side, battling each violent raindrop as the heavens showed no signs of stopping on that torrential evening in April 1996.”

Why is this your second draft when you’ve been told that heavens only open once (so they don’t stop or show signs of stopping) and why is the evening torrential when you’ve been told that evenings are not torrential, rain is. Look up the word torrent!

I was actually with the earlier poster who thought English wasn’t your first language. But now I agree with another poster that it’s because you’re trying (too hard) to be descriptive. I think there are some words and phrases that you’ve heard (likes heavens opening and torrential) that you think sound “better” but you don’t understand.

It’s a bit like at school when you’re first given a thesaurus, and are told to find new words. You swap them in like exact matches, but the collocation and nuance is wrong.

I think everyone has made valid comments.

I hope I am not being idiotic, but in the first version, I wasn't clear what was happening when.

Now, with the second version, I think it's

cabbie is reminiscing
cabbie collects passenger who goes missing

but then the 1996 and 2016 confused me.

is the TL:DR edit something like

"It was raining when Tom dropped Ruby off in his cab. No one ever saw her again."

Hi OP, I'm not sure if this will help but Stephen King has written an excellent book describing how to bring out the richness of a plot and make characters come to life. He has a lot of advice about adverbs and similar (and not over-using them) and also "show, not tell" when it comes to conveying feelings and helping readers to really understand characterisations. The book is: "Stephen King - On writing: a memoir of the craft" and is available on Amazon.

“A group of young women in mini dresses and heels huddled together underneath a sheltered bus stop and there was already a queue forming outside the main club on the street.”

So many words!
If I know it’s raining and women are huddling and there’s a bus stop involved - why do I need the word sheltered?

This is a good example of how trying so hard has made your voice unnatural enough to the point of some of us actually though English wasn’t your first language! Nobody says “sheltered bus stop”. Bus stop shelter, maybe. Or bus stop and context provides that it’s covered.

And - why are you including people huddling out of the rain with a queue forming outside a club? It’s a total non sequitur.

I'd start more like this.

"His heart sank - not North Street.

But she was already in the back of his cab, closing the door.
He didn't feel he could insist she get out again, not in that driving rain which only twenty minutes in was already coursing through the gullies at edge of the road".

“Tom smiled, reminiscing on his own youth as behind him Ruby Collier yanked open the door and threw herself down on the back seat with a grateful sigh.”

The tenses are all over the place and jarring. See when you said Tom smiled? I thought you’d started in 1996, and that was you moving to the present day, that Tom was smiling today as he was reminiscing - about 1996 possibly!

And again, that eagerness to add description that then makes it a bit unnatural. Do people really jank car doors? Do they really throw themselves down onto the seats? She sounds supine! You might throw yourself onto a seat, but you’d thrown your bag down onto it.

I actually think Ruby Collier yanked open the door and threw herself down on the back seat (of the cab) with a grateful sigh. would be a better place to start. It cuts out the unnecessary description of weather and people watching.

As a reader i'm also interested in who Ruby is and why she's in the back of a cab.

"His heart sank - not North Street.

I like this, it's very helpful. Thank you. Gives a bit more of Tom's instincts and personality. Again I know this is shit and probably outside the kind of writing style I've been complimented on in the past - both by friends in real life and on threads I've posted on here detailing my own disastrous personal experiences. I'm not intending to actually publish something, at best just a bit of fun for my friends to read. But I will bear this in mind as well as other critics so far.

I like this version.

Oh, ok, I want to defend the yanking of car doors. It makes me think of how cars in the 80s and before didn't have smooth-close-smooth-open doors and you did have to yank them open more.

I think 'He didn't feel he could insist she get out again, not in that driving rain which only twenty minutes in was already coursing through the gullies at edge of the road" is too wordy too. Just 'not in that driving rain' would be fine, or 'not with the rain already coursing through gullies at the edge of the road'.

Best book ever written on how to write. I was going to post the same.

Op, don't worry too much about the criticisms on here. A first draft is going to be full of mistakes, inconsistencies - particularly with tenses- and missteps. You've got an idea for a story, keep going. Just get your head down and get it on the screen. Nit-picking's for a later, editorial stage and there's no need to get bogged down with those sort of details now. With practice you'll write yourself in and the flow will come naturally.

Thanks mate ❤️ but honestly although some comments are harsh at least they are honest. That's what I requested x

I like it it sounds cool, I think if you want people to care about Tom as a guy then you could put it more from in his head, so the things he was thinking about at the time because its his memory. So like if Tom doesn't know her when she gets in- then I wouldn't use her name. Just put what a cabbie would remember about her if nothing creepy had happened that night. Then the bit about her disappearing could be a bit more impactful.

Like your beginning bit and then something that gives him a little bit of personality maybe like the door was wrenched open and a tall woman in a sequined dress dropped onto the backseat, kicking puddlewater all over his new floormats. Tom met her eyes in the rearview mirror and flicked his heating on. She wanted North Street, that was good, it was on his way home and he could make it to the Red Dragon before it closed.
He let her out by the station and she told him to keep the change, it was warm from her hand. The rain started up again as Tom pulled back onto the main road, there was something sad about the sight of her stood there, blonde hair plastered to her face and one foot in the gutter, he almost went back for her but a pie and a pint was calling him.

I stopped reading when it was sweeper rather than swept. Sorry to be pedantic in one hand but also nobody pedantic will read longer than me so...

@Houselamp I really enjoyed reading that.

The heavens can’t continue to open. They are either open or they are not.

Also, “amusingly reminiscing” - you can’t amusingly reminisce.

It’s not bad but you seem to be trying too hard and using far too many words when fewer would be better.

It's a bit 'try hard' for me. Too wordy and too many adjectives.

It's like you're trying to show off to your creative writing teacher at night school.

Sorry

I agree with PP - too wordy. We only need to know that it’s raining. (I assume this is why she gets a cab?) Keep the descriptions to a minimum here. Once we know the characters and plot a bit better, you can be more flowery.

Also - Bank Holiday in April? Do you mean Easter? That fell on April 7th.

The weather was quite nice that weekend!

People are really different in how they write, though - I'm like the OP; I can't keep on at something unless I have some formative criticism early on. I think if you work at the nuts and bolts early on, it's easier to loosen up later.