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Comments
I liked your bare bones prose. Good job on keeping the story moving.
Thank you jorjon. I really appreciate the kind words.
Rockin' the Mickey Spillane vibe on this one. It's good! Nice use of detail.
Thanks, Mr. Lobster. That's exactly the sort of thing I was going for, so it's nice to know it worked.
There have been a few hard boiled stories in the contest, some good and some not so good. This is one of the former. What I liked most about it was that it is kept nice and simple. You aren’t aping classic pulp paid for by the word. That makes it flow very smoothly and with a nice pace to it. It steers very close to trope, but never crosses that line into cliché. Nothing here surprises, but it’s consistently entertaining.
On a more critical note, it would have been nice to see something I wasn’t expecting. Femme fatales are ten a penny, so with Evie the only female featured, the reveal loses any impact. There is one noiresque tale I’ve read so far in the contest that does something surprising with this trope. That said, the way your story is written, it works within the context, so this is perhaps a little nit-picky, especially as it looks to be almost homage.
Unusually I don’t have an awful lot to say, which is a good sign. I don’t have much in the way of pointers of how to improve it. I think you if you subverted the well-worn tropes you could have something special on your hands, but as it is, I think you nail what you set out to do. It’s a definite thumbs up from me.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Adam. I just wanted to tell a fun, hard-boiled story. I'm glad you thought it worked. That said, I think your point about the "reveal" being an easy one to see coming is a good one. If I ever do anything with this, maybe a new character or two would add to the suspense.
Again, thank you for taking a moment to read and to offer your thoughts. It means a lot.
Like it. Gritty noir, all good. Nice one.
Thank you, Seb. Appreciate it very much.
Love the transition between the bar and Ricky being killed. I was expecting a lengthy Big Sleep-style pursuit to be what moved the story along and that pulled the rug out from under me.
Cooze, two-bit, mook. The language is spot-on and I can hear the inflection in the detective's voice as I read. Nicely done.
The twist of Evie being out for revenge (rather than just being a greedy opportunist) is welcome; usually in hard-boiled tales we know the femme fatale's probably not what she seems and is harbouring a dark secret, but in this one the detective thinks he has her number and he totally doesn't. It's nice to have someone bad-to-the-bone that we can still root for.
Similar to the transition at the beginning - having him wait in the car while she takes care of business is also a masterstroke. Her coming back to the car with a bullet hole she barely acknowledges is, for lack of a better phrase, pretty fucking cool.
Top marks.
Dude. You just made my day. Thank you for the appreciation, and for getting it. There's a fine line between sticking to traditional hard-boiled prose and making a fool of yourself. I'm glad you seem to think I stayed on the right side of that line.
Yeah, poor Ricky. I didn't much care how he died, and I didn't think the readers would, either. And the decision to let Evie go in there by herself, without even the reader tagging along, was a tough one. I wanted to watch her do her thing as much as the next guy, but it would have ruined the mystery. Glad you thought it worked.
The revenge thing. Had to be done. Being bad for the sake of being bad, that doesn't work for me. She needed her reason.
Thanks so much for your comments.
Hi Richard,
Sorry not to be a lot if use to you on the feedback front with sugesstionson with this one as I think this thing fecking rocks. It just nails what a hard boiled noir crime story should be. Some may called it over done but I love this stuff.
One of the hidden gems of the comp so far, defo needs more readers so I'll mention this in the forum thead.
http://litreactor.com/discuss/pimp-your-arrest-us-stories?page=1
A soild thumbs up
Dave
Thanks so much big_old_dave. That's so great to hear. I didn't know about the forum, being a newb around here. I'll check it out.
Richard,
Loved Eddie's voice - it was consistent throughout and this was a solid, well done noir piece.
Thumbs up and good luck.
Thanks, Dylan. Really appreciate it.