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Something very short which I had written really quickly one night

  
 
Lionheart
17:34 / 01.10.03
Since I haven't posted anything original in this forum since the last incarnation of the board I'm feeling debted to make up for that right now.

***

"So, Mister Fleming, did you find out who killed my wife?"

Oley Johnson was sitting in front of Ian Fleming's large desk. The top of the desk was almost empty except for a few loose papers spread out on the right hand side, a name tag on the left side, and pen laying straight in the middle. Behind the desk was Mr. Fleming himself. The retired police detective was now in his late 50s. His brown hair was now fading at the side burns into an ash gray colour. His face, weathered with age, wrinkled every time he spoke or just sat back relaxing. His nose was of average size but his nostrils were a bit puffed out giving the impression that he was always trying to discover some elusive smell, and his eyes moved passivly inside themselves.

"Look, Oley. The police said that she killed herself. And I tend to believe them. This time at least."

Oley shook his head in denial. "No," he spoke looking down at his lap, "You can't say that, Fleming. I know what you two did while I was away. I was onto your little affair. Did you think that I wouldn't notice all the times you called just to speak with my wife? And all the new presents which had suddenly appeared in her closet?"

Fleming laughed. "Ofcourse not my dear Oley. I always knew that you knew."

Oley squirmed in his chair. He wasn't expecting this answer. He came here for denial. To hear that weasel Fleming weasel out from the truth. He wanted a reason. He needed a reason to...

Fleming lifted his right hand from under his desk. The hand held a baby Browning. In .32 caliber. Fleming smiled.

"Now now, Oley. You are still way too predictable. Coming here to corner me with these...." Fleming leaned back a bit as if to gather his thoughts. He was smiling the whole time. "...with these 'revelations'. Expecting me to back out from your allegations just so you can shoot me. An old friend shooting an old friend. I've had cases like these when I was younger."

"You're not getting any younger, Ian." spoke Olyn and, in one swift motion, fell left, out of his chair, and pulled out a 38 detective's special. He got two shots off.Fleming screamed out a bloody yell as one of the bullets shattered his femur. His 2 o'clock tennis lessons were to be cancelled.

Now was not the time for talk. Fleming knew that. He aimed as far down as his desk would allow his hand to go and fired blindly. Not once, not twice, but thrice. Hitting Oley in chest. Oley's body froze in a statuesque moment of pain and crumpled inward as his knees drew themselves closer to his face, and his arms bent inwards, onto his chest.

"Some folks sure die easy." thought Fleming and collapsed onto his desk.


***


Thus ends a stupid writing exercise. It's a fast written "detective" story. It's written fast and without much thought in order to make it seem like really bad pulp. So basically it is written very badly but not on pulp paper. Oh, well. It's not like you're paying for it.
 
 
Lionheart
00:36 / 06.10.03
Well isn't anybody going to critique this? Or will I be forced to write something else?!
 
 
at the scarwash
01:53 / 06.10.03
I think that the thing that needs to happen is your guys need to talk more like people and less like text. The rhythms of speech just don't feel natural. Since this is quite a dialog-driven piece, the conversations between Oley and Fleming should be tweaked a bit. Read your dialog aloud. I find that helps.

I found that too much of the details of the scene came out in exposition rather than in action. If you're trying to parody hard boiled fiction, you should note the brevity and economy that is one of the trademarks of a lot of the great writers. These works are richly detailed, but there is a terseness in the handling of the matter of set and scenery which allows for action and character development to take the front.

I really didn't get much of a sense of either character, but this is quite a short piece. If you intend to keep it in this microfiction format, the characters need to be brought out a bit more, I think. If this is going to be a conventional-length short story, no sweat, you have plenty of room to work with.

Also, lose the name Ian Fleming. It's distracting. I keep seeing Jason Connery in that awful made-for-cable Spymaker movie.

Otherwise, it looks pretty good. I just want more of it. If you've added anything I'd really like to read it.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
09:28 / 06.10.03
Critique:

1. The first line is 'on the nose'. That's obviously a style choice, but it wants to be moreso, or you should rethink. At the moment it seems prosaic - either overblown or overfamiliar. More generally, you need to watch out for the same problem elsewhere - rather than telling us he's a retired police detective in his fifties, couldn't you show us things which give us that information without directly stating it?

2. The action's unclear - obviously, the piece ends with a shootout. Does Flemming die?

3. Because Flemming is a historical character, there's a nagging doubt in the mind of anyone reading: how much of this is true? It upsets the tension, because you feel you ought to know whether the real Flemming was killed in his office by a jealous lover. Then again, there's an issue with using Flemming in what is essentially a Chandleresque scene - jealous husband, detective in office, wordplay, gunplay - because Flemming is the writer of Bond, not Marlowe.
 
 
Lionheart
16:52 / 07.10.03
I don't know.. The dialogue sounds alright to me when I say it. ...

Now the piece isn't a short story or part of a long story or something. It's just a scene; just a writing exercise. I'm not planning on continuing it.

Fleming doesn't die. He got shot in the femur and while that might hurt it won't kill him. Or at least under normal circumstances it won't kill him.

rather than telling us he's a retired police detective in his fifties, couldn't you show us things which give us that information without directly stating it?

I don't believe that I could've done that. That information is given to give a small piece of background for the Fleming character. There's no way to hint at such things without directly stating them. I mean, how could I have hinted that he's in his late fifites? Or that he's a retired police detective? Bringing that up in the conversation wouldn't made sense due to the topic of the conversation.

I'm also amused that you've treated this Ian Fleming as the other Ian Fleming. i'm especially amused by Nick's comment:

Because Flemming is a historical character, there's a nagging doubt in the mind of anyone reading: how much of this is true? It upsets the tension, because you feel you ought to know whether the real Flemming was killed in his office by a jealous lover. Then again, there's an issue with using Flemming in what is essentially a Chandleresque scene - jealous husband, detective in office, wordplay, gunplay - because Flemming is the writer of Bond, not Marlowe.

Ian Fleming was never a police detective much less a retired police detective. He was a journalist and a spy for the U.K. but he was never held a position in law enforcement. This is just somebody who shares Ian Fleming's name. Ofcourse we all know and recognize Ian Fleming as the literary figure who wrote the legendary piece, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" but we can't picture his face everytime we meet up with somebody who shares his name! If I had a pizza delivered to my house and I, just by accident, found out that the pizza guy's name was Bond...James Bond then I wouldn't keep a close eye on him, expecting a PPK to be stuck into the small of my back at the moment I turned away from him to gather enough change for a tip! No. i'd just point and laugh. I'd just point and laugh.

Oh, and Ian Fleming knew Chandler. Small piece of trivia there.
 
 
at the scarwash
00:37 / 08.10.03

Nick: rather than telling us he's a retired police detective in his fifties, couldn't you show us things which give us that information without directly stating it?

Lionheart: I don't believe that I could've done that. That information is given to give a small piece of background for the Fleming character. There's no way to hint at such things without directly stating them.


You could say, I don't know--I'll stick with the name Ian Fleming (although I still think it's too big to work as a reference or homage, too loaded with associations that don't fit the tone of the piece)--

Fleming lit a match, drew his pipe alight, and leaned back behind his desk. He scratched his temple with the matchstick, hair turned gunmetal-gray after almost three decades on the force.

There. He's at least fifty. He's a former cop.


Lioheart: I don't know.. The dialogue sounds alright to me when I say it. ...

I'm not trying to say that it sounds horrible, just that there seems to be a few points where it doesn't sound real. I'll try to show you what I mean as best I can.



"Did you think that I wouldn't notice all the times you called just to speak with my wife?"

Maybe I'm just quibbling, but it seems that we've already established that were talking about the late Mrs. Oley. Wouldn't a vengeant cuckold speak a little bit more intensely? Maybe call her by name, or just call her "her?"

"And all the new presents which had suddenly appeared in her closet?"

I think that Oley would say "You think I didn't notice when she started wearing the mink/diamond/new wetsuit, driving the Maserati/phaeton/Learjet, or feeding the cockatoo/scorpion/three-toed sloth?" Maybe he would say it flatly, being in a state of such inner turmoil that he can't express himself in any other way. But for the purposes of fiction, we can't very effectively read beneath dialog. We need the specificity of detail to pull us through. Or at least I do. Also I just don't find the construction "which had suddenly" to fit natural speech patterns. What is that, past subjunctive? I just don't talk like that.


"Now now, Oley. You are still way too predictable..."

"Still" since when? So they're old friends. How has Oley, in the past, been particularly predictable?

Maybe something like, "Horseshit, Oley. You still have the worst goddamn poker face I've ever seen."

Another quibble:

Oley's body froze in a statuesque moment of pain and crumpled inward as his knees drew themselves closer to his face, and his arms bent inwards, onto his chest.

How can someone freeze and crumple? How can a moment of pain be "statuesque?" That implies a nobility of form and movement that we have no reason to expect Oley to display.

Why do we want to know that Fleming shoots "Not once, not twice, but thrice?" This is definitely not a construction that one would find in pulp detective fiction. One might have "...ruined the carpet with three .38 slugs and a few pints of B positive," or "...spent half a cylinder making sure that Oley wouldn't be getting back up," but this counting phrase doens't do it for me.

Anyway, so that's some expansion on what I said before.
 
  
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