Story: 'Blood Money' (An A4 offering.)

[Guest]

Yes, that worked. It gave me the option of saving to disk instead of just opening the file once I'd entered my password. Just opened it in Word .

 

What's the .wps format, anyway?

[Guest]

I like it . Did you cut it down from a longer story, though, because I had to read it through a couple of times to make sure that I'd got the characters straight, and who was doing what to whom.

 

It has a thirties American hard-boiled feel to it, so the fifty pound notes were a bit jarring. Change them to dollars, and I'll be happy with it .

[Gypsy Hack]

Did you cut it down from a longer story...

Not much longer, but it ran over the A4 limit by seven or eight lines in first draft. There was more to fit in than I originally thought there would be. The second-to-last paragraph in particular was butchered. The frustrating part is that the rtf format actually offers more words per page than the original, so I wouldn't have had to cut out quite as much as I did. And I could have left a space between the line beginning 'nine days after...' and the next paragraph, which would have helped.

 

Thank you for your advice.

 

edit: by the way, the wps format is the Works Word Processor. My last 'story' used this, and people didn't seem to have any problems.

[Gypsy Hack]

Got it this time ! On the "File Download" it now said "Open" instead of "Find".Very good and can see where your title "Blood Money" now comes from.

Thanks pattricia.

[Guest]

...Thank you for your advice.

Well, not really advice; I'm just being picky . The story conjured up images of gumshoe PIs and grimy New York offices, so the dollars fitted better in my mind than the pounds.

[brisbane]

I liked that one nice one Gypsy Hack. I had visions of a smoky office and sordid feel to it.

[Mantaspook]

I quite liked that story, as the previous posters have already said it reads like a trashy American detective story, nothing wrong with that, the story flows along quite well.

 

Three things I may have altered:

 

1. “Money changed hands, for services rendered. Money changed hands under the table, for services rendered in secret.”

 

The second sentence is superfluous, the reader would be aware that a dodgy deal was being done by the first sentence, given the context of the bribe.

 

2. There are six or seven characters mentioned and that is too many for such a short story as this, it may have been better to keep the emphasis firmly on Rivers and the gunman.

 

All the other characters are essentially reduced to ‘cardboard cutout’ status – there simply isn’t enough time to name them, build up their personalities etc.

 

For instance this section: “No-one should be out at this time, certainly not the victim, and certainly not the young woman - Ruth is her name - who sits sobbing under a bridge a little way further on. Only fifteen yards further on, maybe, but she is not visible to the gunman in the shadows. He is clearly visible to her, though, and she screams as the shots rip through the silence. The gunman turns to look in her direction, before firing three shots at her head. All miss, and the woman runs away. She will not forget that face, though, and is able to give an excellent description of the man to police.”

 

Could be distilled down to : “As the shots rang out a blond woman screamed and broke cover from the nearby shadows, Chapman fired three shots at her retreating back and all of them missed. He cursed his luck when he realized that she must have had a good look at him, but that look had been reciprocated and from that moment she was a dead woman…”

 

(Later on) “…Nine days later a woman is found dead, Chapman’s fourth bullet had finally found its mark, the single bullet turning the blonde into a congealed redhead.”

 

Note the bit of gruesome imagery conveyed economically in those last two words.

 

3. Rivers is eating the noodles when he muses “So what to do for the next six days?” – Later on the gunman sweeps the noodles over. – The timeline needs truncating so that Rivers realizes the gunman is breathing down his neck, his last minute escape could be conveyed by the noodles still been warm when the gunman sweeps them off the table.

 

Cracking story though, you crammed a lot of detail into the short story format.

[Gypsy Hack]

Thank you for your considered comments, Mantaspook.

 

“Money changed hands, for services rendered. Money changed hands under the table, for services rendered in secret.”

 

The second sentence is superfluous, the reader would be aware that a dodgy deal was being done by the first sentence, given the context of the bribe.

Y'know, when it came down to editing the story and cutting it down, I stared long and hard at that sentence. Eventually I decided to keep it, mostly because I felt that it linked in to the next part about the detective finding out about his knowing the facts of the case where he had no reason to. But on reflection, I believe you are right.

 

2. There are six or seven characters mentioned and that is too many for such a short story as this

Again, I agree, and that had crossed my mind. I'm not sure why, in particular, I decided to name the young woman who ended up shot. One thing I would say, though, is that I tried to hint that it was the corruption of the detective that gave away the identity of the woman, not what the gunman saw of her. So I wouldn't have phrased the amendment in quite the same way you did, because the point was that the gunman didn't see any of her. He needed the information from the police force.

 

Rivers is eating the noodles when he muses “So what to do for the next six days?” – Later on the gunman sweeps the noodles over. – The timeline needs truncating so that Rivers realizes the gunman is breathing down his neck, his last minute escape could be conveyed by the noodles still been warm when the gunman sweeps them off the table.

Interesting point, and I did see a mistake pretty soon after posting the story. I kicked myself. Hard. I've just mentioned takeaway pizza, so why revert back to noodles. Well... I know why, I was trying to say something about Rivers' home situation and character and the fact that when he gets obsessed about something he won't clean at all, but I believe you are right. The escape was more important, Rivers' cleanliness is periphery.

 

A warm pizza box... that could have worked...

 

Thanks again.

[Mantaspook]

Hi Gypsy Hack,

 

With regard to your comment about whether to give the character a name or not I’d recommend getting hold of a copy of “The Incredibles” on DVD - in the bonus features there is an interesting interview with the director, Brad Bird.

 

To prevent the movie from over running he had to make some cuts and the basic premise was that if you give a character a name then that opens up a whole new chapter of “emotional investment” like how they look, dress & act, a previous history that needs explaining and time has to be spent building the character up – it was essential in this case as the character was killed off before the end of the movie.

 

In the end the time constraints meant he had to delete the character entirely and come up with another solution using one of the other characters, it’s a very good interview and the same techniques could apply when writing a story.

[mikomi]

I once went on a creative writeing course at Chesterfield College ,and there was a guy who was into writing the same kind of genre you have written about.

He actually got signed up by a publisher and did very well ,sadly we lost contact with each other .I would agree with Manta on certain points but i'm not that qualified to critiue to be honest ,overall your style is as good as his

and i read a lot of his work .