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My first story
BobTheFarmer Started conversation Nov 9, 2006
I've always wanted to write a book, every 6 months or so I start writing something then get bored/edit it too much/lose interest. So I was reading a book of short stories by Will Self and I decided the (obvious) route was to try writing a few. Below is my first 1500 odd words, I've got the plot down in my notebook, and I'm quite pleased with it so far. Just looking for a bit of constructive criticism and feedback basically...
The dynamic young man in the tailored pinstripe suit paused outside the squat shed-like building nestled in between red-brick council houses that passed as the local pub. The tattered and flaking sign across the building’s unsightly front, lit from underneath by pale halogen lights, declared it “The Friendship”. The young man snorted at the unintentional irony and purposefully strode in through the creaking double set of double doors, careful not to touch the handles where the grease of a thousand grafting hands had left a grey patina. Half a century of compacted dirt, a coating of germs and grime from the last fifty years. A noticeboard to his right declared all kinds of community sports and events; darts leagues, car boot sales, even a whist drive. However upon closer inspection the community spirit was yellowed with age, the dates passed several years ago. This seemed like the kind of place hope had long left. Just the kind of place the young man knew was just right for business.
Between the double doors the young man glanced through a pane of dirty, greasy glass. The interior of the public house was not much better than its exterior; every fitting and fixture looked like it had been implanted with the creation of the housing estate and then left to grow. Grow with the broken hopes and dreams of the surrounding population. Down into the ground like roots.
As the young man pushed his way through the second set of doors, every conversation faltered, every head looked up expectantly as if salvation itself was expected to pay a visit. Wide yellow eyes drank in their fill of the young man in his expensive clothes and his alien stature, he didn’t move like he was broken. The heads soon sunk back to the sticky tables in front of them, or to the sports shown on tiny TVs mounted in the room’s corners. “Another ******* show off dealer,” echoed the mutter around the bar. The young man looked around him confidently, brashly, and spotted a figure slightly more downtrodden than the rest alone at a table in the corner. Until he saw the man he wouldn’t have thought it was possible to sink any lower in this establishment, but it clearly was. A thin smile briefly passed over the young man’s lips. Just the right kind of man in the right kind of place for business.
The young man strode up to the table and sat at an unoccupied stool, rubbed his palms on his thighs and then clapped them together lightly. At this sharp sound the downtrodden man looked up from nursing his warm, stale, half-empty pint and appeared to notice the slick young man for the first time.
“Malcolm Cagnew?” Enquired the young man, although the tone of his voice told that he was confident he knew the answer.
“Whoda****areyou?” Malcolm mumbled, seamlessly blurring the phrase into one word.
“Someone with something to offer you.”
“Like****.”
Malcolm seemed to think this signified the end of the brief conversation, and lowered his gaze back down to his drink. He reached out for the half-empty pint glass and took the smallest of sips, placing the glass down exactly upon the wet ring it had left when he picked it up.
“Just give me some of your time and I’ll explain.” The young man said to the top of Malcolm’s head.
“Gimmea*******drink’en. Talkallthe****youwantthen.”
The young man stood and pulled an expensive leather wallet from his back trouser pocket and raised his eyebrows at him. Malcolm still seemed to be engrossed by his pint. The young man cleared his throat.
“Glenmorangie. Keepitunderthecounter. Large. Ice.” Malcolm said without looking up, having appeared to have discovered a disconnected form of vocal punctuation. As the young man walked to the bar, Malcolm glanced up at his retreating back then lowered his eyes back down to the table.
The young man returned with two large Scotches and placed the one with ice on the table in front of Malcolm and then took his seat in silence. Malcolm’s eyes drank in the whiskey and he appeared to decide that the young man had bought his attention.
“Whaddayawant’en?”
“As I said Mr. Cagnew, we have something to offer you.”
“Like****. Why-me?”
“Because you fit the profile, because we wish something from you in return.”
“S’morelikeit. But. AintnothingIgot, youcouldwant.”
“Allow me to explain.” The young man glanced around the pub, looking to see if there was anyone in earshot. Nobody within easy listening range, and everyone seemed engrossed by their own woes. There seemed to be no curiosity lost over the strange couple in the corner. He lowered his voice.
“First of all, be sure that we know everything there is to know about you. Born in St. Georges Maternity Hospital. Educated at Filgrennad Comprehensive. Left at 16. Worked at Heston Gears until you were made redundant due to disability aged 42. Since then you haven’t worked, living on benefits. Married Mary Hilbragg aged 25, a father to Rebecca at 27. When your daughter was 10 she and your wife disappeared. No bodies were ever found, it was assumed they had left you, run away. You’ve never seen or heard from them since.” The young man finished reading off his list off facts from his mental notepad and settled slightly waiting for a reaction.
“Int-ardtafindthatout. Yaknoweverything, yareckon?”
“Everything. How about the fact that you received counselling for approximately three years after the disappearance? We have copies of your casenotes. Or the mole you had removed from your back fifteen years ago. Or even the operations you had as a child after falling from a tree. Ask me anything about yourself that’s recorded someone and we know it. Even a lot of stuff that isn’t recorded we know.”
“Why?”
“Because in the business we’re in it pays to do adequate research.”
“Whatjobsthat?”
“Let me explain.”
Malcolm grunted in reply and sipped at his Scotch.
“The key factor in our selecting you is your apathy. You really have no hopes or cares left. Each day follows the same pattern, you break fast with toast and baked beans at your bedsit and wait for the pub to open. You watch the chat shows on ITV until you leave the house and walk here. You nurse three pints of lager over the course of the day and return home at closing time to dine again on toast and baked beans.”
“And?”
“And we can tell that you no longer wish to live. In fact, from your counsellors casenotes it appears you haven’t wanted to live for some time.”
“********.”
“It’s true.”
“WhyavenItoppedmeself’en?”
“I never said you were suicidal, I simply said you had no desire left to live.”
Malcolm was silent at this, he grasped for some comeback but there was no will to argue. The young man was right, plain and simple. He was silent for a second before realising he still did not know what the young man wanted.
“So?”
“So I represent an organisation. The kind of organisation you won’t find in the phone book. To put it bluntly we help people of a certain financial means with an exit strategy.”
“Bluntasa****inspoon. Whattha****satmean?
The young man glanced around again, still nobody paying them the tiniest bit of attention.
“Weeeeell. Occasionally people with a degree of financial stature wish to move on. Maybe their elevation to that point wasn’t entirely legal, maybe they’ve grown tired of their current arrangement. We help them to move on with a minimum of fuss, minimum of mess.”
“What?”
“Maybe you’ve heard of one of our most prominent clients. Does the name Robert Maxwell ring a bell?”
“Maxwell? ****.”
“That may be, it isn’t in our interests to pry too deep into a clients affairs.”
Malcolm was suddenly struck by a certain stilted eloquence.
“You’re. Telling. Me. You. Helped. Maxwell. Fake. ‘Is. Death?”
“That could certainly be the case, yes.”
“DonchathinkI’dtellsomeone?”
“And who’s going to believe you? The man who hasn’t been right since his family disappeared. Ideal conspiracy theorist material. ‘A bloke came up to me in the pub and told me he was with a company that fakes peoples deaths.’ You could shout it to the world for all I care, if there was a risk we wouldn’t expose ourselves in this way.”
“Sowhaddyawantfromme? Whatthaf**k’aveIgottadowithrich****s”
“Well, to confirm the death we often have to supple a decoy.” The young man watched Malcolm carefully. This was the point where he had to be careful. He did not want to lose the target now, no after the months of research, not when there was no current alternative.
“Decoy? Yameanbody?”
“Yes, a body.” The young man watched Malcolm carefully.
“Me?” Malcolm did not appear shocked.
“Well yes, we will offer you a bargain. We have obtained certain information we can share with you. We are confident that this information will be enough to convince you to assist us, although there will be certain provisos on what you do with this information.”
“Whut?”
“We know where your wife and daughter are.” The young man settled back to view Malcolm’s reaction. Malcolm sat bolt upright, with attentiveness in his eyes for the first time this decade.
“Alive?”
“Yes”
“Where?”
“Obviously I cannot disclose that information at this moment, we would lose our sole bargaining chip. However you may wish to look at these.” The young man casually handed Malcolm a couple of photographs grainy with the enhancement of digital zoom. One showed a girl in her early 20’s carrying a portfolio, apparently on a college or university campus. The whitewashed walls and golden tan to her skin made it appear Mediterranean, although in truth it could have been anywhere. The other picture showed a middle-aged woman reclining on a lounger on a patio, similar whitewashed walls, similar lustre to her skin.
Malcolm grabbed at the photographs and studied them. He looked at the woman first. Unmistakably Mary, despite the decade that separated her from the Mary he knew. Her hair was longer, and died brown, just like he’d always asked her to get it styled. She was smiling. A sick rush of bitter nausea enveloped Malcolm. She left. Why? Why not at least get a message back, let him know they had left, not been raped, killed, kidnapped or a thousand other bitter nightmares that had enveloped him for a whole separate lifetime from the one they shared? All those years hoping for proof of life and now he had it he did not know if he really wanted it. All that time thinking of what he would do if or when he found out the truth, he could not have dreamt that he would find it at the pub from a sharply dressed dynamic young man who wanted him dead.
My first story
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted Nov 10, 2006
Well, I enjoyed it. Proper pulp, bit out of fashion at the moment, but people still enjoy it - it's certainly as good as the entries the SFX published as part of its Pulp Fiction competition. I don’t suppose you want missing apostrophes pointing out, do you?
Seriously though, keep going.
My first story
BobTheFarmer Posted Nov 10, 2006
Cheers for the feedback, h'appreciated. (And I can find my own apostrophes thanks!) It's not really proof read yet, I just wanted to put some writing out and see what people think.
What's your definition of pulp? I know the term comes from Pulp magazines etc, but what makes a short story pulp as opposed to just a short story?
It's going well, in fact I'm amazed at how fast I'm writing, 3000 words in three days, no more than a coupla hours a day. Not bad seen as I haven't really written anything since school.
I've finished the first scene now (few changes to make every time I read through it obviously) So I'm more than 1/3 through. I'm cliche-ing the whole beginning/middle/end bit by separating them into different locations/scenes, and mainly because I love writing descriptive scene settings, dialogue is more of a trial...
My first story
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted Nov 10, 2006
What makes a story pulp? To be honest I don't know. I guess the style just reminders me of Raymond Chandler's sort of writing. Gritty settings, lots of description.
I think a lot of people find dialogue difficult, so you're not alone there.
My first story
weegie Posted Nov 10, 2006
hey, i enjoyed it. it reminds me ian rankin; the grimey bar, the lowlifes ... i'm intrigued (which can only be a good thing for the start of a story!)
My first story
BobTheFarmer Posted Nov 10, 2006
Glad it's getting a good reception... When I'm finished with it I'll host the word file on post a link, that way I can leave all my profanity intact!
My first story
Beatrice Posted Nov 11, 2006
Yup some nice imagery there, and makes me want to read on!
Couple of bits that jarred - double set of double doors, expected...expectantly, and drinking in the whisky with his eyes.
But don't let those get in the way of your creative juices flowing - that's what editors are for at a later stage.
Cheers
My first story
BobTheFarmer Posted Nov 14, 2006
Cheers for the feedback, can't say I agree whole heart-heartedly with all of it tho, but that's because I know how what I've written sounds in my head. Lines such as double set of double doors, although maybe not reading so well to most people, I really like. Don't ask me why, it might be something to do with my other occasional habit of getting an alliterative theme going; eg. grey/grime/grease/germs/grafting...
But cheers for the advice and encouragement anyway, the more encouragement the better for me not to get distracted and lose focus.
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My first story
- 1: BobTheFarmer (Nov 9, 2006)
- 2: BobTheFarmer (Nov 10, 2006)
- 3: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (Nov 10, 2006)
- 4: BobTheFarmer (Nov 10, 2006)
- 5: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (Nov 10, 2006)
- 6: weegie (Nov 10, 2006)
- 7: BobTheFarmer (Nov 10, 2006)
- 8: Beatrice (Nov 11, 2006)
- 9: BobTheFarmer (Nov 14, 2006)
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