The Right Weapon for the Right Job

Weapons.

Writing noir or hardboiled they're important. Very important. Conversely, that's where a lot of writers screw the pooch . . . to use a quaint little American phrase. Ya' gotta get the right weapon in the right hands. And then ya' gotta make sure there are no incongruities.

Like thumbing off the safeties on a Smith & Wesson revolver. Or using a hand weapon--any form of pistol--in a firefight that has ranges farther than . . . say . . . the length of a livingroom. Little things like that. It's amazing how it can drive an afficionado of the genre into fits of a screaming dispair.

I know. Made that mistake. Heard about. Forcefully and in no uncertain terms.

Little things. It's the little things a fan picks up and nags about the most. If you've established a character, and if the story line is humming along nicely, it's the little nitpicking things a fan will hone onto like acqusition radars on an F-14 Tomcat. Nail you to the wall. Skin you with a dull knife and hang the hide out to dry.

And they should. Listen to'em. They'll make you a better writer.

A Smitty two-novella set

So it's done. A two-novella piece featuring Smitty, my dark eyed assassin. The first novel is entitled A Dish Best Served Cold. It's about revenge, toying with the minds of one's intended victims, metering out justice in a world filled with injustice.

In short, a revenge story. But more than that. I wanted to experiment. I wanted to see if I could fold a little of Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne style of multiple-characters, multiple-scenes, switching back and fourth from one scene to the next kind of writing. My own interpretation of that kind of writing. I wanted to know if I could make it dramatic enough. Compelling. Creating a need for the reader to hurriedly read and turn the page in order to find out what happened next. Did I succeed?

Hell if I know.

The second piece of the two piece set is called A Killing Kiss. Smitty is asked to protect the recentely widowed wife of a crime syndicate head man, and her baby son, from the circling wolves of the husband's henchmen. Henchmen who are beginning to decide the question on who takes over being the top dog.

Writing this one was a toughie. It had to follow A Dish Best Served Cold. If the first story is as strong as I think it is, well . . . the tendency is for the second piece to fall flat on its face. Can't match the pacing and tension of the first. But I dunno, I dunno, I dunno . . .

You see, I think it did.

It has lots of action. Lots of depth of emotions emanating from all the main characters. Even a complex puzzle as to who actually killed the syndicate's founding father. But I dunno . . . The only way I will know for sure if both are as good as I think they are is wait and see if someone buys it, reads it, and let's me know.

And the act of waiting, baby, for me is a bitch. A real bitch