Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Neo-Noir in the works

    Like I have said in past posts, I have creative A-D-D, and what good creative person doesn't. As I started to compile notes on the third instalment of my series The Five, I suddenly got the idea to do an anthology of flash fiction of the criminal persuasion. So I sat down and wrote, tweaked and expanded a collection of short crime fiction stories. I now have 12 stories all together.
    At roughly 8,000 words I needed more for the book. Since I love art and all the pulp crime novels of the 1950's-1960's I decided I needed to add original art to each story. I can draw and love to draw. My drawings never match up to what I see in my mind so I usually scrap it. I'm not good enough but I know who is... Each story will have it's own "Cover" page. I am leaving the art up to the artist. So far I have three artists on board and hope to add a couple more before the anthology is over.
    As for the stories...they will be flash fiction crime pieces around the 800 word mark. 800 words count came to be as I wrote with the goal of 700, and I did it for most of the stories. At 700 words the stories were crisp and to the point as flash fiction should be, snapshots into the lives of people you wouldn't normally want to meet. Each story came together and was shelved for the next. Once I had them all I went over them and over them and then once more. A tweak here and add on there. Soon each story began to fill out at the 800-850 mark. I was satisfied with that and I feel the readers will be too.
    So far a few of the titles are (tentatively) Nail Bitter, Dog Walker, Iron that Binds plus a few more.
Here is a sample to wet your crime pallets...

Her eyes, the color of envy, had me frozen. It didn’t matter either that the blood on her hands was still wet and dripping at the end of the tire iron.

    As I wrap up this post and the bourbon soaks into my liver I am ever convinced I will draw one of those covers myself. Not sure which one.

P.S. I don't have a title yet so if you have one leave it in the comments below.