Email me if you want to see the whole thing.

Thanks

mm

quote:

---

“OK sport, need a ride?”

The kid looks closely at me before getting in. He’s wary. He should be.

“Yessir”

I slam it into 1st and we’re off to the races. Well, kinda. My old ’34 won’t ever make it into any races ever again. Huh! We’re lucky it goes at all.

“Sir?”

This kid is all serious.

“Yeah, kid?”

Now we’re hitting 20. Time to shift.

“What’s in that?” He points at the manila folder on the seat.

“Just pictures, is all.” Geesh. I shoulda hid them before I stopped.

We’re in 3rd now and the old boat-tail settles down like she should. Soon we’ll start to float a little and I’ll push her into 4th. That’ll have to be all, there’s no road short of heaven that’ll hold her in 5th.

“Can I see them?” he asks.

“Hell no! Leave them alone.” I shouldn’t have yelled at him. Now he’s looking scared.

---

On the whole, I think you did great. The premise you're setting up left me wanting to climb into the story.

That being said, I think there are a few tweaks you could make that would pull me in even better.

Starting with dialogue is always tricky, but I think it can work for you here. You're first line strikes me as an odd thing to say to a hitchhiker, though. When I first read it I thought the character was being familiar with someone. After I finally got the context though, I thought it was sarcastic. That may be fine for where you're going, but it might work better something like:
>"C'mon, Sport. You need a ride or what?"<
That would support your second line well, especially with a tweak like:
>The kid stares at me a little longer before...<

The line: We're lucky it goes at all, hitched me a up a little. If you mean him and the kid, you're probably better just saying: I'm lucky it... If you're talking about someone not yet introduced, it needs a bit more clarity.

You're use of the vehicle is interesting and full of potential, but you lose me toward the end with it. We used to call great big cars boats, and I thought that's what you meant with "the old boat-tail." Why it floats when it needs to go into fourth was confusing. I would've loved what you said about 5th, if it didn't negate "We're lucky it goes at all." If you're going somewhere odd with that statement, it might need to be handled a little differently.

All in all I really like this. Send it over, I'd love to give it a read.

Joe, good points. I look forward to seeing more from you.

Most of your issues are made more clear when you read the complete piece, although most of the clarification is inferred.

For example, you later learn the car is about 25 years old, so it is indeed lucky that it goes.

As far as floating, have you ever driven on dirt roads at a speed at which you feel the car start to float a bit? That is, to skip over the lows and ride the highs of the washboards? Later on it becomes apparent that he is driving dirt roads.

In the 30s there were some sport cars that were boat-tailed.

on its way!

Thanks

I keep on thinking I'm missing things. I didn't think the kid was a hitchhiker. The relationship seemed too familiar to me for that, but I could be wrong. I think my main concern is that I have no idea who the "I" is. I assume he's male, and strange character. I feel like I'm trying to piece it together, and that takes away from the action.

How about if I cut the ending off and send it to you that way?

Only thing is I probably would write it like this:

quote:

---

“Okay sport; need a ride?”

---

You know what? It never even crossed my mind, but you're absolutely correct HSO, Okay would have been correct, while OK isn't.

Thanks!

People keep asking that question. Who is Kenny G. anyway if not the character in my story?

Confused.

OK, Who is Kenny G.? Some flautist? Flutist? Tin whistleist?

Rocklover

You're easily pleased, but thank you anyway!

Pretty boy.

I wonder how long it takes each day to get that 5 o'clock shadow effect?

Not to mention the cindylock curls.

They're helpfully categorized by how they died:

drowning
stabbing
inhaled their own vomit
car crash
aids
friendly fire
brawling
shooting
poison
golfing
electrocuted
airplane crash
mysterious circumstances
heroin
farming
suicide
motorcycle accident
eating or not eating
etc

But you can't go wrong with choking on your own vomit, really...

Since you're a white-out user also, can you tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I put the white-out on the screen really carefully and make sure not to get it on the words I want to keep, but then when I type some more it moves!!

first, things I liked:

1. The line about the kid looking in scared and he should be. That's good, sets the tone of the character and the scene. As the reader you are the kid and feel that tension throughout the scene.

good point on the car, several others have asked me about it as well

the consensus seems to be that if I want to focus on the car, that it should be more central to the story

I get the feeling Sloane may be our man.

So to sum up: maybe let us know Higgot’s reaction to some of the weirdness around him, he is a bit flat/2 dimensional right now. And the staging in the car was a bit hard to follow.

Hope this helps.

BTW I like your name too, how'd you come up with something so -- kooky.

No, you guys got the same one to look at. My take on the differing perspectives is that the writing, characterization and plot are not tight enough to avoid confusing the readers. Also, as I was participating in a flash challenge when I wrote this, and because my 'style' seems to have gravitated to the sparse, I believe that the lack of 'flesh' in the story is also a problem.

My ideas were as follow:

'Kenny G' was murdered by Sloan in the boat-tail cop car over 20 years ago while it was parked on the bridge where Higgot let Kenny G. out. Sloan is a psycopath, is arrogant, and likes to dangle hints about his kills in front of the other cops, sure that they will never catch up with him. Higgot has a bit of a past history with Sloan, who, although he could not deny Higgot's advancement within the force, was able to assign Higgot his old cop car rather than give him a new one. That was a mistake. The presence of a sympathetic cop in the same car, taking the same route as the night that Kenny G. was murdered has 'activated'Kenny G.'s ghost, who pleads with Higgot to expose his murder and give Kenny G. final rest. Kenny G. is not a whole personality, however, nor is he fully conscious in the 'normal' sense, so he cannot address the issue the way one of the 'live' would. He is essentially reliving the event, and to the extent that something changes from the past event he is able to react to the change. That is why he asks the things he does in the car while riding and why he mouths 'Thank you." as Higgot drives off. More than that, he cannot do. Finally, although I will never make it overly clear, I will try to indicate in a subtle way (if I can) that the car is not just a passive hunk of machinery. This last is very self-serving, as I would like to write a series of Higgot stories, and the car would take a more central role as the stories move through Higgot's career.

Anyway, that was my intent. Hard to create on the spot and to write as much as I did within the time frame of a flash challenge (1 hour), but at least I tried.