reviews by bard by title random act of love euphemism hall of fame ewok's picks nancy's picks biographies email us
					random act of love by raine http://www.dreamworker-magazine.com/fanfic/actoflove1.htm SYNOPSIS: Beth, a social worker, gets herself in deep trouble by killing the husband of a client she was trying to save from domestic abuse. She takes her case to a private detective...err, lawyer, who struggles to find the truth in what appears to be an open and shut case. NANCY: This did not have a very auspicious beginning I'm afraid. excerpt: You would be surprised to know how well gai-pan noodles go with an autopsy report. I've tried pasta, and chicken, but trust me it's the gai-pan noodles. Ewwwwwwww! EWOK: *grimace* excerpt: My entire evening had consisted of endless papers, books, and reports. I wondered what Beth was doing tonight. Was she alone? Was she scared? And then I thought to myself why am I doing this? This is business, just another case. NANCY: This has the exposition of a forties schlock novel. EWOK: Pulp uber? NANCY: With lawyers who sound like private dicks and social workers as murderous damsels in distress. EWOK: Is someone getting their genres confused again? NANCY: I'm sorry, I can't help it. I keep finding myself reading this story with a trashy film noir narration voice in my head. Try it with this passage, you can *so* see it! excerpt: I found myself unable to sleep through the night, and ended up at my Manhattan office around eight in the morning. The partners and their associates didn't usually arrive until after ten, so I absolutely reveled in the echoing silence that greeted me at the elevator. Not even Linda, my ever faithful secretary came in before nine... ...I took my long raincoat off, and lay it to the side on a rose tinted couch that the firm had provided for me. I looked out the large paned window behind my desk at the drizzly day that had dawned. It couldn't even decide whether to rain or not... I sat down at my desk, mug of coffee in hand, and let out a sigh of frustration. Sleep had always been so faithful to me, until now. EWOK: I'm not disagreeing with you. And of course the raincoat doesn't help matters in the slightest. NANCY: *nods* I feel like going out and renting "Double Indemnity" or "The Maltese Falcon". EWOK: Janice? Is that you? NANCY: *chews on a cigar* *spits out cigar* Ewwww! Obviously not. My attempts to channel Janice always fail:( EWOK: You're not small and scrubby enough. Now myself, on the other hand... NANCY: Oh dear, just after the cheesy narration we have a flashback. I can't help it, this story is supposed to be about domestic abuse and I'm thinking of gangsters and private eyes. EWOK: Perhaps it's some elaborate, extended metaphor? NANCY: Wishful thinking, Ewok. It's heavy handed, boring storytelling. I hate to say that about something with such an important subject, but writing-wise, it's almost unreadable. Besides, the man who is killed keeps being called Mr Hofsky, and half the time his wife is apparently Mrs Kofsky. I can't handle it when bards can't even keep the names of their own characters straight. EWOK: Oh no. A story with a Message. Spare me. NANCY: It's domestic abuse. Messages aren't so bad in themselves, but after you read something and feel like you're being hit over the head with a frying pan, the message just becomes annoying. And another thing. The policeman's gun was just sitting there? On the dining room chair? EWOK: This is fiction, Nancy. Stranger things have happened. NANCY: I think I'm jumping at everything here because a lot of it just seems so contrived. EWOK: Well, geez. NANCY: *groan* Another noirish type of line, updated for the nineties. I'm still having these Bogart flashbacks. excerpt: I did agree to meet her that evening at a bar in New York called Marty's. The place always reminded me of Cheer's except that at Marty's, no one knew your name. EWOK: *giggling* NANCY: No, that's it. I can't take it any more. It's OK when the present tense is in first person and the past in third, but when two characters running around in the present aren't even written in the same person, I can't deal. This writer hasn't quite grasped that if you choose to write in first person, you only have that perspective to work with. You can't undermine yourself by jumping conveniently inside someone else's head. It just clangs horribly. EWOK: Take that gun and put this damn thing out of its misery! NANCY: I'm going a very low 3 for this one. Any points are for the fun I had doing the noir thriller thing in my head. EWOK: I'd love to give it a turkey, but... it doesn't even redeem itself with inanity. So, 1, with no feathers.