Title: Hard Times in NYC
Chapter: Chapter Six
Author: Ben Langhinrichs
This critique is in the Young Adult Club review format, and includes a detailed line by line. If this is a public review, then the line by line will be emailed to the author separately.
Style/Voice: Terrific use of first person POV, which works so well in the noir style. Speaking of the noir style, Johnny speaks like a real NYC gumshoe. Funny thing is, he isn't one, is he? Some overused words to be careful of - it/there, that, have. And the most infamous of all, was/were. You had loads of those bad boys. They often lead to passive voice, which weakens the writing a bit. I pointed out your adverbs because it's been beaten into me, but really, you didn't have an overlarge number. Perhaps one or two might be dropped. Good mix of sentence lengths to keep the reader moving.
Referencing: Occasionally the characters acted like they were in awe of being in New York City. Mostly, New Yorkers don't get too fussed about it and say "hey man, this is New York City, we don't do that."
Setting: We start in Johnny's... office? apartment? Either way, it's clearly NYC. If you can throw in maybe one sentence describing the room he's in might tell us a little more about him. Next, we're in a dark alley (there's not as many of them in midtown as one might think). I didn't get a huge "sense" of place, but I'm not really sure it's that important in a short story of this length. You might want to include additional senses, however. Alleys are conducive to puddles and bad smells, so as they wait, you might describe a bit of that.
Plot: Johnny's this guy in NYC, down on his luck, owes a pile of money to leg-breaking loanshark Louie (love all them "l"'s). His loser buddy, Slim, has a plan to accost Jessie, a blonde bombshell, on her way to the bank from the store she works at (owns?). Jessie knows them, however, so they throw on lone ranger masks and give it a go. Next thing you know, Jessie goes all Bruce Lee on them, and they're on the backs and she chastises them. In the end, she makes Johnny promise to take her out for dinner, which works for him, because she is quite the dish. (sticking with the lingo, my friend).
This is a quick view of a scam gone wrong, but with some minor benefits for the protagonist. The ending fell a little flat - there were 2-3 paragraphs on what would happen the next day. It might be cool to show those events instead of foretelling them.
Characters: Johnny - down on his luck. I think I'd like to know what, if anything, this guy does for a living. It would add some more depth to him. In fact, any other little bits you can throw in about him would be good. You want the reader to like this guy in some way - he has to be interesting to read, and there isn't too much depth to him, except he's in gambling debt to the wrong folks, but we don't know if he's got any redeeming values.
Slim - Comes across as an idiot, which is just fine. But, he's one dimension. Does he have any redeeming values?
Jessie - honest, working woman, who can defend herself darn well. She's attractive, and doesn't take any "guff".
Just My Personal Opinion!
I'm a big fan of both 1st person and noir and I think you did a great job with the voice. I could see blowing this out into a "long" short story, or a short novella, so we can see the characters develop a bit, and let the scheme play itself out as well. Maybe the scheme can fail as it does in the beginning, and then they go on to the next one, without Jessie being aware, which would complicate things for Johnny, if he wants to keep things going with her. Either way, great writing!
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