Fictionlet
“So I read this detective story you wrote,” Brigid said.
“Oh yes?” said Greg.
“I have some problems with the plot,” she continued. “Just little things, but after a while they really start to build up.”
“Problems?” said Greg. “I thought I got the details pretty well hammered out.”
“Well I don’t mean inconsistencies or anything. Just stuff like, well, for starters, the hero’s girlfriend doesn’t get killed.”
Greg blinked. “This is a problem?”
“And the rich white guy isn’t an evil mastermind, doing horrible things under the cloak of respectability. I kept waiting for him to be unmasked, and it never happened.”
“Well…” said Greg.
“Like I said, little things, but they built up after a while. But the real problem, the one that I just couldn’t get past, was that the client wasn’t the villain, weaving the hero into a web of lies and deception as a patsy. I mean, c’mon, the hero doesn’t get betrayed by his most trusted compatriots even once. Nobody’s going to believe that! Where’s the angst? Where’s the postmodern decay? Where’s the nihilism? Why isn’t the detective’s sister a cocaine-addicted nymphomaniac who commits suicide at the beginning of the third act?”
“Er,” said Greg. “Y’know, that’s a good question. I just never thought of it, I suppose.”
“All these upright people being just what they seem. It’s just weird.”
Greg shrugged. “I was going for avant-garde.”
Brigid made a dismissive pfft noise. “You creative types. Always trying to be artsy-fartsy.”
-The Gneech
<-- previous B&G next B&G -->
