Unveiling Dark Secrets: A Riveting Dive into the Twisted World of American Midnight
This was a cool concept and strong execution of that concept. If this would’ve come to me through the Blood & Ink contest, I would’ve been very happy. It for sure would’ve contended for the top spot. 🙂
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Make your characters have the tough conversations in a place where at least one of them DOESN’T WANT TO HAVE THE CONVERSATION. Not when conditions are perfect. Peter and Alissa haven’t seen each other since she moved out (after cheating on him) and when he comes into town to help her with this serial killer case, they meet up at this diner, and when they’re about to split up into their own cars, Peter says, “I want to talk about what happened.” And Alissa basically says, this isn’t the right time. If a character thinks that, that’s actually a great time to force those characters to have the conversation. Because conversations are always more interesting when someone in the dynamic isn’t comfortable having them. I would’ve actually taken it a step further, though, and had Peter force the conversation INSIDE the diner, which I would’ve made full. Cause now you’ve got a scene. It’s not that having this conversation in the privacy of a living room where no one else is around is going to kill the scene. If the content of what they need to talk about is strong enough, it’ll work anywhere. But why not turbo-boost the scene if you can? Why not upgrade an 8 out of 10 conversation into a 10 out of 10 one?
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