Crime writing? Or merely criminal?

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

I just wanted to share this Salon post from my amiga, hot little Japanese/Mexican cowgirl Keiko Alvarez. You know how I feel about babes fixing up rotten boyfriends with a well-placed shotgun (very positive) and it's fun watching Keiko pull it off, in spades. 

I don't know if this would be called "crime fiction" or not, but this sort of first person think interests me a lot at the moment and loved this little piece.

This is the first thing I've seen by Keiko that isn't erotica, and I think she might have a kind of gift for this sort of thing.  

Don't know if anybody would agree.

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http://open.salon.com/blog/keiko_alvarez/2012/07/15/dealing_with_ra...

[John McFetridge]

No, it's not for me. I've read far too many stories about women who find bad boys exciting and are then shocked when the bad boys are bad to them.

There's an Elmore Leonard novel that has the first line, something like (I'm paraphrasing from memory here), "The things that first attract you to someone are usually the things that later drive you away."

So maybe if she had brought it back to herself a little, something that connected her interest in the drug dealing cop with how things ended it might have worked better - for me, at least. Ending with the question also doesn't work for me.

But hey, that's just me ;)

 

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

The fun part to me is being  bad right back.  :-)

[John McFetridge]

Well, sure, fun. But it's just a circle (or a circle-jerk ;) - he's bad, she's bad, then next he is bad the next she is bad...

In the "Lee Child" thread it's come up about the story being a question and answer, so if the question of this story was, "Why do I like the bad boy?" I'd find it more interesting than, "Now that things have gone exactly as they were expected, what am I going to do?" And, you know, if the answer was something other than, "Wish fulfillment." If that story had done something different with the ending that really would have been something.

 

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

One thing, John.

This is a recounting of an actual incident.

So maybe it doesn't belong in a crime fiction place. I just got a kick out of it. 

I'm also very much exploring, right now, the sort of grey line between fact and fiction.

I'm probably going to start doing some first person stories drawn from my memoir.  And Keiko has been doing that quite a bit with her erotica.  This is the first time she did any crime stuff and I wanted to see what people like you thought.

[John McFetridge]

Well, I'm sure I'm not the target audience for this.

I mix a lot of fact and fiction in my stuff, too, but I always feel that the story takes precedent over 'truth' and when I read fiction I don't care at all where the story came from, if any of it is true or none of it - it's either a good story or it isn't.

So, in this case I felt that what she took from the actual events wasn't very interesting. The roommate told her what was coming, anyone over the age of twelve would know what the guy was up to - so why did it affect her so much when it was so obvious? There are some interesting questions in there but she didn't address them at all. In fact, she ended with a question.

And then we decided it was 'fun,' which it may not be if its real.

The toughest thing about using things from your own life in your fiction is that you have to take an honest look into yourself. Or, you know, you can just write genre... ;).

 

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Well, like I said, it's not fiction.  

I'm looking at working with her on a mutual project that is sold as fiction, but is very much rooted in actual experience.

But come to think of it, I'm not sure it works that way with "obvious".  My impression is that a lot of people look the other way and deny things about people they're sexually involved with, but when the delictus gets flagrant they flip out and react stronger because their released emotions have been locked down.  

[John McFetridge]

It's very tricky. I was one of the writers on a TV show based on the executive producer's life - there were a lot of issues in that room over, "But it really happened," and "but the story..." That show ran on CBS for three weeks. Sometimes non-fiction is the way to go.

Sure, lots of people deny things about people they're sexually involved with, all I'm saying is it might have been a more interesting (though less commercially successful ;) story if she hadn't denied what was going on in herself. Or if she'd at least wondered about it. Maybe she's attracted to guys she knows have the capability to be lie and be violent and to cheat on her (drug dealing cop, so living a lie already) because she actually looks forward to the confrontation?

 

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

``

You mean deliberately set up situations in order to mess people up for them?

Works for me.  :-)

[John McFetridge]

Well, I kind of meant gravitate towards messed up people, but however you want to look at it, I guess.... ;)

 

 

[Brian Hoffman]

I think this thread belongs in PornSpace not CrimeSpace.

[I. J. Parker]

:)

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

If you're a subscriber there, feel free to re-post it.