Fade To Black

Chris Brown

What does it take for a man, a very nice man, a very very nice man, to turn bad...

Pete Thompson is a very very nice man in love with (in no particular order) his wife, his car and roundabouts. Things start to go wrong for Pete (the inventor of roundabout sponsorship) when he loses his job and his wife's affections. Attempting to recover his situation just further develops his mountain of pain.

What does it take to turn this once very very nice man into a mass murdering maniac? Simple, he is the only bloke in the known universe (certified by NASA) to have blown Anne Frank's trumpet..

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stephen racket wrote 332 days ago

Highly amusing, if somewhat controversial, opening line! I think I'm like Pete Thompson so I read the first 3 chapters with interest. I think this is well written and very funny. Some great comic touches, amateur Ray Mears getting lost in the mountains, BA roundabout advertising logic, Annabelle Booker's smug breasts. The dialogue with Doug from NASA was superb. Great endings to the first and second chapters. And I totally agree about the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. I'm completely at a loss as to why this isn't much higher in the rankings. Only possible reason from the writing, as far as I can see, is the story meanders a bit, but I thought it so funny this didn't matter. But then, what do I know? Generously starred and on my WL for further reading. Good luck with this.

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Mark Kirkbride wrote 385 days ago

Great pitch and first sentence! Let me know if you'd like to do a read swap...

Mark, The Devil's Fan Club

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TheresaMC wrote 1194 days ago

Ha! You got me with the dog bite/bee sting thing. I laughed out loud a little. I"ll be back for more, and putting you on the shelf so you're easy to find.

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Chris Brown wrote 1195 days ago

I almost feel guilty for reading something so quickly that must have taken you some time to write

And so you should! I wrote the whole of the TTNOFG in the time it took to get this far. I've been taking more care to ensure it flows and been a lot more picky about what to leave in - you should see just how funny the stuff I've thrown away is...HONEST! - but it didn't flow. Really glad you picked up on that.

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milliepod wrote 1195 days ago

Hi Chris,

I bought the pitch! I love the ranting (that's what it is, right?) and I want to read more about 'Last of the Summer Wine meets Reservoir Dogs'. I'll tell you what I think this is like: Similar to TTNOFG this reads like a comedian's stand-up show but with more intelligence and is frankly funnier. I hope that doesn't offend you. The only reason I say that is, similar to stand-up, I think it stems from the mini rants and they way they all tie together. Every paragraph flows on from its predecessor and it's wonderfully fluid, which is exactly what you'd want in front of a live audience, which is of course exactly what your reader is. I've just read all five chapters in one sitting, and more would be good. Please keep writing this and putting it up! I almost feel guilty for reading something so quickly that must have taken you some time to write.

In terms of useful or not-useful criticism, I think there could be a lot more commas in the first chapter during the conversation between Pete and Doug - commas before names in speech is something I always like to see although in this day and age maybe it's no longer a grammatical law. But that's it. Oh, and the picnic IPods are really iPods, but then I'm picky about capital letters.

Off to recommend this in the forum...

milliepod

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