A Bizarrely Droll Valentine by Zack Akers - Short, Black Comedy - A very strange man chooses a hooker as his Valentine. 11 pages - pdf format

A Bizarrely Droll Audition by Zack Akers - Short, Black Comedy, Horror - In order to find his missing son, a desperate father agrees to a sketchy audition. 11 pages - pdf format



Writer interested in feedback on this work

A match made in hell. Not to sure about the title, though. Doesn’t seem to match your story — it does, actually, but in a very strangely ironic way.

I was waiting, almost hoping, for actual action figures to come walking zombie-like out of the closet! That might have been over the top but I kinda like over the top.

I like the story, but not the twist so much. Basically, the ending leads you in a possible direction that we’ve seen before. Think Natural Born Killers.

But still fine as is. If you choose to revisit this in rewrites, I think any additions you’d make lie with the gimp guy in the closet. His death, at the hands of Frankie, could have come in a much more shocking and unexpected way. Meaning, before the reveal, we could have believed Frankie was sympathetic to his plight, and his death could have been an intense jump scare shock, leading to an aha moment.

Steve

Pretty nice dark humor there. Title's a bit awkward, both the adjectives - bizarre and droll - pretty much mean the same. Could better have been just - A bizarre valentine or something like that.

Anyway, since the story's structured the obvious way so it was clear what's gonna happen. But still very well written as usual.

Good luck.

Thanks for reading, guys. Happy you both enjoyed it. :) This is actually a rewrite of an old OWC I wrote a couple of years back. I've got plans to this into a mini-series of sorts, with each episode being a stand-alone story with loose connections to the rest of the series. The second episode is complete and I'll be sharing it soon. :)

I meant for the title to be a bit redundant, but perhaps I should rethink it. Maybe "A Bizarrely Dark Valentine".

Steven, I like your idea of giving more of a bait and switch at the end with Frankie. I'll write it up and see how it looks. :)

Thanks again.

hi there...

as much as horror or black humor isn't my cup of tea. when I read it I thought to myself this is like a valentine from hell - two psycho killers date from hell with a "happy ending" each one finds its soul mate - but yes it was a black comedy - I had a moment where the movie "very bad things..." came to my mind for some reasons.

i cannot really give much critics or feedback - just that the story is intense. you wanna see how this crazy bloody dance ends.

Thanks for reading, Ronen. Yes, I'm aware that this isn't for everyone. ;D I appreciate you giving it a shot and am glad to hear that you wanted to read until the end. Means I'm doing something right. :)

Thanks for getting A Bizarrely Droll Audition up. Appreciate it, Don. :)

This new installment is a spin-off/prequel story. Hope you all enjoy it. ;D

If anyone is interested in reading these, I suggest reading "Valentine" first. And, of course, I'll happily return the reads. :)

Zack. That was great! Well done.

Quoted from BarryJohn Zack. That was great! Well done.

Thanks for the kind words, Barry. :) Which one did you read?