Otellio does look weak. He’s whining.

Weak and trying to get Mr. D. to do his dirty work for him. Palpable tension and desperation here.

Weak! I love his adrenalin-fueled candour to Mr D at the end there – he’s sure going to regret that. Mr D’s flat lack of sympathy in the last line is delicious.

One point – who speaks the first line of dialogue? Goon #1? I was a little unsure.

the first line is spoken by Otellio, DiSibio responds by sending Goon #1 to follow them. Mr. D. is upset because he hates to be included in the incident. It draws attention to him to be here where an unknown man drew a gun and made off with a woman. He wants to know what happened. The Goon is on the follow now. Could get interesting for Nick even though he thinks he is home alone…

Why is Otellio referring to Nick as ‘Trenchcoat’? Nick is wearing a crumpled grey suit. His overcoat is back at his flat. If he had worn it to the club, it would certainly be in coat check and Otellio would still have no basis to refer to him by that epithet.

By the way, I think the goon is too late to tail Nick. The time that Otellio chewed up calming the patrons is about the same length of time that it took Mick and Maryanne to get into the cab. By the time the goon gets to the door, they’re already gone. That’s easily fixed by not even mentioning the goon, except perhaps to note that there is only one now instead of two.

Something else to consider is that because these stories are written in the first person and only for your primary character, by sending a peripheral character out of your primary character’s sight, you’ve actually lost control of that peripheral character. If the goon shows up at Nick’s (which is by no means certain), then he’ll be under my control. Muahahaha!

August:

Your comment(s) are tailing off as critical from some angle I cannot figure out at this point. Seems that you are trying to call out mistakes I am making while maintaining some kind of edge on the story.

I might be reading into it a bit incorrectly, so I will just leave it at that.

As far as the plot goes, it is not (in my mind) a contest to “get Nick” or “Make Otellio Lose” or anything like that. My approach is to make believable and on theme entries.

If I have not kept to that, or lead you on in some other way, I apologize.

On your plot note about the goon being too late, I again, stress that continuity is not guaranteed and has not been promised by anyone in any episode so far. I would say you took some pretty large liberty by making off with the primary character, while pulling a gun in a crowded club, punching a bouncer out and grabbing a cab without incident. That my friend is taking a real bite out of the potential conflict for some unknown reason.

I think it goes like this:

The Goon heads down to the street, sees the bouncer, gets the information about the cab from bystanders. Asks a few questions, but cant quite get the route the cab took. He then calls a “friend” at the cab company and finds out that cab went to the bus station – certainly not too far fetched. Then gets the route back to Nick’s. Make sense. A phone call back to the club in 30 minutes or so can put all the information into DiSibio’s ear…

In Nick’s episode, 3 hours have gone by, jumping ahead does not create an escape.

Drake: You have nothing to apologize for, but I do. I meant no offense and if you interpreted my writing to reflect on your writing, please accept my heartfelt apology for being so sloppy with my writing. I commented well before I’d thought everything through. Except for my personal preference for leaving comments alive, even those that are badly written or poorly advised even if they need to be apologized for, I would delete my comment.

As far as removing Nick from the scene of the action, I don’t see that as a liberty. Life doesn’t take place all in one room and people don’t always act for the benefit of others. Don’t worry about Nick’s absence; it won’t be long. If it will help to know, Maryanne will be back before long as well. The beautiful thing about buses is that they can be easily stopped and disembarked from.

@August – Thanks for clearing that up. You are very inspiring and a leader here on Ficly and have helped me get my footing here with Noir.

I think that the beauty of this exercise (which may prove to be a spinoff functionality for Ficly) is to see how deep the action can get so a follower can actually follow along. More fans!!
Also to read a single plot with multiple authors and styles. Pablo has come into the mix with an amazing attention to detail and it is impressive.

We all have our own style and that make is so fun to join together.

Thanks for starting this off and keeping it going.

Well, I’m glad that’s all sorted out – I was anticipating a (virtual) fist fight breaking out.

As for points of continuity, including timing issues – I think it’s all pretty much hanging together, and Pablo is doing sterling work in keeping tabs on things.

I’m assuming that we’re all running by a Hollywood clock in any case and, therefore, time can be stretched and compressed at will: handy when the need arises to observe everyone else’s interactions, and generate some new plot, in the space of a couple of Ficlys.