Fanfiction Blog
Updated 26/03/13
Setting Small bar/roadhouse/gas station on Quebec New Brunswick border.
Season Winter
Time Late evening midweek
This is a fanfic based loosely on the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child with a flavour of Jack Kerouac (see if you can spot it)
Characters
1. Narrator
2. Locals
Ti Jean
Pierre LeGros
Crazy Alphonse
3. Travellers
Tall Man
Short Man
Blonde Woman
4. The Stranger
5. The incidental tourist
Intro
Scene Atmosphere
Tension Travellers and Stranger
Business was slow, but not slower than I expected for a quiet Thursday in February. The weather didn’t help, 10 degrees below zero, 4 inches of hard snow on the ground and the prospect of a lot more before the weekend
Yep, the tourists were long gone and the town was left to just us locals and those travellers foolish or determined enough to be on the road in the depths of winter
I run a roadhouse in a small town on the Quebec New Brunswick border, a place on the main highway between Quebec City, Rivière du Loup, and the Maritimes, a place with not that many reasons to stop in unless you needed gas or diesel, coffee or beer, poutine or burgers.
I retired here from 30 years in the Royal Canadian Navy and never wanted to see saltwater again, although there’s no getting away from the cold anywhere in Canada. Tonight was no different from any winter’s night, I had a log fire blazing, juke box on low, you could hear the click of the balls from the pool-table as Ti-Jean and Pierre LeGros competed for the sheer pleasure of beating each other. They were brothers and had been that way all their lives.
By the fireside Crazy Alphonse sat with his beer staring into the flames. He was 2 tours in Iraq and wasn’t good for anything much after that.
The new guy sat at a table by himself. That wasn’t difficult as he was my only customer. He was a big guy about 6 foot five tall, heavily built, and looked like he had been in and out of a few tight spots. He wore the sort of clothes that were a cross between bargain basement menswear and army surplus stores, a big jacket and a watch cap. So far he’d eaten well, 2 helpings of poutine and burgers, and one beer. Now he just sat with a pot of black coffee, just sat.
I heard a car pull up at the gas pumps, the door slam as the driver got out to talk with Andre who ran the gas station. Then the crunch of frozen gravel as the car moved off the forecourt to park outside my place.
A minute later the outer and inner doors banged open bringing a blast of cold air and three new customers. Usually people travel together in easily recognisable groups. Families are the most common, followed by professional groups like sales teams, in the season groups of hunting buddies after moose or bear, or mixed groups of young people, students on spring break sort of thing.
These three didn’t fit together. I had a feeling there might be a backstory here.
The woman was tall, dark haired, a face that was attractive but just short of being beautiful. She was well dressed with an expensive winter coat and boots. That would fit with the new dark blue Lincoln Town Car I could see parked outside the window under the light. The two men just weren’t in her league at all. The tall guy was scruffy with a big plaid hunting jacket, overalls, a dirty ball cap and boots. The other guy was short, built like a fireplug, but with a smooth almost city gangster appearance. Made him stick out like a dog’s balls here in rural Quebec. He spoke French, but not joual, which confirmed for me he was a city rat, not a country wolf. The men ordered beers and poutine and got to work on the food as soon as it was served.
The woman sat slightly apart from her travelling companions. She ate nothing just ordered a pot of black coffee, which she barely touched. I could see the tension rippling off her in waves. Her companions ignored her and kept feeding.
Time passed, the jukebox rolled through another compilation of greatest hits, the LeGros brothers continued their battle over the pool table, Crazy Alphonse dozed over his warm beer.
Something changed, a shift in the atmosphere, an extra electron causing instability. The woman looked over her companions at the big stranger. I caught a glimpse of her expression, a look of mute desperate pleading in her eyes. He caught the vibe, felt the tension acknowledged her message. I saw him give her the slightest of nods. I could see him in front of my eyes shift gears, brace up slightly, go into hunting mode. Something feral had woken.
Mr Plaid Jacket was obviously feeling his beers. He got up and went to the men’s room. It’s just down the hall past the pool table. A minute passed, the stranger went down the same route. Must have been all that coffee he drank.
Time passed. I felt a vibration in the wooden floor and I saw the back wall flex a little. The old hunting print on the wall rattled briefly and became lopsided.
Mr Town Rat suddenly took notice of the time, tapped his watch and said something to the woman in a low voice. She stiffened and said nothing..
I-Write 165108-01
Fanfiction Websites related to Jack Reacher (3), Jack Kerouac(1) and Louis Cha/Jin Yong
Task:
Post five linked fanfiction sites related to own fanfiction.
Post a brief summary of each
Post a brief critical evaluation of each.
Jack Reacher
1. Fanfiction.net. This website has a comprehensive list of fanfiction derived from almost any author and genre imaginable. Content is catalogued alphabetically, by genre, by popularity, and so there is no excuse for not finding something of interest here.
Relating to Jack Reacher, the site hosts 1 Fanfic entry under Jack Reacher novels. The article is written from the POV of a waitress in a diner when Jack drops in for coffee and predictably ends up in a fight. Layout is good with provision for reader comment at the end of the article.
The site also hosts 2 crossover entries one of them “CSI and Jack Reacher”
www.fanfiction.net/Jack-Reacher-series-Crossovers/9890/0/
2. M.fanfiction.net. This site is not well set up, more difficulet to navigate and contains only 1 Jack Reacher fanfic, the same one published in the first website
3. Yvette can draw.blogspot.co.nz. This writer blogs about “books, film, art, and whatever” and features her rendition of a Jack Reacher Christmas Story. It’s a short (very) story and presented in blog form reads like one long column, and is a bit of stretch as I don’t envision Jack having a comfortable relationship with American Christmas sentimentality.
The writer mentions other fanfics in which Jack is in Wonderland, is a figure in a snowglobe, is rescued by Santa etc.
It’s clearly the blog of a bibliophile and amateur wordsmith and is interesting to a degree but is slow to load
Jack Kerouac.
4. Fanfiction.net. Back to this website again. It seems to be the go to place for fanfic.
Relating to Jack Reacher, the site hosts 1 Fanfic entry under Books/On the Road/Jack Kerouac. The article is written in the style of Kerouac and explores the character of Joan Adams, the wife of writer William S Burroughs.
Louis Cha/Jin Yong
5. Fanfiction.net appears only to have one fanfic with is actually a slight crossover with the works of Louis Cha.
Sunshine aficionado is the blog written by someone called Sherry aka Xaari who is obsessed with all things Asian and wants to write original wuxia novels in English. Here she presents a chapter in the style of Jin Yong.
Love it so far as discussed in class
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