Hammered – an Ode to Mickey Spillane” - the 2025 Story Event Official Support Thread

I’m working on one that’s been slow in coming together. At this point I just hope to have it done before the deadline.
 
Ready to go. Just waiting for the July 15th submission date.
I finished mine last night and added in some <I> italics </I> and story tags.

Will I be able to resist one final read through and potential re-edit? Yes, because I’m already halfway done with a Born to Run story…
 
Same here. Mine is scheduled for tomorrow. Glad I'm not the only one double-checking tags and wondering where I went wrong.
 
You probably didn’t go wrong. Note 6 said they go live on July 31st “or maybe sooner if Laurel wants to spread them out.” The list should be published on the 31st even if some premiere early.
 
That's when the final list gets published. The submission window is always longer.
The submission window is longer, but whether or not the stories are all published as submitted or at the end varies. The Oggbashan Memorial event submissions all published on the day the list went live. My submission for that was in pending/ published for almost three weeks.
I much prefer publishing when submitted, but event organizers and Laurel make those calls.
 
Uhh, I want to submit for this, but my story's shaping up to be more comedic parody than serious take on the theme. It's gonna be about a former hard-boiled detective adjusting to mundane suburban life. Is that alright? Snippet below for reference.

---

The kitchen sink was a cesspool of corruption. Plates stacked like bodies in a morgue, each one telling its own sordid story. The clean white of prize china, stained red with the sordid evidence of too much spaghetti sauce. I rolled up my sleeves. Someone had to clean up this mess, and today that luckless shmuck was me.

The name’s Delarney. Frank Delarney. And don’t get me wrong now, I’m no stranger to nasty business. Used to work the mean streets—back when danger wore a knife in its boot and smiled like a priest. Learned the rhythms of the city: the late-night sirens, the back-alley whispers. Came to know the blood that never washed off the pavement, no matter how hard the rain tried. You better believe I did my time, or else - well, don’t blame me when you get burned.

But that’s all old hat. Now I work the linoleum floors of a three-bedroom suburban split-level. You might think I’ve gone soft. Lost my edge. And to that I say - Ha! Shows what you know.

See, you best believe the suburbs are just as dangerous as any dark alley. Round these parts you stay sharp. On your toes. Or you wake up one day sleeping with the fishes.

I reached for the dish soap. Dawn. Ultra strength. Cost me a pretty penny. But I’ve learned the hard way - never skimp on tools of the trade. When danger comes knocking, you need all the strength you can get.

I wrenched the tap on, watching the hot water pour forth. Steam rose like smoke from a .38. That’s the trick - even the toughest perp cracks when you put enough heat on. I watched grimly as the caked evidence of last night’s exuberance melted and slunk away, as if they’d never existed, leaving the crockery clean enough to face the light of another day - for now, at least.

That's when I saw it. A wine glass with lipstick on the rim. Not my wife's shade. She wore coral. This was crimson. Blood red. The kind of red that meant trouble.
 
I want to submit for this, but my story's shaping up to be more comedic parody than serious take on the theme
My first pass started out like this. My initial idea was more "Police Squad" than "Law & Order."

It's up to @ChloeTzang , but this isn't a duel to the death or a contest, it's a fun event.

Whether or not it gets posted to this event, I want to read it! I, personally, love when someone takes a theme and twists it in an unexpected direction. A former hardboiled detective who can't let go of that part of himself living in the suburbs sounds like an amazing idea and now I'm a little jealous that I didn't think of it.
 
My first pass started out like this. My initial idea was more "Police Squad" than "Law & Order."

It's up to @ChloeTzang , but this isn't a duel to the death or a contest, it's a fun event.

Whether or not it gets posted to this event, I want to read it! I, personally, love when someone takes a theme and twists it in an unexpected direction. A former hardboiled detective who can't let go of that part of himself living in the suburbs sounds like an amazing idea and now I'm a little jealous that I didn't think of it.
Aww thanks so much for the kind words! Yeah I think I'm pretty invested now, because I'm just having too much fun writing this story ^_^ If you'd like to beta-read at some point, I'd be super down to send you an early draft!

P.S. Don't let me stop you from doing something like this too, because I didn't think of this idea myself either xD I've been very much inspired by Way of the Househusband and Japanese comedy in general
 
If you'd like to beta-read at some point, I'd be super down to send you an early draft!
DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!

P.S. Don't let me stop you from doing something like this too
I'm not as productive as a lot of you guys. It takes me weeks to write a short story, and it usually takes another week after I publish for all the emotions to flush out of my head. I've been beta reading another author's work, and he's cranked out I think 7 or 8 stories in the time it took me to do 3. My Hammered story went up on Friday, and I haven't quite hit the "crying in public" phase (city people do this, the suburbanites probably would find this strange), so I'm not ready to start something new yet, LOL!
 
I've been beta reading another author's work, and he's cranked out I think 7 or 8 stories in the time it took me to do 3.
Yeah, but you have higher standards than I do.

I wrote 75% of my AI story last night in a couple of hours and I’ll have it finished with another 2-3 hours. It won’t have nearly (or any) of the emotional impact your stuff has.
 
I didn't want to jinx myself and post here too early, but I've gone from an idiot idea to the draft being about half done in 36 hours, so I think I'm actually going to make the deadline for this one. I'm probably massively underestimating how long the twists I've got planned are going to take to play out, so maybe I'm more like a third done. But that's still doable at this rate. I'm pretty stoked.

This is probably my favorite bit of exposition I've ever written:

But even with all the nuts and buzzcuts going on about immigrants and disgruntled property owners, the papers seemed real interested in turning every eye on Theresa. And as every eye turned to Theresa, she found herself arrested and arraigned and held without bond to the jubilant praise of every low-life asshole that just wanted to watch the bitch burn. No fuckin' wonder I can’t leave my apartment sober.
 
@ChloeTzang , I just submitted a story for this! I'm sure that it's not violent enough or noir enough or hard-boiled enough, but it's much more of all of that then I ever write, so... Fingers crossed that people enjoy my story!!
 
Back
Top