Talk:Wednesday Night/@comment-26007602-20150711174901

I read the background to this story, and I'm sort of curious what the first draft of this story was, as this one does seem similar (whether intentional or not) to the short stories King writes. Well, a split between that and a Twilight Zone episode where the protagonist is screwed over because of some minute detail. I'm a fan of both, so I'm already biased towards the story.

I'm sort of split on the character of Christian. On one hand, he transitions to murder and enjoyment of murder a little too quickly in my opinion, but on the other, there are hints present in the story that he isn't completely stable. He unhealthily idolizes this woman and probably exaggerates the disgusting features of this man, but I don't quite think he'd be one to enjoy the rush of killing. I like the snap decision he makes to murder Mark, although I'm not sure the build up to it is quite enough. The first half of this story goes into the "rivalry" between Christian and Mr. Bolinski while setting up the conflict, but nothing too creepy or unnerving happens. That's why it reminds me of King's stories, as many of them lack creepy build up. I'm not saying there isn't build up to this event, but it's not creepy build up. There's certainly a tension between the two, but it isn't a horror tension where I grow concerned for what's about to happen. I was sort of guessing one of these men would kill the other, and wasn't too surprised when Christian snapped.

Of course, this story doesn't really need the creepiness present in the beginning, as Christian's snap decision is handled well and seems realistic enough. This man believes he's been tortured every week and seems to care about only one human being, so it makes sense that all this pressure would compel him to murder. I thought the twist would revolve around Christian realizing that this man came in every Wednesday night, and would thus be easy to track by the police, but didn't catch the part about meeting Peg in the morning. I would have liked a little more deliberation between killing Peg, but don't think the story really requires it.

The only other thing that bothered me was the convenience of the boat on the beach. Someone just left their working boat on the beach with the keys still there? Not a huge issue, it just seemed to be there so Christian could easily dispose of the body. I'm also not sure that Mr. Bolinski would be able to speak so coherently if he was supposedly incredibly drunk. The story addresses this, but sort of just glosses over it. Neither of these things really matter, they just made me pause and think for a few moments.

I like the style used here, with the third person narrator occasionally commenting on certain details through the parenthesis. It gives the story a more personalized and more unique tone, and that helps drive the story forward. The ending seems fitting for the story and vague enough to work, and the beginning (while not particularly horrific) works to give us a sense of the two main characters and introduce the conflict. I don't believe in numerical grades (as they are too subjective and don't convey enough information to be useful), but I'd say this story was worth the read. Short, interesting, and believable.