I read this short story on Shotgun Honey, a small publishing house that features a selection of free flash fiction stories as well as books for sale.
Shotgun Honey's flash fiction concentrates on the crime, thriller, and mystery genres. Published stories range from 250 to 700 words, according to the submissions page.
If you like thrillers, don't have time to read a novel, or just want a quick literary thrill, Shotgun Honey would be a fun site to bookmark.
I enjoyed reading six of Shotgun Honey's recently published stories before choosing to review "Ballad of the Haint Hound Killer."
Length: 5 to 6 minutes
Genre: Thriller
General Impressions
Q. How's the hook?
The plot is interspersed with verses of a poem or song ... a ballad, if you will. (A ballad, according to the online Cambridge Dictionary, tells a story by way of song or poem.)
The first lines of the story are also the first lines of the ballad. I consider this the hook. And although I'm not a huge poetry fan, I wanted to see if the author handled the ballad/narrative format well.
After all, it can be hard to cram in action and thrills when you're waxing poetic.
But as it turns out, Ryan Michael Hines knows how to weave poetry into a quick action story.
Q. What made me want to keep reading?
After a few lines of poetry, we get down to the meat of the story.
The main character (who I assumed to be male, though it is not specified) is on his way to see his brother, whom he has not seen in years. The brothers "share a sin" of some kind, but the nature of the sin is not immediately specified.
This intrigued me. What shared sin? The suspense that made me want to keep reading.
In sparse detail, the nature of the sin is eventually revealed. Sidenote: If the author were to expand this into a novel, the mystery of the "shared sin" would be an enticing draw!
Q. What did I think of the plot?
With a word count limited to 700 words, a plot can only go so far. But for your buck, Ryan Michael Hines gives a fair helping of bang.
You might say "Ballad of the Haint Hount Killer" is the "end" of a much longer story the writer only hints at. There's a lot of backstory we never learn. If the writer were to expand the story into a longer form, here are three things I'd love to know:
- What is the setting of the story?
- Why was the sin so sinful?
- Who is the Haint Hound killer?
Q. Did I enjoy the characters?
No character in this story is "likable," but all are colorful. The main character is slightly more principled than his brother. He seems like a back-country kinda fellow, and some of his narrative hints that he's either undereducated or steeped in local dialect. ("So I went to see my brother ... the one what lived on the mountain.") That said, he artfully narrates his situation. For example, he says, "The sparrows' flight told me it'd not be long before I was discovered ..."
Q. How was the writing style?
I applaud this writer because I always understood exactly what was happening. Given the amount of action that takes place, and the fact that there are three characters taking up oxygen, that's admirable.
The ballad itself is never overbearing. It's poetic but not uppity or insufferable, as some poems (in my opinion) are.
Q. Is the ending satisfying?
The writer bends logic a bit to deliver an ending that is satisfying yet a little unrealistic. I can't fully explain because I don't want to ruin it for you. Suffice it to say, the main character gives away some information he could never actually know.
That's okay, though. In a delightful way, the entire story beckons the reader to suspend disbelief.
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