I have started writing a short story/novel a while ago. It's not exactly a short story but I don't plan on it being a big novel aswell so it's a in betweener. But I was wondering what you guys think of the plot. I'll give a brief explanation here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The main characters of the story are McCabe and Jess. You don't get to know more of their names. McCabe takes a small shop hostage and Jess is one of the hostages. McCabe is a man who has done more hosatge situations. As an ex police officer he knows what to expect and how to avoid being caught. He changes identity a lot and never leaves a trace. He like to stirr up small villages and usually goes for the most unrealistic place. Every hostage situation, he has everything planned, from beginning to ending and his escape route. So far.. all of his hostage situations have gone great. The story starts with McCabe taking over the shop. He has two young men helping him. One of the people in the store at that moment is Jess. She refuses to simply surrender and keeps challenging McCabe throughout the entire story. McCabe admires her courage and likes to play around with her. He hurts her, challenges her to challenge him and thus creating a kind of psychological game between the two of them. Both McCabe and Jess are round characters. The story will be told from changing perspectives. One chapter may focus on Jess more while the other is about McCabe. The rest of the hostage takers and hostages themselves are flat characters. They are mentioned and at times a name may be mentioned, but they are of no real importance to the story. As the stry progresses, McCabe changes from 'gentle man' to a 'murdering beast.' Jess also gets more and more determined to kick his butt and refuses to stop 'fighting' with him mentally. Even though McCabe will beat her up pretty hard at times she just doesn't give up. The whole story revolves around those two characters, their way of thinking and why they are acting like this. The rest is less imporant. The contact with the police, the other hostages, etc are told in a very little detailed description. And even though this story is more a psychological thriller idea, it still contains an amount of violence and gore. This is the main idea of the story. As I continue writing it the events just roll on the screen. I have the main line of the story set and I just let the smaller events take place as I write.
This looks really good. The only concern I would have is how far are YOU willing to go? It could slip into the grotesque fairly easily ruining the psychology of it. So be careful. Other than that this looks like it could be a great novella, similar to what Stephen King used to do at the beginning of his career.
Why does he take people hostage? Money? That isn't clear from what you have posted. If you are planning on making this a novel, I would improve the quality of the other characters and the descriptions of the action. Also, why would jess fight back? What does she have to gain from this little mind game. McCabe sounds like a sociopath.
