Nothing's finer than eating in your diner, and other clichés. All are welcome.
Today's rules are all about hard-boiled fiction, in radio-play form. It's a match made in – well - in Hell, where the big cities' dirtiest cops are sure to end up as they sink lower, deeper into the cesspool of crime, corruption, and clichés. There is no limit to how far a dirty Dick will go to hide his past, just as there is no limit to how predictable and unoriginal a piece of Hard-Boiled fiction ought to be.
The banal becomes brilliant, and the sappy sincere in these police detective capers. Heroes and villains alike are ruthless, selfish, one-line delivering bastards, in the heat of the moment, and the lower they punch, the sexier they are. But behind the scenes, these old coppers shoulder heavy loads, and have the ulcers to prove it. A favourite tonic of the nearly-Noir detective is – you guessed it - black coffee, and spa-time for the anti-hero and his Boot at the local diner is the best place to overhear the most salacious gossip.
Hard-boiled Radio pits detective against himself during the off-hours, while limited by the following constraints:
☞ Unity of Action – in fact, there should be little to no action. Only references to action outside of the place where the play is set.
☞ Unity of Place – characters must remain in one spot unless they are in a moving vehicle. If so, the action must focus on what happens inside the vehicle.
☞ Unity of Time – all events must unfold in real-time with no gaps in continuity