Saturday Scenes 02 - A Shot in the Dark

This is a couple of scenes I wrote as part of a project I've been working on for over a decade. It's taken on many different forms, beginning life originally as a screenplay for a film, then morphing into a TV mini-series, a graphic novel and a prose novel. 

It's one of those projects that's been rattling around in my head for a long, long time that I pick up occasionally and then ultimately fall off of. But it's a premise I really like, which is probably why it's stuck with me for so long and gone through so many revisions. Some day, I hope I get to release some finished form of it, whatever shape it may take.

So here's an excerpt from The Valiant. These two scenes focus on Amanda Benes, a detective and single mom, and her teenage son, Alex. They live in a city that's about to be turned upside down by a vicious gang war and the appearance of a mysterious vigilante.

The alarm had been going off for three minutes. 

Amanda Benes’ still form was curled under the sheets of her queen-sized bed, on the side furthest from the window, one arm spread across the cool, unoccupied side. The alarm had been going off for three minutes, and still she didn’t wake.
Outside, a black and white roared through the neighborhood, the siren wail mixing in with the aggravating electronic alarm. 

Benes opened one eye, saw red and blue flickering just outside her window, then receding as the black and white raced away down the avenue. With a grunt, she rolled toward the alarm clock and slapped it silent. She moved into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, not even looking over at the empty side, alone in the slatted darkness of her bedroom. The morning light, warm and orange, didn’t even register for her. 

She stood and walked into the shower and turned the water up as hot as it would go. 

Steam filled the small room until she could barely see the tiled wall next to her. She leaned against it, her face resting on her forearm as the water poured hot and stinging over her. She sighed loudly, trying to empty her mind for a moment, then stretched. 

Twenty minutes later, she clipped on her holster and slipped in her 9mm. She walked into the kitchen, and she rolled her eyes when she saw what was going on there. 

“Feet off the table,” she said, moving toward the coffeemaker on the counter behind her son, Alex. He rolled his eyes, and put all four feet of his chair back on the floor. He continued to munch on cereal without saying anything intelligible to her. 

The decade-old coffeemaker chugged to life and Benes rinsed out her travel mug. She noticed the paint on the wall was peeling above the sink again. Without turning, she asked, “What time did you come home last night?” 

“Dunno,” Alex answered. “Late.” 

“Your curfew is eleven,” Benes said. “There’s nothing worth doing out there past eleven.” 

Alex twisted in his chair toward her. “I don’t even want to go out until eleven!” 

Benes stuck her mug under the spout, and hot coffee filled it. “Be home by eleven.” 

Alex grunted. It might have been a swear. 

“Hurry up,” Benes said. “I’m driving you to school today.” 

“I’ll take the bus.” 

“I’m driving you to school today, Alex,” Benes repeated. “Get your stuff.” 

Alex stood, a sour look on his face, and walked out of the room. The cereal bowl stayed on the table. A drop of milk fell from the spoon. Benes grabbed it and put it in the sink as if by reflex. She heard Alex stomp through the living room, exaggerating his movements as he packed his bag for school. He tapped his foot waiting for her by the door. She took her first sip of the strong black coffee, made a face, then sealed the mug and walked out of the kitchen.

----

In the car, Alex stared out the passenger window, not saying a word. Even getting him to put on a seatbelt felt like a chore. Benes sat silently frustrated, weaving her way through the morning traffic, occasionally glancing over at him from behind her sunglasses. As usual, she let him choose the radio station, and as usual, he’d chosen some hard rock song that grated on her ears and raised her blood pressure.

He didn’t even really like that kind of music; he just chose it to bother her. 

Amanda Benes was a good detective. 

“Or a mom,” her partner had said once. 

“Same thing,” she’d replied. 

Her cell phone rang. She silently thanked whoever was calling and tapped the ‘Phone’ button on the steering wheel. The music cut out. 

“Benes.” 

It was her partner, Ed Nguyen. Speak of the devil. His voice filled the car. “Where are you?” 

“On my way to school.” Alex turned and gave her a scowl. 

“Great. Body in Dumper’s Alley.” 

“A body in Dumper’s Alley. Stop the goddamned presses.” 

“I’m there now,” Nguyen said. “See you when I see you.” 

“Sure. Later.” 

The rock music returned as Nguyen ended the call. Alex reached over and turned the volume knob higher. Benes’ jaw clenched. She knew saying something would just cause him to push further. Every morning was like this. At least, the mornings when he didn’t just grab his bag and run out the door to the bus stop down the block. The silence between them was longer than she’d realized.

In a few minutes, Alex got out of the car in front of his school without even looking at his mother. She just drove away. 

Dumper’s Alley was buzzing with activity. The yellow police tape always brought out the neighbors, even in an area that goes through a lot of it. Dumper’s was the widest alley in the neighborhood, and lined on both sides with dumpsters, a popular place for everyone and every scumbag in town to drop their trash and unwanteds. Benes parked her car next to a couple of black and whites with their flashers on and walked toward the tape, pulling on a pair of plastic gloves.

Nguyen met her at the edge of the crime scene, steaming mug of coffee in his hands, as usual. Also as usual, he was wearing a crisp dark suit with a red tie.

He’d fill that mug four more times before their shift was over. 

He lifted the yellow tape for her, then followed her into the alley. 

“What’ve we got?” she asked, ducking only slightly under his arm. 

He didn’t miss a beat. “Body. ME’s probably gonna call gunshots as COD.” 

“There’s another shocker.” 

“Just wait.” 

Partway down the alley, slumped up against a rust-rotted, scuffed yellow dumpster, was the body of a man in a sharp business suit. There were two holes in the man’s chest, blood pooled all over his stomach and the ground beneath him.

“Hello,” Benes said.

She checked his pockets, though she was sure Nguyen had already done so.

“No wallet,” she said to herself. “No ID.” She stuck a finger in his mouth and opened it slightly. “Teeth are smashed to shit. Hopefully his prints are in the system?” 

“Yeah,” Nguyen said. “What are the chances of that?” 

“Right. Doesn’t look like he bought this at Jose’s Thrift,” Benes said, standing. 

“Still, you never know.” 

Nguyen scoffed. “Because we’re that lucky.” 

Benes heard the clicking and snapping of the crime scene photographer behind her. She hoped he was getting the right angles this time. She glanced around the body. 

“No sign of the gun,” she said. “Tons of blunt-force trauma. Someone beat the shit out of him before he was killed. Executed?” 

“Yeah,” Nguyen said, with a strange tone. “About that...” Benes knew she wasn’t going to like what he said next. 

Nguyen turned and pointed toward a nearby dumpster, which had a perfect impression of a boot pounded into the side of it. Benes walked over and knelt down by it, running her hand along the side of the impression. “What the hell...” 

“Yeah,” Nguyen said. “What do we do about this?” 

Benes shook her head in disbelief. 

“Box it.” 

“The entire thing?” 

“The entire thing.”

Nguyen nodded toward the CSI team waiting by the coroner’s van. “Shit. They’re not gonna like that.”

It's the economy (of words), stupid!

(image: stock.xchng/id_charlz)

You don't realize it, but there are a lot of words you don't need in your novel.

In my earlier post about writing the Weirdo Company serial, I talked about focusing more on actions than descriptions as one way to keep the word count down and keep the plot moving swiftly.

But, there's more to economy of words than just that. Even in describing actions, you're going to run into superfluous words that are going to bog down your sentences. What are these junk words? They're pretty simple.

Boot up your word processor of choice and go to the "find" function. In the search field, type in "then." How many times did it come up?

Searching through just the first part of my new Weirdo Company novel, the word "then" appears 34 times out of a total of 15,159 words. That might not seem like much, but trust me, "then" is a word you can get rid of without really missing it.

Here's what I mean:

But then her eyes snapped open, big and blue and whip-smart.

Or, we can just say:

Her eyes snapped open, big and blue and whip-smart.

The effect is subtle, but it works. The sentence is punchier. To the point. 

Of course, sometimes "then" is useful when describing a sequence of events. As with all things, consider this on a case-by-case basis. Don't just obliterate every usage of the word on my say so. But make finding these junk words part of your editing process.

You'll be surprised by how much you don't need "then" or "seemed" or lots of words that end in "-ly." 

Cast of Dramatis Personae Characters

(Image: stock.xchng/michaelaw)

So, here's something sorta embarrassing... I was having trouble remembering the names of some of the characters in my novel.

Yeah. I know.

They're totally minor characters, basically just red shirts. But, it's important to keep that sort of thing consistent throughout the entire piece, right?

So I did something that I really ought to have done from the start - create a list of characters and their associations. I know, I know, Writer 101 stuff. But, I've never really been one for taking copious notes or planning things out with more than just a bare outline and my brain.

In some circles, this is called "pantsing." People who do this are "pantsers." I realize how very 7th grade that sounds, but really, we're just trying to reclaim it.

But there it is. Look at me like a cautionary tale. Your novel will be full of strangers if you don't do things right. It doesn't have to be terribly in depth, just a straight up list. Is there a family, or groupings you need to keep track of? Go for it. Because most of my characters are in the military, I organized it by their squads.

Effort: Five minutes.
Not having to keep looking back through old chapters to remember character names: Priceless.

Current Soundtrack
"Black Sails" by Bear McCreary

Oh, hello there 2014

(Image: stock.xchng/nh313066)

It's apparently been an entire year since I updated this blog. Many things have changed since then.

Many things have also stayed the same.

I finished the Weirdo Company serial! That was a huge moment for me, hitting the "publish" button on the last of 10 parts. I had such an incredible amount of fun writing that story and creating those characters. I initially told myself that I was done with it for a while, and went to work on another project.

But the problem is, ideas for more Weirdo Company kept nagging at me. So I abandoned the other project and threw myself whole hog into a new Weirdo Company novel.  I haven't settled on a title yet, but frankly that's not surprising.

Along the way, other life things happened. I went to five weddings last year, three of them in about the span of a month. It was exhausting, and expensive, but at the same time a good deal of fun. My relationship with my best friend deteriorated until it was no more. That was also exhausting. And I got my heart broken, which was even more exhausting.

In the middle of all that, I got promoted at work. I don't work the night shift anymore, which is huge. I enjoy the work that I'm doing, and I feel like it's another step forward and toward what I would really love to be doing.

But I keep plugging forward with more Weirdo Company. It's comforting. It's fun. I'm pouring a bit more of my own emotions into this one, so hopefully there will be a little bit more dramatic meat beyond all the swearing and explosions and strange monsters.

It's also not a serial, it's a novel, though it keeps a lot of same serial format. I think fans will find a lot to like, and maybe I'll attract some new ones. Maybe.

I'm also writing this post from the very awesome Danish Pastry House in Medford. It's a fine little place that has lots of baked goods, sandwiches and really excellent coffee and tea options. I wrote a blog post for my second job about sleep deprivation while I was pounding back a chai latte. How's that for funny?

But, ultimately... How I'm feeling is this: 2014 will be big. Bigger than 2013. More things are going to change for me. I'm making that happen, rather than waiting for them. This is the next step that I've been building toward since I started self-publishing. Taking that leap was me beginning to do something different with my life than simply go to work, come home and do it all again the next day.

It's a little weird.

Current Soundtrack
"Inception" by Hans Zimmer

NaNoWriMo is upon us!

Yes, the yearly writers Mecca is here: NaNoWriMo, the month when everyone sits down and tries to crank out a 50,000 word fan fic masterpiece!

Every year I find some excuse not to participate, though this year I'm getting closer. I've got two jobs and so many writing irons in the fire, that I just can't sit down and crank out a novel from scratch. Instead, I'll just use my NaNoWriMotivation to work on a novel project that I started before but only got about 16,000 words into before it came grinding to a halt.

I think that's a pretty good use of my time, considering the two jobs and working on the Weirdo Company serial. That project is going well, since I just released Weirdo Company: Hellshark and I've already made solid progress on the next episode, Blood of the Keres.

So, I'm feeling pretty good about NaNoWriMo, even though my participation is a little... NaNoWriModjacent. 

Any of you out there going to dive into this yearly sacrifice ritual?

Current Soundtrack
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier by Jerry Goldsmith

Status Update

Just some thoughts:

I'm waffling on the title of my novel.  Whether or not to include the word "City."

The novel itself is coming along well.  Following the outline, piecing back together parts of the 20,000 or so words I'd already written, discarding some, rearranging and rewriting others.  It will be much better now.

At the moment, it's about 9924 words, but there's still pieces to be added back from the original.  I suspect that I'll only lose about 3,000 or 4,000 words and then I'll be ready to start writing the rest of it.

I don't have a goal word-count for this project.  The disparity of online opinions of what length 'officially' constitutes a novel told me I should just write the damn story and see how long it ends up when I feel it's appropriately finished.

I plan on having a couple people read the novel before it's released to get some feedback as well as some extra editing help.  I didn't do that for "Show Me the End of the World" and there ended up being a couple of embarrassing errors.  I did it for "The Box" and felt much better about it, despite one friend's assertion that he got a Grammar-Nazi Eye Twitch (I suspect he was exaggerating).

"The Box" continues to sell an average of one or two copies a day.  Those three dimes keep rollin' in...

Current Soundtrack
"Thor" by Patrick Doyle

Outlines are hard like my...

...high school algebra finals.

What?  Where did you think I was going with that?


Anyway, I've written before about my difficulty with outlines. But I decided a novel, as the single largest writing project I will have tackled so far in my life, deserved more than just to be spat out upon my keyboard, spewed forth from my brain without direction of any kind.

Thus it was that I completed an outline for my novel (which I have yet to settle on a title - that will be another blog post, I assure you).  It's a pretty basic outline which merely lists a couple of goals for each chapter, sentence fragments of ideas that I think should happen at each point.

"So and so meet at this place and discuss such and such" is essentially how it goes.

"So and so beat the crap out of each other at bla bla" and so on.

But one of the things that struck me while I was writing it was that the structure of it seemed to flow a little better.  The outline adheres to the basic idea of the novel I've had in my head, with some added junk thrown in.  But therein, you'll recall, was my problem - I constantly have new ideas I want to add in which ends up changing the project drastically as I'm writing it.  With the outline, I'm hoping to avoid it, but I don't know if that's possible because I simply found myself modifying the outline on the fly!

My high school art teacher, who always was reminding me that I was very talented but extremely lacking in organization and follow through, once said that "the real world doesn't have outlines."  This was because my naturally cartoonish artistic style meant that every object I drew had lines to define its shape instead of using shade.  It's sort of hard to describe, but essentially it boils down to, Look at the world around you and note that no real object has a black line around it.

This is a completely different kind of outline, but the idea popped into my head earlier as I was finishing the outline.  I thought this was very funny because now years later, outlines are still bugging me and I'm still a giant pain in the ass who lacks organization and follow through.

The dreaded outline

I am not what you would call a particularly organized person.  I tend to just sort of let things happen, let them pile up.  I don't really plan things all that well, and I'm sometimes very poor at budgeting my time.

Of course, this is a problem for a person who wants to tell stories.  Disorganized stories can be a huge turnoff for a reader.  But my writing style is very "get started and see what happens."  The number of times I've started a project only to decide halfway through to veer off in another direction because I had what I thought was a better idea is astonishing.  It also means that there is a graveyard of unfinished stories, screenplays and half-baked ideas littered like slaughtered corpses throughout my hard drive.

For writing short stories, this is actually rather an easy problem to overcome.  They're typically short enough that I can just write and see where it goes and generally be pleased with the outcome.  I had some struggle with "The Box," but overall the writing of it went smoothly.  Of the stories in "Show Me the End of the World" only "DreamTime" and "Man's Best FrienD" went through any serious revisions.

But writing a novel is an entirely different animal.  I've even written screenplays without any real outline... they just sort of come out of me the way they do, and I rarely feel the need to go back and change them.  I've been slowly revising one that's been gestating since college, but even that has remained largely the same in terms of its structure.  Each time I read it, I see where I could make a funnier joke or that I need to add an earlier reference to pay off something that happens later, but for the most part the skeleton of the thing hasn't changed in the years since I originally sat down to write it while working crappy desk shifts in good ol' Larned Hall.

For this novel, I attempted to come up with an outline.  The problem is that when I sat down and started writing the novel I almost immediately started deviating from the outline!  I've struggled with this problem for all the time I've been a writer; rigid boundaries simply don't agree with me.  Outlines for school papers were a pain in the ass, and when teachers forced me to do second and third drafts as part of the assignment, I often simply passed in the first draft again and they'd get upset.  Even at work, I hate being constantly boxed in by design concepts older than I am, and I'm constantly battling with people over this.

I guess what I'm going to try for the novel outline is to simply write a simpler one.  I was trying to sketch it all out down to the individual scenes, but that isn't working for me.  I think I'll just put one or two sentences down for the goal of each chapter and hope that I can stick to that.

But maybe I'll get halfway through and decide, no, that's not how I roll.

Current Soundtrack
"Total Recall" by Jerry Goldsmith

Decisions to be made

You'll recall in a previous posting I mentioned that I was rewriting a lost story that didn't make it into "Show Me the End of the World" called "The Box.  Well not only have I been rewriting it, but I've also expanded upon it.  From my admittedly spotty memory, the story wasn't all that long.  But the new version I'm writing is actually quite a bit longer than I remember the original being.

Whether this makes it better or not, I can't be certain.  It might suck. I'm gonna have a couple people read it and give me some feedback on this one, I think.  I'm not sure why I'm so uncertain of it.  My usual rule is that if it's fun to write, then it's fun to read.  This one is fun to write, but for some reason I get the impression it might not be that fun to read.  Maybe it's the length?  Maybe parts of it feel kind of repetitive?  I won't know until I get some people to take a look at it and tell me what they think.

But because it's turned into a bit of a longer project, it's sort of usurped my novel that I was working on, so that will be delayed a bit.  That's totally fine, of course, because I don't want to rush that, nor do I want to demand that my friends and family who just shelled out their hard-earned cash for "Show Me the End of the World" to do so again just a couple months later.  No, the novel will take time and patience and preparation (but, y'know, I've already nearly finished a cover for it...)

I will, however, put "The Box" up on Amazon for the Kindle.  I might even enroll it in the KDP Select program, which requires that it be exclusive to Amazon for 90 days, but gives it some greater promotional push.  "The Box" was supposed to be a short story; honestly I think it'll end up being more of a novella.

Current Soundtrack

"Battle: Los Angeles" - Brian Tyler

Of Titles and Men

There are generally two things I struggle with on the micro level of my writing: character names and titles.  I find these two things to be some of the most difficult aspects of the literary/verbal creation process.  Most of the time I end up with something simple like 'DreamTime' or 'The Watchers' which are not bad titles at all, but... Well they're just kind of obvious, aren't they?

And as for character names?  I find I'm far more comfortable randomly assigning a character a name like "Bill" or "Amy" or "Tim" than really thinking about what to name a character.  A lot of times I don't even bother coming up with a last name for them unless it's absolutely necessary. 

I wonder if it's because titles and names don't really concern me in a certain sense.  Now that I'm thinking about it for this blog post, part of my mind is saying: "If you're relating to the character and enjoying his/her story, then what does it matter what his/her name is?"  That is to say, the name isn't as important as the substance of the character.

It'd be nice if I could communicate entire stories in such a fashion.  But I'm not Cormac McCarthy.

Current Soundtrack:
"Casino Royale" by David Arnold

Whoops

I came home tonight with every intention of putting another couple thousand words into the novel, but I ended up dicking around the Internet, updating my LinkedIn profile and Facebooking.  Dang.

Current Soundtrack:
'Contraband' by Velvet Revolver

Fun fun fun

I tried to do some writing on my novel tonight while I had a few minutes at work, and something sort of struck me:

If it's not fun for me to write, it's not fun for you to read.

That sort of made perfect sense, since I was working on a scene that just wasn't coming out how I wanted it.  My words felt limp and the whole thing just kinda... sucked.  So I deleted it, and I was a little upset at first.  I had slugged through some two or three hundred words, and in a flash I'd tossed it all.  Of course, they're still there if I revert to previous version, but you know what I mean.

But after I got home I went back and tried it again, and it all seemed to flow much better and much easier.  Like I said in my previous post, music is pretty key.  When I'm at work, all I have to listen to is the noises of the people around me (and I do truly hate the noises they make), the police scanner, maybe whatever sports event is on the TV on the other end of the room.

That was only part of it, though.  I'm fully capable of writing without music.  I just don't like to. 

In other business, some of my friends have gotten around to reading 'Show Me the End of the World,' and their responses so far have been positive.  I'm very, very glad to hear that people are enjoying it.  So I'm not really making cash hand over fist on it... that's alright.  The book was very much a proof-of-concept to prove that I could do this. 

The novel, on the other hand, that's the big challenge.  Not just finishing it, but putting it out and actually trying to make something of it.  So far, it's been fun.  I think that translates from me the writer to you the reader.  I've often spoken in my For Reelz blog that you can tell when the cast of a movie or TV show is having fun, and that can enhance enjoyment of the movie.  Well the same works here - If I'm having fun writing it, you're probably having fun reading it.

Current Soundtrack:
"Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" by Michael Giacchino

On Music

I'm probably just the latest in a long line of writers to tell you that music can be pretty key to creative process.  I've always got music going when I'm writing (except at work, where my iPod has been banned for no reason other than someone else's ego).  But not just any music.

The right music.

I listen to a lot of film scores, and usually action film scores at that.  Loud, propulsive music really gets me going.  The juices don't just flow, they're a raging river of creativity.  My hands fly over the keyboard like they're possessed, sometimes even to the rhythm of the music.

Right now as I'm posting this, I've just finished two movie reviews over at For Reelz, and I've got the score from "Thor" by Patrick Doyle going on the speakers in the living room and I find it incredibly liberating. 

Film scores in general I find to be a genre of music that allows me to focus.  When I'm writing, I'm dealing with words, and lyrics often get in my way.  Unless I've managed to hone in on a particular band or song that seems to fit with whatever I'm writing, I get distracted by the voice of the singer or the lyrics of the song.

The novel I'm writing originally stemmed from an idea that involved building an action movie out of Alice in Chains songs - sort of like "Across the Universe" but for 90s grunge rock.  As the idea evolved and I eventually settled on writing it as a novel, the Alice in Chains aspect of it dropped away, and now even listening to that band distracts me from writing it.

When I'm done with this post, I plan to get back to business on my novel and only break up that work this afternoon with necessary trips to the basement to do laundry.

Laundry, as it turns out, like music, is also pretty key.

Current Soundtrack
"Thor" by Patrick Doyle

Getting started is hard on the knees

So now that I've put out this collection of stories (again, with other formats coming soon) I've also begun work on a novel.  It's not my first novel, which may come as a surprise to some people.  No, when I was a wee teenager, I got it in my head that I should write, of all things, a 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' novel.

How prophetic.

Kinda.

It was a pretty terrible novel, I can admit that.  Actually, let me take that back; I was really proud of the story that I had come up with, but I'm sure that if I read it now, it would just reek of amateur hour nonsense.  The basic plot had to do with (sigh) vampires invading the Federation.  Of course, only the crew of the Starship Enterprise could stop it!  Anyway there was a whole thing where there was actually this vampire cloud in an episode of the original 'Star Trek' series, and I postulated that this cloud was, in fact, the origin of vampire myths around the galaxy and there was lots of cool stuff going on with fighting vampires and fighting... vampire clouds... Whatever, it was cool.  Trust me.

So now, now I'm working on a real novel.  Y'know, one that I can publish for real.  Not just 120,000 words of fan fiction.

But it turns out that writing a novel is like really hard, man.  Part of my problem is that my writing style is typically very stream-of-consciousness.  I tend to just sit down, start writing, and see where it goes from there.  I also have developed what seems to be an aversion to second drafts.  I don't like going back and revising things.  This caused lots of problems in school when I was forced to produce a second draft of a paper, when I felt very comfortable with the first draft and felt no need to change it.

Writing a novel, on the other hand, is a different beast than a five page paper, or a 7,000 word short story.  I'm forced to create what they tell me is called an "outline" and even that isn't very structured.  My impatience has led me to write approximately 6,000 words of this novel before the outline is even finished.  I don't like planning; I'm not a planner.  I like to just write.  But if doing all this extra work helps me put out a more cohesive novel, then so be it.

By the way, I've already written the last line of the novel.  I'm not going to tell you what it is, even though lots of people like to read the last page of the book first.  (Weirdos)

Current Soundtrack:
"Fast & Furious" by Brian Tyler