Jeff
• • •
Herrick 1.0 is up…on to Adam’s journey into the basement.
Blake
• • •
I did a quick draft of this to get it out of my system.
When Adam pulls the trigger, it would be nice to have a POV character see the windows blow out from the parking lot.
Paul
• • •
I’ll read it right now. Oasis 4.0 is up…short scene in the maternity ward.
Blake
• • •
Paul, that’s beautiful. I can see this all coming together now. There will be a touching scene between Adam and Stacie right before Randall takes Stacie and the baby up to the roof. She’ll be back into consciousness, holding their daughter, blood flowing into her, and Adam is leaving them, infected, to go with Randall to kill these monsters. I fucking LOVE this.
Blake
• • •
I head Adam on the roof: “I can’t turn into one of these abominations. I won’t!”
Clay: “That can be arranged.”
Paul
• • •
That was I hear Adam…
Sheesh
Paul
• • •
I think this is the first time I’m really catching a glimpse of how this thing is going to wrap up, of seeing the sum of the parts, and it’s truly exciting. Gonna be a helluva book.
Blake
• • •
Adam 5.0 is up…which is halfway through his journey into hell.
Blake
• • •
Jeff 7.0 is up…wherein the lumberjack and the clown and set up for their final confrontation.
Jeff
• • •
Going way back to the beginning of the process, I was very happy to see Blake’s glorious “intestines stuck in the drawer” sequence. I thought “Sweet! We get to have FUN with this thing!”
Jeff
• • •
I’m reading this and laughing while I’m worrying about Randall. Together the 4 of us have created, I think, the paradigm of balancing horror and humor. I armed Randall with the ultimate hand weapon, and you, Jeff (you should add, btw, something about its awesome recoil) have used incidents from previous chapters to render it useless against Benny.
Paul
* * *
September 13, 2010
Paul, I’m redoing the infodump scene, trying to make it less on the nose. It begins with Clay and Shanna in the stairwell, and Shanna isn’t packing heat.
Did I miss something, or in the previous scene was Shanna gung-ho about carrying a weapon, and refused to give it back?
Joe
• • •
It didn’t ring true, so I’m going to change it when we go back for fix-ups.
Paul
• • •
It’s possible there’s so much info to dump that you should spread it over several Shanna/Clay scenes.
Blake
• • •
There’s a scene with Shanna alone in the chapel where she’s trying to reconcile some of what she knows with what she’s seen (ie, the monster wearing Mort’s pants/belt). You could start the exposition there, maybe have her interrupted by Clay’s calling her name through the intercom. Then finish the exposition on the stairwell.
Paul
• • •
Jeff 8.0 is up…The heartfelt reunion of a man and his chainsaw.
Jeff
* * *
September 14, 2010
I caught up on everyone’s new chapters last night. Good shit, guys. I also added a little something to the info dump scene. Still think it needs to be broken out into the chapel scene. Maybe I’ll look at that today if Joe can’t get to it.
I just have to write the Adam v. Oasis scene which will end with Clayton Theel killing some draculas on the verge of breaking into the maternity ward, saving Adam et al., and I think we’ll be ready to put the finale together.
My plan is to add all the new stuff to the existing manuscript once I write this last scene and have my folks meet up with Clayton. Then we can dive into the finale.
One more scene before we hit the finale, will have Randall, Jeff, Jenny and the kids meet up and decide to head for the roof because Clay can flag down a television helicopter. On the way, Clay can hear human screams in the maternity ward, and he can go and get Adam, Stacie, and their baby. Then all our characters are together heading for the roof, draculas chasing them because the army is storming the place, etc.
Who’s writing the next Jenny/Randall/Clayton scene?
Also, should we talk start talking about who writes what for the final scenes?
Blake
• • •
So can we get the pediatrics kids into a helicopter and off to safety? I’m all in favor of killing young children in my fiction (“With that scene in Pressure, you’ve just lost 35% of your audience.” — Joseph Konrath) but I think Randall needs to save these kids and a camera crew needs to see him doing it.
The plan was for him to get them out through the main entrance, but Randall has to go back because Jenny was grabbed by a dracula, and their own escape is cut off, forcing the roof plan. But if we can get the kids out with a helicopter on the roof (which then has no room for the others), I can still have Randall chainsawing draculas left and right as he leads the kids to safety, but get us closer to the finale quicker.
Jeff
• • •
Do it, and hells yes, save the kids. Have Randall put them on a helicopter…(so they can be sick and die in peace…love that line)…
Here’s the part of Joe’s outline that I agree with…
“Randall rescues her. Tearful reunion. Then they’re surrounded by draculas. Randall fights off a bunch with his saw, but he’s outnumbered. Gets bitten. Clay comes in with the boom boom, clears the path. Threatens to kill Randall. Jenny won’t let him. They go, with the kids, to the roof because Clay thinks he can flag down the TV helicopter. Along the way they meet up with Adam, Stacie, and the baby. Army shows up. Begins to massacre draculas, causing all of them to flee—running up the stairs. Everyone on the roof. Randall begins to change. He and Jenny express love. Randall becomes a dracula and starts kicking ass.”
After this, I think it changes a little. Let’s have Randall getting the kids on the chopper, along with Stacie’s baby, after she’s killed and Adam wounded (another heartbreaking, scene…Adam saying goodbye to his daughter).
While Randall gets the kids onto the chopper, Clay and Adam go down to the room with the grenades, and we have Adam’s death scene as he takes out a tons of draculas.
Back on the roof, Randall is wounded and dying. Jenny stays with him.
WHAT IS CLAY DOING? HOW DOES THIS END FOR HIM? I’M NOT SURE IF HE’S JUMPING ONTO THE HELICOPTER SKIDS ANYMORE WITH HE ADAM GOING BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.
Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she’s surrounded, the army drops a bomb.
Shanna sees the explosion. Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn’t on it. She weeps. Meets another survivor. Young guy. He’s calm and a bit flirtatious.
DOES CLAY SURVIVE? REUNION WITH SHANNA?
Survivor gets baby. It’s Mort.
Thoughts?
Blake
• • •
Sounds fantastic. And Randall’s chainsaw and screams of “Die, draculas, die!!!” could attract the other survivors, helping to bring our group together.
Jeff
• • •
Real suspense there, Blake — even though I knew he’d survive.
I’m gonna dive back in 1st thing tomorrow.
Paul
• • •
Thanks, Paul, glad it clicked for you…let’s shoot to have the finale set up by say Thursday, and I can then get working on assembling everything we’ve got so far into the manuscript. I think I know what I need to do…Jeff, Paul, can you guys have
your characters (and Jenny) poised for the finale by then? I think I’ve got the biggest part to write, so we’re pretty close already.
Blake
• • •
Clay and Randall/Jenny need to hook up relatively quickly, since otherwise my characters would think to go down to the lobby, not up to the roof. (An intercom message might work, but Randall is holding a loud chainsaw, and Clay wouldn’t know that the draculas can’t understand his message.)
If Paul sets up the idea that Clay is going to the roof, and ends his bit with Clay on the third floor, seeing Randall put his chainsaw through a random dracula, I can take it to wherever Blake wants me to leave off.
As for POV after that, the actual “children in the helicopter” rescue needs to be Randall’s POV, since it’s his big moment of redemption. That scene will end with Clay pointing out that Randall has been bitten.
I think the scene with Clay threatening to shoot him should be Jenny’s POV.
Jeff
• • •
I think we need to bring in some of the characters perhaps seeing lights from the helicopter sweeping across the building, maybe the roadblock out in the parking lot a little earlier…I may try to work that in when I assemble everything.
Blake
• • •
Cell phones work. Clay could call the TV station, have them land the copter.
Joe
* * *
September 15, 2010
Sayonara, Adam.
I added a scene with Shanna in the parking lot with the army and a mysterious Dr. Driscoll. You may or may not like the implication I’m making toward the end of her scene. If not, we’ll cut it. It’s only a few lines.
Paul
• • •
I went in and changed Shanna’s sudden embrace of gunnydom to a refusal to carry one. She was too upset with killing Marge.
I carried some of that over to Adam’s final moments. He realizes none of the people these creatures came from chose to be this way, and so he forgives them before he blows them all to smithereens.
Paul
• • •
Can’t wait to catch up on this, guys. Working on another deadline. Sorry I’ve been out of the loop for a bit.
Blake is going to put this section together, then I’ll go in and add Jenny scenes when needed, including the “say goodbye to Randall” scene and the “don’t shoot Randall” scene, along with her death scene when the army drops the bomb on the hospital, assuming we’re still going that route.
Joe
• • •
nice, can’t wait to read…Paul, I think you can probably dive into your last scene before I merge all the most recent stuff…I’ll set it for you. Clayton and Randall are running up to the roof with Jenny and the kids, and as they pass one long corridor, they hear human screams. Clay says you go on ahead, I’ll meet you up there. Clay runs down the corridor, finds 4 draculas have just about broken through the barricade into the maternity ward (enough so he’ll be able to get in). He smokes them. Runs inside himself. this is what he sees…(where I’ll end the section I’m currently writing):
Adam on the floor of the corridor near the nurses’ station on the verge of being devoured by Oasis, another teen dracula is watching them. she just gave birth to a baby dracula, a huge hole in her stomach where the baby-dracula ate its way out.
Clayton kills those three draculas, saves Adam. Quick down beat, then Nurse Herrick dracula (nice out-of-nowhere scare) attacks and Clay wastes her. Then Clay leads and Adam wheels Stacie (still unconscious and mid-transfusion) out of the maternity ward, with his child (who was in the nursery) in his arm. sound good?
Blake
• • •
Which floor is pediatrics?
Which floor is OB?
Paul
• • •
I kind of like it, especially the idea the army has seen this before…what are you thinking? that this is the last we’ll see of Shanna?
Blake
• • •
OB - 3
Pediatrics - 2
Blake
• • •
Not necessarily. I’m thinking some government agency knows about this virus, and has either been tracking it down or working with their own strain of the thing. They know they can’t let it loose. That’s why they’re so quick to firebomb the building.
I don’t think we have to explain more. If we decide on a sequel, it’s a plot point we can expand or leave in the background. But it hints that this is bigger than we thought. Even Moorecook, who thinks he’s in charge, might be a minor player on this stage.
Paul
• • •
perfect.
I’ll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I’ll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up.
Paul
• • •
I’m all for it.
Blake
• • •
“perfect. I’ll just continue Clay 5.0. Clay is heading down the steps, sees Randall coming up with the kids and Jenny from 2. Takes the rear. I’ll get him onto the 3rd (OB) floor on the way up.”
So Jeff, just get Randall and Jenny and the kids heading up out of pediatrics, and they can run into Clayton.
Blake
• • •
Will do!
Jeff
• • •
Do you guys have scans of your signatures? I think it’d be a nice touch for the title page. If not, no worries.
Blake
• • •
No, but how much trouble can it be to scan one?
Paul
• • •
You’re right. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Jeff
• • •
I’m voting against signature scans.
While in Florida I saw a technology that allowed authors to actually sign ebooks. I expect it to be commonplace in a year or two. To have fake signatures is like those Nora Roberts autopen signed books—it doesn’t add value, plus it ruins the potential for a real signature when the technology arrives.
Joe
• • •
Joe, I’m enrolling you in OA — overthinkers anonymous.
Paul
• • •
I can’t accept that enrollment until I think about it for a while.
Paul
• • •
Okay so it’s 2 in favor of signature scans, 2 opposed.
Now each side submits one representative, and those two fight to death.
The victor will get to make the call.
Blake
• • •
Btw, Paul will be representing the pro-signature side in the death match.
Blake
• • •
I’m starting to add everything into Draculas 2.4 tonight, with the exception of Paul’s Clay and Adam 7.2 and Jeff’s 9.0. Jeff, you’ve got a tiny scene to write to meet up your crew with Clayton, and Paul is just about done as well with having Clayton bust into the maternity ward. I’ll add those final scenes when you guys finish. It’s looking great.
Blake
* * *
September 16, 2010
DRACULAS 2.4 is up…We’re over 63,000 words. I moved our old files into the old folder, and still kept Jeff’s 9.0 and Paul’s Clay, Adam, and Shanna 7.2. It took a little work to put everything together since certain characters cross each others’ paths, but I’m shocked at how well it came together. The rhythm of it seems right on to me. Please go into 2.4 and make sure I haven’t messed up any timelines or anything and that everyone digs the order of scenes.
DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror) Page 52
