Paul
* * *
I'll take the lumberjack, unless Joe or Blake desperately want him.
This sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. Good work, you two. Pat each other on the back...violently.
Jeff
* * *
Mornin' Fellas - I talked with Joe, and I'll take the pregnant couple (my daughter was born just a year ago, so I'm still pretty close to the birthing experience)...Joe will have the nurse/mother dying of cancer.
I wanted to list out some big set pieces Joe and I have talked about:
(1) We imagined this scene where, initially, Moorecook goes into the ER convulsing, and then goes ape-shit and bites everything in sight, essentially killing 3 people and a seeing-eye dog. Hospital staff is freaking out, they put the dead in the refrigerated morgue drawers to isolate them while they wait for the CDC to show up...There's a beat of "whooo, disaster averted, let's call the CDC, and someone on staff at the morgue late at night, suddenly hears four metal doors begin to rattle, and then this awful screaming coming from the drawers, which begin to be kicked out.
(2) A woman undergoing a blood transfusion wakes to see a dracula slurping down the contents of her blood bag
(3) A nurse running in terror, tries to get to the hospital chapel, thinking she'll be saved. 30 draculas flood in, shattering the safe in a church/with a cross myth.
(4) As Joe mentioned, end of book, a 28-year-old we've never seen before is saved...this is Moorecook, who has glutted himself on enough blood to return to this eternally-youthful undead state which was his goal from the beginning...
(5) a blind man who's seeing eye dog has been bitten by Moorecook is trying to find his dog, who is now a dracula dog and turns on him.
(6) a character hears what sounds like gunshots out in the parking lot, looks out the window, sees a pack of draculas going through the parking lot, shredding tires.
(7) I think it'd be funny if either Paul's or Jeff's semi-redneck character always calls these things draculas instead of vampires.
A little about the mentality of the draculas: Of course, they're voracious for blood, b/c on some primal level, they know the more blood they drink, they might return to their previous state. No blood in an hour = death. Imagine they need it like we need oxygen.
In addition to the character ARCS we've all chosen, we each take one of the initial people bitten by Moorecook, so we each have a dracula POV. I'll take Moorecook, Joe wants to take a child, the dog doesn't count...Jeff & Paul let me know what person you want to take and I'll make sure Moorecock bites your guy/gal in the ER...in terms of the dracula POV, I really don't want to say too much about it. It shouldn't be too extensive, but I think we should all at least play around with writing a scene or two from a dracula POV and seeing what we come up with.
I'm going to write the opening, up to the point where everyone can begin their character's arcs...I think when you see what I've done, where I've left it off, it will make sense.
Peace!
Blake
* * *
Paul, you'll do great with the cop/gun nut.
Jeff, the lumberjack is all you. One thing I was thinking about his character is his chainsaw injury is on the back of his leg. And everyone who meets him is like, "How did you cut the back of your leg, dumb ass?" This actually happened to a buddy of mine.
Blake is going to take the pregnant couple. He's also writing the set-up scene. Here's the basic idea:
Once Moorecook is taken to the ER, he goes nuts and bites three people in the waiting room, ripping out their throats. These three are taken to the morgue, put in the meatlocker drawers. CDC is called to come look at a potential outbreak, but they're several hours away.
Then, a morgue attendant hears scratching from one of the drawers. Then two of the drawers. Then three. The scratching turns to pounding. The draculas, oblivious to pain, break and smash their own bodies bursting out of the drawers.
Blake is going to follow Moorecook as a dracula. But Joe, Paul, and Jeff will each follow one of these newly created draculas. So we all get to start our own mini-epidemic in the hospital, however we want.
In other words, we each write for a main POV character, and various secondary characters we create, including one of the draculas who wreaks havoc on our characters. Dracula POV is fine, as long as we agree on the ground rules for the creature's thought processes.
Let Blake and I know the type of dracula you want as your main villain. My dracula will be a twelve year old kid. You need to each pick a bad guy character.
Another note--Moorecook is the alpha male, and retains the most of his intelligence. He's going to destroy the phone junction boxes, and eventually also the electricity in the hopsital.
This is a newer hospital, so it is set up with cell phone jammers, like modern airplanes. No one will be able to use their cell phone.
Paul's cop will be able to use his radio in his car (which is loaded with weapons) but he'll have to get outside in order to do it, and I predict the hospital will fill up with draculas pretty quickly, and these things are HARD to kill.
The hospital is isolated. Ten miles from anything. Once the epidemic starts, it hits fast and hard--no one has time to get away. The only remaining survivors after the initial onslaught are the ones hiding in their rooms. Moorecook also directs some of the other draculas to cruise the hospital parking lot and pop tires on all the vehicles.
A note on how this will work: we all need to turn in pages as we write them. That was, we can cross into each other's stories. One thing we envisioned was the cop had arrested the lumberjack in the past, and when they meet up, they are hostile to one another. They would even begin to fight. This would freak out the cop's girlfriend (the historian) because if either of them spill even a tiny drop of blood--a cut lip, a busted knuckle--the draculas will be able to smell it from another floor and they'll swarm on them.
I've got two books to write by July 6. But I will have time in June to start cranking on this. Worst case scenario, I'll bat clean-up, and weave my story into the three that you guys do.
Blake is taking the lead on this one. When we've got a rough draft, we'll all have a chance to streamline and edit and expand.
Joe
* * *
(Virtual rubbing of hands) This is going to be FUUUUUUUUN!
Paul
* * *
Paul - what's your gun toter's name?
Blake
* * *
Joe - give a call when you gave a moment. I have a question about our mythology (and also an idea).
Blake
* * *
I didn't have the historian/forensic anthropologist get into the mythology of dracula in the opening chapter because I think it slow things down too much...there will time for her to wax eloquent about the myth and what exactly she's doing for Mortimer in a breather between terrifying scenes in the hospital.
Blake
* * *
Nicely done! Great start. I'm going to make it a tad bit more serious (An edge of black humor is good, but I don't want anyone to think this is parody or comedy), then do Shanna's section.
Can you sign in to Dropbox.com, make a DRACULAS folder, then send invites to me, Paul, and Jeff and explain to them how it works? Then I'll drop the file in.
Make four Word Doc templates titled BLAKE, JOE, JEFF, PAUL and put those in the folder. That way we can all work on our sections at the same time.
Joe
* * *
LOL, I just created a Draculas folder. Did you create one as well?
Did the second chapter. Third chapter is mine, in the hospice nurse's POV. She'll be the ex wife of the lumberjack.
This is gonna rock.
Joe
* * *
Great edits to my opening, btw.
Blake
* * *
Thanks. Jenny is going to go into the ER, and call Randall, her lumberjack ex-husband who is recovering from a chainsaw injury. During the call, Moorecook will escape
the gurney and bite several people to death before being restrained.
Then everyone will do their character intro chapters. Then we do the morgue scene where the draculas come to life. Then we're off...
Joe
* * *
May 9, 2010
How does Clayton Theel sound?
Paul
* * *
So you'll write the Moorecook losing his shit scene from Jenny's POV in the ER? Cool. I'll write the morgue scene.
Blake
* * *
All - so Paul's cop character is Clayton Theel (great name)...I think we called the lumberjack Randall for now, unless Jeff wants to change him to something else. Clayton's girlfriend is Shanna, the historian/anthropologist. Jenny, hospice nurse, is the lumberjack's ex.
Jeff and Paul, all we need to complete the setup is a brief description of your character who comes into the ER and gets themselves bitten by Mortimer Moorecook. Maybe mention what ailment brought them to the ER. This will be your Dracula you get to reek havoc with, so go nuts.
Blake
* * *
Howzabout I use the ER doc Kurt Lanz, MD ("No, not 'Kurt' -- Doctor Lanz.") on duty who thinks he's hot shit and too good for this lame community hospital and all these hicks he's got to deal with? When he first changes he's sure he can control the blood thirst because he's a superior being, but he's so wrong. And then he gets into it.
I'd also like to add to Shanna's POV in 2 that she's going to break it off with Clay before the gun show - she can't take another gun show.
Paul
* * *
I love it, Paul. I don't know if I can do this in my Moorecook dracula POV (because he's higher-functioning than the people he infects) but I dig the idea of showing, through a dracula POV, the mental crumbling as these intelligent adults begin to lose their high cognitive functioning abilities.
Blake
* * *
That works for me, Paul.
We need to figure out if draculas die like zombies, then mutate into monsters, or if they only mutate when they get bitten and survive.
Joe
* * *
I have an answer to my own question.
If someone is bitten and lives, they become a dracula. Not as drastically as Moorecook did (he was bitten by the source, which is more virulent), but they mutate over the course of half an hour, losing their mental facilities as they change.
Those who are killed by draculas also come back to life if there is enough of them still intact and they still have enough blood left. Maybe an hour time frame to reanimate the dead tissue.
This way, we can follow certain characters becoming draculas, and also have a surprise morgue scene where the dead also become draculas, adding to the outbreak.
Joe
* * *
Just read your additions, Paul. Expertly done, you tying together four main characters, and amusing as well.
This is gonna kick ass.
Joe
* * *
Randall sounds good for my lumberjack (and I'll make him responsible for calling them "draculas" instead of "vampires.")
My dracula is Benny, a children's performer clown whose magic show was poorly received by the birthday boy. Randall and Benny bond over the embarrassing nature of their injuries.
Since Joe is mean and impatient, I'll say upfront that I won't be able to start writing until the 17th, but I'll launch right into it like a maniac after that!
Jeff
* * *
Dracula clown. Awesome. I'll put Benny and Dr. Kurt in the massacre scene. I should be able to knock that out in a day or two.
I won't be able to go full-force on this until June. So if Blake and Paul want to get going, go for it. Just keep me and Jeff in the loop.
Joe
* * *
Ditto...super-cool, Paul. Can't wait to see what toys Clay brings to the party.
Blake
* * *
Joe's also a selfish lover, let's not forget that.
A dracula clown? I'm scared of normal clowns. That's awesome!
Blake
* * *
Joe - when you get the ER massacre done, I'll work on the morgue and maybe we can have the setup done in a few days...I'm working on a couple other projects, but I should be able to get a little of this in every day. Helps that it's a blast to write.
Blake
* * *
Jeff, please use my favorite line about clowns. The birthday boy said, "That's not a clown! That's just some guy dressed up like a clown!"
Paul
* * *
That may very well be the best line of all time...
Jeff
* * *
May 10, 2010
I think my characters will be Adam and Stacie Murray. Stacie's in the hospital to be induced for her first pregnancy - twins. They're sort of a young, gentle, bright-eyed couple. Around 30. Stacie is a high-school English teacher on maternity leave and Adam is a Lutheran minister. He's been in Durango about 5 years, and recently took over a church. Sometimes he serves as the hospital chaplain. He knows Randall and Clayton. Maybe he's even tried to help Randall in the past when he's gone on a drunken tear. I do like the idea a lot that this is a small town, and all these characters not only know each other, but have history.
Blake
* * *
He'll be very disappointed when crosses don't work.
Paul
* * *
Yeah, I'm sensing a crisis of faith coming...
Blake
* * *
May 12, 2010
...Deputy Theel will be bringing to the party: http://world.guns.ru/grenade/gl15-e.htm
It's going to be loaded with his custom 40mm Beehive rounds filled with 00buck. So we're going to need LOTS of draculas. Be great to have a situation where one of your characters is facing absolutely hopeless odd and then there's this horrendous racket and the draculas' heads are being shredded...and Clay rounds a corner with this baby.
Of course he's eventually going to run out of ammo.
Paul
* * *
Nice.
He should have one of these too.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/78284/automatic_shotgun/
Joe
* * *
The famous "streetsweeper."
Paul
* * *
Well, my priest has a can of really intense mace from his wife's purse. Take that, vampire!
Blake
* * *
May 31, 2010
I'm thinking we need a throughline. You know, a progression of story beats for the big picture -- how it's gonna go. Or maybe just a timeline so that we know what's going on with the big picture and we can plug into that.
What's the time span of the novel? 4 hours? 5? 6?
For instance...(this is just placeholder stuff):
Hour 1: carnage in the ER
Hour 2: the first victims change and begin to attack; no one aware of he threat except new victims
Hour 3: 20 Draculas now and rising - panic spreads; tires slashed; phones dead (how do we kill cells?)
See where I'm going? It will save a lot of editing and rewriting later if we're all on the same page re the timing.
Paul
* * *
Agreed.
I'm still cranking on deadlines, but hope to get started on this soon--perhaps July?
Joe
* * *
June 11, 2010
Blake is visiting me for a few days in July. We're going to hammer out the timeline and first attack scene, then everyone can get rolling on their story arcs.
Joe
* * *
Poor, poor Blake.
Draculas Page 44
