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Sinister – A Deleted Scene

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CONFESSION: I’m a reformed pantster turned diligent story-plotter. I used to mock writers who preached structure, story engineering or – even worse – story architecture. I resisted planning a story for a lot of good reasons;

  1. It wasn’t artistic
  2. It seemed like cheating
  3. It didn’t sound fun
  4. It ruined the surprise of finding out what happened…

I was sure, too, that writing from an outline, beat sheet or other story planning tool would kill all spontaneity and turn out to be a detriment. None of this was true.

A story-outline is just a guide, a way of seeing the story’s elements come together from a 30,000 foot view. One still has to launch the airplane, fly it in the right direction, lower the landing gear at the right time and bring it down without turning it into a big ball of fire. Therefore, story planning inherently allows for a good deal of spontaneous change. Case in point – the events leading up to Sinister’s mid-point in the outline were much different than what actually happened.

In the outline, Anthony and Garren had a fist fight, Tory was cuaght in the middle of it. Then the boys made up, Tory divulged information and Garren faced the monster in the mirror. It didn’t work. Act II seemed long enough and the information within those planned scenes had already been disclosed. Here’s one of the scenes. Tell me if you agree:

 Deleted Scene – “Don’t Tell…”

Garren asked, “Is Tory okay?”

“She’ll be fine.”

“Good,” he said. “I want you to know that I’m sorry about earlier. I would never want to hurt you, I mean… I’m just really sorry, man.”

Looking at him made me think about the month I’d spent suffering through mono. His skin had the pale clamminess of a sick person.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Just tired,” he said. “You can get out of here.”

I thought about pulling his shoes off and folding the blanket over him. Big brothers did such things. I hesitated and the moment slipped by. I turned to leave.

“Hey, man, listen,” he said. “When we’re famous, don’t tell anybody what a douche bag loser I was in high school. Okay? Promise me that you won’t tell anybody.”

“You were never a loser,” I said.

“Just a weird-o?”

The sick boy with devilish red hair was my Garren, the best friend I’d always known. I nodded and fake ducked like he was throwing punches at me again.

“I’ll tell people you were a misunderstood rebel.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that will sound bad ass. You’re still my good buddy.”

“I know.”

“Again, I’m really sorry about -.”

“Don’t worry about it. Friends fight.”

I waved back in thanks and headed into the hall, walking fast. I took the stairs two at a time, walked through the dark store. I locked the front door and almost trotted to my car – rushing to Tory…

Your thoughts? Would the mid-point have been stronger with a fight and this make-up scene included? Or was it just beating the reader over the head? Thanks for your reading time – watch out for haunted guitars. LL

 

 

Quest of the Horror Writer

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I like that title. It’s much better than New Year’s Goals or even This is the Stuff I’m Gonna Do, Damnit! In any case, this blog is about goals for 2012. Be warned, however, there’s a catch.

The theme of 2012 is:

 Get a Writer’s Life

That said, the goals are:

  1. Complete Sinister’s online draft and begin revisions. I’m working on a realistic timeline for the project.
  2. Complete and publish Skin and Bones, a 1950s era horror story, for Amazon Kindle.
  3. Reboot the Eric Wirth series with novel one, Where the Monsters Live. (Eric Wirth is the POV character from The Things We Crave, a book that’s no longer available.)
  4. Kick Ghastly’s ass when he deserves it and give him wine when he’s well behaved and helpful.

Now here’s the catch. You’re going to Get a Writer’s Life, too – if you want it.

I’m blessed to be in the company of other writers. You know who you are. At this time, I’d like you to comment and tell me just one of your writing goals for 2012. You’ll be glad you did because we’ll find ways to support each other in achieving it. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ll inspire one another to greatness. Are you with me?

Here’s to the best writing year of our lives! LL

 

 

Happy New Year

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Happy New Year!

I hope 2012 is off to a good start for you.

Sinister’s warrior phase begins now with Chapter 52 now live. Hit this link to go straight to the scary story online and skip all this stuff. About Sinister; I honestly thought I’d be done with this horror story by now. The novel’s planned, after all. The outline is longer than any short story I’ve ever written and complex. Well, this ex-pantser considers it complex anyway. Given the extensive outline and preplanning phase, I really thought I’d be able to knock out a chapter every couple of days. This is not the case. Sometimes it takes twenty pages of crap to carve out a decent, three page Sinister chapter. Oh, well, I’m just happy I’m not writing this organically.

On that note, one of the things I want to blog about in 2012 is story engineering in general and structure in particular. I’m blessed to have a bunch of writers here and I think we can all come together to explore these things. I’m not an expert, mind you. I’m still learning the mysterious craft. I’d like to share the knowledge I’ve gained and hear your thoughts on the theories and ideas I’ve formed so far. Is this something you’re interested in? Would you like to read a blog about the structure of, say, Lord of the Flies? Or would that suck?

Let me know – more to come on this in a bit. Peace and Wicked Dreams, LL

 

 

The Organized Horror Writer

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I’m psyched for 2012 and, in preparation, I’m organizing. Hate to admit it, but my works-in-progress look like piles of clutter. This strikes me as odd because I would never allow a work-related project to go unorganized and I should give the horror stories, their characters and notes the same respect and attention. I want to be a professional, bad ass horror story writer, after all. So a quick trip to Staples and we go from this:

 To this:

The new notebook, dubbed the Idea Catcher, makes me feel better already.

The hyperlinks to Sinister’s chapters are coming along, as well. Act II is complete and Act I is underway. On that note, I’m considering a change:

Right now, the four parts* are titled:

  1. Boys
  2. Girls
  3. God
  4. The Devil

I’m thinking of changing them to:

  1. Boys
  2. Girls
  3. Angels
  4. Devils

I’m not sure why this seems critical at 1:40 AM, but it is. Your thoughts, please? Thank you. I’m looking forward to your comments.

*Novels are written in parts. Screenplays are written in acts. I call my novel’s parts acts and it’s a bad habit. That’s just an FYI for anyone who wants to know about such matters, not that Goblins will eat you or anything like that. Well, no Goblins that I know of, that is…

 

The Scary Story Continues, Chapter 50 and 51 Now Live

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A few days ago I was totally content about Sinister – Chapter 50. The next morning I realized it sucked. This mysterious act of writing is full of treachery sometimes, just like a good horror story. Or maybe Ghastly was about, whispering false praise? In any case, all a little scribe can do is sit back, close his eyes and see the scene, hear its noises and dialogues, smell its air and feel its emotion. The notes from that session are below. Not everything made it in. But Sinister – Chapter 50, a version I can live with, is now live.

Sinister – Chapter 51 is live, too. It’s the beginning of the mid-point, the point where the monster is unveiled. The hero doesn’t see him. It’s still too soon. That’s the glory of the mid-point. It raises the stakes, increases the danger, signals the greater tension of the Warrior phase. I hope you like it. (Who am I kidding? I hope you freaking love it and demand that I write the rest of it faster!)

More to come. Thank you for hanging out with me and these horror stories. You’re the biggest – and best – reason I do this. LL

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