Also, I have a friend who’s essentially a lumberjack, but he gets real upset if you call him that. “He’s an arborist. He doesn’t just cut trees down. It’s art.” Maybe there’s some comic gold there.
Blake
• • •
I love having the chainsaw taken out of the equation so quickly after all the buildup and never used for its intended purpose. Horror fans have already had their share of chainsaw mayhem. We’ve got a whole hospital full of ways to kill draculas!
Jeff
• • •
Oh, that wasn’t supposed to be Mortimer. Just a random dracula. I’ll add some sort of distinguishing characteristic to make that clear.
Jeff
• • •
In theory, the hospital could have some landscaping supplies in the basement. After being robbed of his chainsaw moment early on, Randall could find one near the end of the book and finally get his chance to go wild.
Jeff
• • •
Blake and I thought up the idea of a lumberjack so he’d have a truck full of toys to play with. Or else, why use him as a character?
Just spoke to Blake. We like it running out of gas. But it probably wouldn’t break, even if used to bash in a skull. Those saws are made really tough.
How about Randall holds onto it, refusing to let it go, even though it is out of gas? Then he could finally find some gas and let loose. It would be funny, stubborn, and oddly poignant that he won’t give up something he’s attached to—a metaphor for his relationship with Jenny.
Or else he has more saws and axes in his truck.
Either way, we’d really like this guy to be armed with the tools of his trade, even if he can’t use them until later.
Joe
• • •
Here’s the morgue scene.
Joe
• • •
Standing ovation…fucking killer scene.
Blake
• • •
On reflection, I think you should write something in Oasis’ POV. Equate blood to candy for her. Could even show her throwing a tantrum b/c she wants it and she doesn’t have it. Maybe it doesn’t occur to her right away that she might be able to kill people to get it. They’re adults and on some level she still thinks of them like that. Maybe she attacks someone and gets the shit beat out of her. Then realizes she needs to go where the kiddies and the babies are.
Blake
• • •
Nice. Maybe u should write the scene.
Joe
• • •
I will, but you have to help me with Mortimer later on. So now, just write the Jenny scene, and we should have it ready to go.
Blake
• • •
I’ve added a very quick scene with Benny the Clown to the end of Chapter 7. But I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to mess with Blake’s file, so I’ve saved the chapter in my own folder as BENNY 1.0.
Jeff
• • •
You totally could have put in that file, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll merge everything into the main file soon. We’re closing in on 15K words, boys!
Blake
• • •
Brilliant…favorite moment: he hopes the security camera catches him wiping the gore off his face. Also love the utility belt. I love this guy.
Blake
• • •
Pitch-perfect
Blake
• • •
It’s in the dropbox now, and is the complete manuscript with all our work to present. I need to write an Oasis scene, Joe needs to write a Jenny scene, and Paul needs to write a Shanna scene, and then we really have the 1st 1/4 of the book done. If anyone wants to revamp any of their stuff, please do it in the Draculas 1.4 full manuscript I’d like to get that finalized, and then we can turn our attention to our individual character arcs.
Goodnight!
Blake
August 21, 2010
I’m actually working on DRACULAS 1.5, adding the Jenny scene. No one touch it until it’s live in about an hour, then we can take turns doing rewrites. Jeff first, then Paul, then Blake. Each rewrite, make a new number: 1.6, 1.7, etc.
I took out the chapter numbers, as Blake and I originally intended—this thing is meant to read without stops. Also, HOUR 1 was replaced with HOUR ZERO and we go from there, but I’m not sure these headings are needed either. We’ll keep them for the moment.
Joe
• • •
But we’re going to keep chapter numbers while we’re working, right? Just to keep straight the order of events.
Paul
• • •
Sure, we can keep chapters in out individual scenes. I just removed them in the main compiled document. As a result, it reads quicker, more unrelenting.
But as we write them in our folders, chapters are fine.
Joe
• • •
Yeah, let’s keep the hours and character headings for now. I certainly need them to help keep my story straight and it’s a good way to scan. Maybe the last thing we’ll do is remove them, but we should probably think hard before doing that.
Blake
• • •
When we’ve all finished our main character arcs, we’ll have to decide how and if to splice them together in the main document. My initial thought would be to interweave them, breaking at cliffhanging moments. What will be really cool, is we can release an alternate version of the novel (an extra) where POVs are held together through the end. So you can read Moorecook straight through, then Lanz, then Randall, then Jenny, etc.
Blake
• • •
Okay, we’ve got 1.5 in the Dropbox.
Paul, we need a Shanna scene from you. Blake is doing an Oasis scene. Then we’re done with the first quarter of the book, and can start Hour Two.
Jeff, your first scene is Randall’s POV, going with Jenny to pediatrics, then leaving her to go after Moorecook. Randall will also be looking for gasoline for his chainsaw, and to turn on the generator when the electricity goes out. Enemies will be random draculas and Moorecook in particular.
Paul, your first scene is Clayton arriving, looking for Shanna. They’ll be seeking each other out, and Clayton will be trying to control the situation and get outside reinforcements, while they work out their relationship problems. Their main antagonist will be Lanz in particular.
My story arc will start with Jenny defending pediatrics against the draculas, Benny in particular.
Blake’s story arc will be his pregnant couple, defending against Oasis in particular, while going through labor.
If we can each do about 7,000 words within our arcs, then we can bring them all together for the final showdown during the last quarter of the book.
After the Shanna and Oasis scenes, we’ll all go back to our separate folders.
Does this work for everyone?
Joe
• • •
We should probably each have a specific number of chapters to write in our separate arcs (4?) so that when the story is pieced together we can just go A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D.
Jeff
• • •
That depends on the length of each arc, and what’s happening in the rest of the story. It doesn’t have to be so strict with trading POVs.
As long as we all write fast-paced, short sections (a few pages each) with cliffhanger-type endings, we can pretty much cut and paste and make it work in a number of different ways. This really won’t be hard to put together. We got 15k words already, and they meshed seamlessly without too much forethought.