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A Hump of Green Crabgrass

Day 444

One of the sadder and likely unnoticed bit of community missing from Suburbia is the alley. Two grey gravel ruts divided by a hump of green crabgrass and punctuated with muddy-water puddles that know all your backyard secrets would do more to melt the plastic neighborhood than any number of rec-centers.

Streetside you prune bushes and mow lawns and paint trim. You primp marigolds and hang wreaths and put numbers on your mailbox with gold-on-black stickers from the hardware store over there a ways. The street is your lying face that says, “We’re all fine in here. Nothing to worry about. We’re just like you are over there.”

The alley whispers that you’re never gonna take the tarp off that motorcycle. That you get dirty, sweaty, and red-faced when you plant tomatoes. That you don’t like trimming after you mow. That you drink beer in your kids’ plastic pool in your underwear in July. The alley is your truthful backside that says, “We’re all fine in here. Nothing to worry about. We’re just like you are over there.”

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A Wiser Authorial Voice

Day 443

Where do the last several days of work leave me? I’ve never created this many real pieces of a story. So I’m not certain what happens next.

I’m going to resist the urge to throw down and try some writing. This wiser authorial voice tells me my pile of scattered scenes needs to be riffled and tapped into a crisp deck for proper dealing. I’m going to first finish the scene fattening. Then I’ll return to the book on story structure I bought and match up the scenes to the structure that book advises. I expect I’ll come up both short and long and wrong, but I’ll be closer than I have been before. It’s not hard to add or remove or improve. (sorry)

However, none of that qualifies for writing on 1000 Days.

Dammit. So close.

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Thirteen More Scenes Go Off Their Diet

Day 442

Yes. I coulda did this Saturday or Sunday. I didn’t.

  1. [snip]
  2. Malachi gathering help to battle dragon – Pretending I didn’t have a slightly better version of this below, I’ll say that I don’t know what I had in mind here at all. I do think that taking a dragon down requires help in the form of enginuity and strength. In stories it’s one guy that does the deed, but those stories are always in other stories and always in the past. I’m familiar with very little first-hand dragon slaying.
  3. Finding out if dragon is metaphor or literal-ish – When I concocted the logline I wrote dragon so that it would sound menacing and immenant. In my original thinking I just had another mage. Also, this isn’t really a scene. But maybe the dragon is able to transform into a human. Being able to would facilitate a number of plot elements that involved disguise or just plain getting around town.
  4. Daughter having complications – Nothing special hear I suppose. Once I work out the nature and source of her conditional I’ll need to worsen it to increase the tension and the pace. I’ll have to wait to determine if the complication will be merely a heavy beat of the clock reminding us she’s still out there needing help or if it will be some outside influence jamming the dial closer tot he bell. The first option might do well as an environmental element inserted frequently along the way where the later could be a real plot point.
  5. Dragon directly threatening daughter – Taled about this earlier int he sense that the dragon may be the source of her condition. If not, I’d like to demonstrate the dragon actively attacking Malachi’s reason to hunting it down i the first place. The dragon is going to be doing all it can to win as well. It will even be doing it from a place of preparation not from a place of desperation like Malachi.
  6. Mentor divulging secret to unraveling magic – this probaby needs to be done twice. Once in the safety of the mage confines—where disguised dragon might overhear parts—and a second time to the dragon under duress. The first sets the stage for the whole thing the later really drives the screws home with Malachi’s agenda. The unraveling will need to be something substantial. Something the dragon could learn about and then have to setup. Unraveling can’t be just pulling a trigger unless Malachi is able to reverse it. Or unless Malachi isn’t looking to stop the dragon but to thwart him via reversal.
  7. Escaped Malachi hounded by police – Malachi simply cannot get out of prison without police hunting him down afterward. This may be the hardest part of what I have to do. Not making their involvement to flat or too round.
  8. Malachi committing crime – Flashback or dialogue but probably not real time. I’m thinking I’d rather not have this be a dubious sort of crime where the reader sees that Malachi was truly serving justice. TO keep Malachi gritty I think this needs to be a straightup crime type crime. But not too crimey.
  9. Malachi being sentenced – Meh. Drop this.
  10. Malachi chatting with lawyer – You can see I was getting repetative and desperate at this point in my list. This could certainly come to play in the normal course of events but it may be fine as part of a propelling dialogue as well. “I talked to my lawyer and he said…”
  11. Mentor teaching Malachi – These guys need to have some interaction prior to the big events of the story transpiring. And potentially prior to his mentor’s degrading condition. I’ll need to learn up on Alzheimer’s and maybe use some magic to make him lucid as needed. Maybe not teaching but talking about his illness prior to Malachi being imprisoned. “When you get out, I’ll be gone…” Maybe the Mentor prepares for this somehow.
  12. Dragon attacking police chasing Malachi – This was in the movie scene thinking. Using it still works for a book of course, but I like the idea of our scrappy hero trapped between trying to hunt the dragon while bhimself being hunted by the police. Since the dragon wont care who gets killed all that much it will attack both with impunity.
  13. Malachi convincing police to help him battle dragon – Which naturally makes it easier for Malachi to enlist the aide of the police in hunting down the dragon. Let’s work together to kill the dragon then we can work out our issues with my escape. Plus this feels scrappy.
  14. Dragon beginning the process to unravel magic – I can’t decide if unraveling magic should be facile or laborious. If it’s laborious then it could become part of the plotting of the dragon. If its facile then it could contribute well to the tension of the last part of the story.
  15. Malachi discovering that unraveling magic will do more that threaten just his daughters life – FATTEN
  16. Discovering why/how magic supports his daughters continued life – FATTEN
  17. Dragon capturing mentor – FATTEN
  18. Mentor in captivity – FATTEN
  19. Malachi communicating with mentor somehow – FATTEN
  20. Prisonyard brawl to characterize Malachi – FATTEN

Time ran out before I addressed the last five.  I’ll look for time before the end of the day.  I want to be done with this exercise before tomorrow.