A Boy and his Drawer

Story outline - WaW

The story I’ve been playing with recently - The Whisperer and the Wanderer - doesn’t yet have an outline that I’m totally comfortable with.  

One definite thing I like is to have the story jump through time, back and forth a bit - showing the old days, with Marco as a boy and Theos his master, Theos’ journey with his squad, looking for Morova, then Theos alone, then Marco and his squad.  This will be good to show the parallels between the two groups, and what drives these people.

Here’s a stab at a possible sequence of (at least) the first few chapters…

1.  Sir Theos returns to the Abbey, his squad dead, and he very nearly.

2.  Marco is watching over Theos, and we learn about the Abbey, and Theos’ mission. 

3.  The decision is made for Theos to leave with his squad to find Morova.

4. Theos leaves with his squad to hunt Morova.

5.  Theos recovering.

6.  Theos and his disciplined band of heroes on the hunt.  We learn much about the ways of the Witch Queen and her secrets.

7.  Theos is recovered, and he, Marco and the Abbott discuss possible further action.

8.  One of Theos’ band is killed.  They are devastated.

9.  It is decided - in a month they will have gathered enough paladins and healer priests to send out a large legion to find and destroy Morova.

10.  Theos and his band encounter Morova and her minions again.  We learn possibly that Theos is unaffected by her whispering powers.

11.  The night the decision to wait a month, Theos leaves in the middle of the night.  Marco, in the rookery, sees him leave.

12.  There cannot be any delay - they must find Theos!  The small group left behind - Brun the ruffian, Bella the tomboy, Jeruh the healer, Lady Derianel the representative a darker order, and Marco the untested leader, must leave the abbey and find Theos.

13.  Theos is half a day away when Marco’s band leaves.  He took two horses - one he would ride until she couldn’t, then switch to the one he lead, leaving the tired horse in the wilds.  He is a man hellbent on finding his quarry.

14.  For the first time, at the end of a large section (Book 1, etc.) we see through the eyes of Morova, learn her motivations, understand her quest.  

That’s a great start I think!

OK - see you on WeBook!

Oddbody and Marco’s Story

I’m going to start working on a live comedy/variety show in the very near future that I will inevitably have to bring here.  It will be called Dr. Oddbody’s Phantasmagorium and be crazy stew of music, theatre and comedy all with a horror theme.

On the subway I got inspired.  Here’s a tiny snippet of Marco’s story from my project The Whisperer and the Wanderer…

“When Marco was little he was an orphan, at least that what they thought.  In truth his parents left him at the door of the abbey late one night and he has lived there ever since.  He lived, like other children, in and among the stables and kitchen and worked and learned from a very early age.

When he was old enough to join the Brotherhood one of the trainers, Theos (he was Brother Theos then, not yet a High Crusader and yet to earn the title “Sir”) he refused Marco’s admission.  Time and again boys and girls would submit to the trials and get taken, but never Marco.  The sickly boy Jurn, the slow boy with the one bad eye Kevin, Brenna, the wee girl who was teased by the older children because of her red, red hair and freckles, they were all taken before Marco.  

Marco was nearly too old to submit for the trials, and as soon as Theos saw him he put a dismissive hand up and waved him away.  The boy was filled with fury, tears welling, heart pounding.  

Outside the Abbey walls, Marco and Theos encounter each other.  Marco asks him directly “Why don’t you take me?”  Theos simply chuckles, cruelly, and turns away.  Marco explodes, running at Theos and tackling him.  He clawed and roared at Theos.  With one careful blow he knocks Marco onto his back.

Marco awakens in his bunk, with a rough wooden practice sword and a small rusted buckler wrapped in an acolyte’s tunic.”

Starting a new “thing”…

I found a site called WEbook where it gives you tools to start writing your work.  

I’m definitely going to keep this blog and ustilize WEbook for the actual presentation.  

http://www.webook.com/project/The-Whisperer-and-The-Wanderer

Excellent! 

More projects brewing…

The Whisperer and the Wanderer - The origins of this project are strange but it’s actually one of the simplest stories to understand.  I played World of Warcraft for most of 2007, to the exclusion of most other activities.  I really got into the story parts - not the quest stories necessarily but the journey my character was on.  As I wandered the streets of Manhattan on my day to day travels I would imagine a WoW movie and beautiful, dramatic scenes that would capture the grittiness of that world.  I had this idea about an undead witch-queen who controlled people with her mind - whispering orders to them.  I wrote some notes (more on that in the future) but that was it.  

In March a group of friends started a D&D game.  I haven’t played in years!  I was so excited to roll the dice and see the action in my head again.  So fun.  I chose a paladin and wrote out a little bit of background.  I showed it to my DM and he loved it.  I fleshed it out and it turned into a story of an aging paladin on a quest to find this evil witch-queen - and his students who must find him.  

This project is really close to my heart and while it seems like merely a fun project it will likely be the first thing I dive into once I get myself organized. 

A short list of things I’m working on

Dusk - a dark fantasy/horror screenplay

Doctor Moon - a “screenplay” (web series?) based solely on a dream.  One night I had a dream that I was watching a preview of a new TV show about a Medieval doctor who had to descend into the Plague-filled depths of poverty to seek revenge against the nobles who wronged him.  There were supernatural elements to it; there was a scene, just a quick cut, of the doctor slinking back into the shadows with glowing eyes.  I know - this was a dream, straight up!

The Wolves of Mars - a fantasy/adventure screenplay in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter stories.  It doesn’t take place on Mars; The Wolves are a troupe of Roman gladiators who are kidnapped to fight on another world.  A new film recently announced, Arena, looks to be almost exactly like my (admittedly unoriginal) idea.  But hell!  It could be fun!

Dust Against the Sun - This is a the web series I have four large plastic bins full of set dressing for.

More to come. 

What this is

While doing some spring cleaning I tore into a huge pile of books, notes and old writings.  I separated everything into neat piles with these little 3x5 card labels - “Short Stories” and “Screenplays” and the like.  I separated all of the notes and pages of writing from all of the notebooks - some had a half page, some three scrawled pages, some more.  I was left with a modest stack of “stuff” - the dreams and ideas I walk around with on a daily basis.  And the rest, a mighty stack of unused notebooks - a sad testament to my, what should I call it - resistance?  Fear?  I hate the word “lazy” - I don’t think I’m lazy, I’m just opinionated about my free time.  

See, I should really start at the beginning, 30 years ago.  I received a typewriter from my grandparents, and someone said “You should be a writer” - I guess I must have had an active imagination.  So I dutifully fed paper into the little white plastic typewriter and proceeded to type out a Snoopy book.  Not write it, but type it, word for word, the little book opened next to the typewriter and me transposing every word.  Writing got into my head and my heart like religion or sex or the dogma that all fats are bad for you.  

So then years later I wrote pieces of stories in my daily English journal in high school and told people I was a writer - but I could never seal the deal on a story.  I went to college for English and thought about writing, but never really did it.  I wrote the first chapter to a dozen science fiction novels but no more.  After college I got into comedy, so I wrote some sketches. The only things I ever finished were things I had to because of deadlines; set a date for the show and it damn well better get written before hand.  

Over the years, especially recently, I’v had a thousand ideas and I’ve put more things on paper than I have in the past.  But nothing solid, nothing real, nothing even close to finished.  

In January of 2008 I had this idea - I would create a science fiction web series about the crew of a starship at the center of a galactic drama.  A Tiny Epic Space Opera.  Write it, produce it,  direct it, the whole nine.  I ran around town garbage picking vacuum cleaners to be used as laser cannons and old snowsuits from the thrift store to become space suits.  The story is in my head, and damn if I wasn’t writing it!  I had a very solid outline, probably ready to start writing the actual script.  Then January was over, and something clicked and the project went away.  The energy and enthusiasm I had was palpable - people around me knew something was up but what was it?  What’s he got going on?  I was energized by my idea, my dream.  Then it got shut off.  No real reason.  Maybe I did bite off more than I could chew, sure, but it starts with a script.  Why couldn’t I have just kept at it?  

This blog will be a repository for all of my writing - my screenplays and short stories and novels and everything.  I’m going to hopefully put it together here, in a forum for people to read and give me either encouragement or constructive criticism.  

This is might be a gimmick that gets me off my duff.  This might fail miserably and you’ll see the next post in three months.  But I owe it to these notes, fragments, dreams and worlds to be brought to life.

Here we go.