Releasing Your Children to the Wild

I have two rules when dealing with the Internet:

1. Never read the comments
2. Always read the comments

To help clarify the above list of rules, understand that the first thing a writer should write is a thick skin, because when you release your children into the Wild, sometimes the Wild bites back.
And then sometimes the Wild is friendly, encouraging, engaging and supportive.

Great read. Totally believable

I have been bringing two serialed stories to the public over the past month, releasing on Saturday with the hashtag #saturdayscenes.

I have a feeling I will like Captain William Brown.

The comments peppered here are from the release of the second chapter of the science-fiction Last Flight of the King IV this past weeekend.

Nice scene and a great story.

As you can see this is a nice ego-boost; validation to what I am posting.

Good portrayal of how absurd military ritual can seem if you aren’t thinking about the reasons for it.

That’s not to say there aren’t criticisms. From the first chapter I received:

I liked this very much, though the very first paragraph didn’t grab me. (It felt a little superfluous?) Good dialogue.

and

The beginning phrase was awkward, but the rest of the story was quite interesting.

and

Good stuff in that first paragraph, but too much, too soon. Take some of it and mix it in with his thoughts as he talks to the reporter. Great start and I love the dialogue.

If you were following the first chapter, and took note of the edits I made, you would see some of the changes. It was an extensive re-write on the first two paragraphs.

But would he be using a watch with hands? In the future?

This comment made me smile, affirming that I was on the right path. Yes, it is a science-fiction, and yes it takes place in the future…but I’m not going to describe something unless it will move the story forward, if not immediatly, then shortly there after. This comment told me that people are not only reading, but engrossed in the scene, and thinking about what has been written.

Next weeks #saturdayscenes will be chapter 2 of Madness and the Kaiserhorde, a romance novel full of WWI bi-planes, artillery, and something resembling zombies.

Last Flight of the King IV can be found here.
Madness and the Kaiserhorde over here.


Internet comments are not always roses and sunshine. Sometimes it is nothing but thorns. I was involved in a media post where I decided on some random day to read the comments. It pushed me into levels of depression I hadn't felt since high school. I spent hours wondering how I could counter, hide or respond to the vitriol...but in the end I just never went back.

I can not stress this enough: Hope for the best / Prepare for the worst. Be prepared to meet an onslaught of short-minded people who find their own pleasure in attempting to destroy others. Have a plan in place because when they hit, they hit hard and fast.

The Process

Last year I mentioned at a writers group meeting that I was thinking about penning a science fiction piece. I told the group there would be no lasers, explosions, love interests or any of the other plot devices common in the troupe. One of the members squawked saying it would be something to the effect as, “the most boring read ever.”
Challenge accepted.
What I have detailed here is how I have been developing this work-in-progress and promoting it for readership. I also added narrative notes for the reader if they were interested in my thought process.

Promotion

In terms of social networks, I spend a good deal of time in Google Plus. One of the communities I partake in is called Saturday Scenes, where writers, every Saturday, post scenes, chapters, whatever they like to the public stream with the hashtag #saturdayscenes. I also post to Twitter with the #amwriting to help drive even further possible traffic. Upwards of 60 writers post, share and seek an audience by working together. It is a grand experiment full of rather nice people, good writers and a chunk of fun. Yes, a chunk.
In the past I posted several short stories that received very nice reviews and shares by other writers; enough for me to try something new. A serial story released week to week.
I wanted to do this right from the get-go, so I purchased a domain name, king4flight.com at google’s new domain service. Here is my cost breakdown:

• $12 at domains.google.com (king4flight.com)
• FREE blogger.com account
• $5 bookcover at fiverr.com (not needed, but feeds the ego)

The Process

I needed a way to work on the writing while at home, or at work during my lunch hour. Enter stackedit.io, the markdown service I am using right now to write this blog entry. When I have finished I simply publish to the blog from stackedit.
And that’s it. I create, edit and publish from stackedit.io.
You are probably wondering why go through all the bother. Well, for me this is less of a bother as all my content creation and editing takes place in stackedit.io, no matter my location.(lunch hour at work, home, driving…). I can also maintain content from multiple blogs from one spot:

• Serial novella (Last flight of the King IV)
• Writers Group Blog (The Missing Dwarven Phaser)
• My Personal Blog (michalsen.wordpress.com)

You may also be wondering why I’m posting the chapters to their own blog instead of leaving them in the wild on G+. Well, you probably aren’t, but I was looking for an excuse to show you something really cool. I have setup a small script that shows or hides my story comments during the readers experience.
That’s all fun and games. What we really need are photos.

Here is stackedit.io interface. The markdown, where you type, is on the left, and how it renders is on the right. If you are new to markdown, rest assured it is easy and there are plenty of cheatsheets out there.

By clicking the hash in the upper left gives you the fly-out menu.

Where you are given a host of choices to publish and save your material.

I choose to publish to blogger.

Here is domains.google.com where I point the domain to a blogger page. Easy-peasy.

Now, I ask….How can you choose not to read that?

So, you are probably wondering if this is the end all/be all of my adventure. Not even close!

Stay tuned!

Out of Retirement

There's a saying that heroes never die; they just fade away. That's blatantly true, of course, at least the last part. Heroes can't fade away any more than the stories the inhabit do. They're remembered, discussed, remade, re-imagined, and honored long after “the end.” Oh, they're forgotten sometimes, but inevitably they're returned to, either from fresh eyes and mind or when an old fan longs for the tales of their past.

But if heroes never fade away, what do they do when their stories aren't being told. Well, like the people who listen, observer, or participate in the stories, they remember their past and reminisce. So it goes at places like the Onion Knight Home for Semi-Retired Heroes. Well, semi-retired heroes and villains, technically, but they don't put that part in the sign. Not that the heroes particularly care. The battles were fought once and they will be fought again, but in between, there's no point in holding a grudge. Besides, worthy arch-nemeses are one in a million; the other “villains” exist to do little more than get in the hero's way for a few minutes.

“Minutes?” laughed Cyclonic Antipathy, who managed to save the world some 237 times by his last count, but now was content to rest on a park bench in the in the home's park. “Try seconds. Not even that long, if my Ultra-Slay power was active.”

Goblin # 1,620, who once felt the sting of death as often as most people breathed, harrumphed in his chair next to his best friend/regular murderer. “Not all the time,” he pointed out. “We had our moments. Not many, of course. But that time you were returning home from a dungeon, barely alive, and we got the chance to hit first. Oh, I lived for those days. Died for them, too.”

“That didn't count,” Cyclonic grumbled. “We had 90 healing potions to spare, but NOOOO, our storyteller was in such a hurry. I swear that even across the rift between our reality and his, I could hear him uttering the most unpleasant oaths. Considering our adventure was rated everyone 10 and older, so it was highly inappropriate.”

Goblin # 1,620 laughed and added, “Oh, speaking of bad words, remember that time when the storyteller's friend borrowed our story ...”

“Don't you dare,” Cyclonic growled, but the goblin ignored him.

“And when they entered your name, they called you ASSBUTT?” the goblin burst out laughing. “Thirty hours of a destined hero named ASSBUTT saving the world from pure evil. Hell, I bet you won a lot of fights just because we couldn't keep a straight face when fighting you.”

Cyclonic complained, “Storytellers have no respect nowadays. And did they have to put it in all caps? Our story has the lower-case letters for a reason. Anyway, you seem pretty smug for somebody who lost so often.”

Goblin # 1,620 waved a finger at Cyclonic. “Oh, I wouldn't say that. We did the math on that once. Sure, you thwarted our dark lord a bunch of times. But if you compare it to the times you died on the way, we still have a 20:1 win rate over the forces of good.”

“That stupid lava dragon,” Cyclonic muttered.

“Yeah, that was a ridiculously overpowered part of the story,” the goblin agreed. “But enough about that. You up for a game of checkers?”

But it would not be a day for checkers. Somewhere in the reality of the storytellers, perhaps while cleaning the home or just while bored, idle hands find a game, and childhood memories of their adventures with Cyclonic (and decidedly not ASSBUTT,) flooded back. A game system is dusted off, and an afternoon spent telling the story once again. And Goblin # 1,620 didn't even mind when Cyclonic sliced him in half and moved on without a second glance. With enough time, any memories become fond memories.

Every day

Do you like spoons? Yes, we all have them piled in the kitchen drawer, or maybe even piled in the sink, waiting to get cleaned of the chocolate frosting we dig into on the rare occasion. Or Spoon! the call to action by the greatest super-hero of last generation: The Tick.

What does any of this have to do with writing? Hang on there floppy pants, I want to introduce you to an artist I follow on Instagram: STIAN KORNTVED RUUD 

As of this writing he is on day 168 of his goal of carving a new spoon every day for a year.  As he finishes each spoon, he posts pics of his work. 

The process has yielded some some amazing results, along with designs that are flawed and awkward. But guess what? That's supposed to happen. You are supposed to make rubbish. A lot of it. Every day dig in and spend some quality time and knock out 500, 750, or 1000 words. Every day write about something that is wonderful, or trivial, or awkward, or bad. Get comfortable with the notion that what you are writing is an important part of the process, not the final product. It is the potter removing the clay from the bowl, the sculptor removing the marble from the figure, the carver removing the shavings from the spoon. You don't write every day because people will love your work. You write every day so that when you re-write the muscles are strong and your vision is clear. And your readers will thank you.

To help keep me on track for writing every day, I use 750words.com. This is a screen shot of September so far:

Yes, I have missed some days. But to be fair, my Nugget arrived ahead of schedule on September 1st. Sometimes writing has to take the backseat.

We made Bad Decisions - and we're proud of it!

What do you get when you combine a role-playing game GM and a poet with storytelling pretensions? In this case, a new, story-flavored party game from startup game maker Diamond Dust Dreams Inc. With substantial capital already tied up in printing its first game, Kitsune: of Foxes and Fools http://kitsunecg.com/, the company has turned to Kickstarter to get News Flash: Bad Decisions off the ground.

The prototype of the new game is already receiving rave reviews from everyone who has played it; comments like, "Bad Decisions is brilliant (and I'm not a big game person). We are definitely joining the kickstarter funding." The prototype has already been played at scifi and game conventions in Illinois (CoDCon), Indiana (GenCon), Wisconsin (GeekKon) and Minnesota (CONvergence). People see the name and say, "I make bad decisions all the time. What is this game? I want to play it!"

After all, who doesn't enjoy complaining about Fools responding to Crises with Bad Decisions? News Flash: Bad Decisions encourages you to enjoy doing that. You play by combining news-lead or headline sentence “teleprompt” cards with cards listing generic categories of famous (or infamous) people as the fools, crises ranging from mundane to outrageous, and flagrantly Bad Decisions for you to combine into amusing mini-stories.

News Flash: Bad Decisions plays like a cross between Apples to Apples® and Mad Libs®, with each prompt card playing differently every time because the News Anchor (judge) gets to set up every story. The finished game will have 200 cards each in the Fool, Crisis and Bad Decision decks - and 60 teleprompter cards. With a PG13 approach for selecting crises and bad decisions (from actual news stories), Diamond Dust Dreams expects its newest game will give the much racier Cards Against Humanity strong competition as the next must-have party game.

By contributing as little as $10 to the Kickstarter project, you’ll qualify to suggest topics for future Bad Decisions games, such as: horror movies (“went into the woods alone - at night”), thriller/scifi (“pressed the red button”), modern European history (“invaded Russia in winter”), and biotech (“cloned what?”). Higher reward levels give supporters direct input into the creation of additional Fool, Crisis, Bad Decision and Teleprompter cards. Because the game's designers want to share the fun of finding and sharing ridiculous situations and choices with all of you.

The Kickstarter goal is $20,000, enough to cover the down-payment on a full production print run, so News Flash: Bad Decisions can go on press as soon as the team finishes proofing the final prompt and play decks, including new cards suggested by Kickstarter supporters. Game stores are already expressing interest in News Flash: Bad Decisions, although even with the Kickstarter, the company cannot guarantee the game being delivered by Christmas 2014. That said, it could be printed in time to become the hot new Valentine’s Day gift in 2015.

Join the supporters of the Bad Decisions card game family and learn more by checking out the Bad Decisions Kickstarter page This Kickstarter ends September 21, 2014 so please click now. 

Writing is re-writing

Just a brief topic today on writing every day. 

Yes, you are supposed to.  Seriously. 

That's just crazy, I can hear you say. Stop complaining. You're the one going around to all your friends tell them you are a writer. So write, damn it.

But what's the best way? What do I write about? What if it's bad?

Let's take this in reverse order:

It will be bad. Trust me. Anything your write down as a first draft will be crap. I didn't say that. Hemingway did. If you don't like that, go complain to him. I don't want to hear it.

What do you write about? I don't care. I'm not going to be subjected to the painful verses you slap down on paper. Write about your cat, your girlfriend, your wife, or your wife finding out about your girlfriend. Just write.

What's the best way? I have no idea. However, I do have a way that works for me that I am happy to share with you. Ready?

Every evening, before bed, I write between 2 and 3 pages in small notebook. Horribly jotted down sentences of trite conversations, ideas, plots, characters. The handwriting is so bad I can't read half of it the next day.  But you know what? That's OK!  What happens is that I sleep on what I wrote and the next day at lunch I log into my 750words.com, notebook at the ready, and start typing.

Again, most of the stuff I write with a pen I can't even read, but I have an idea and most of the time I can re-write something better, more fluid or present.

What does this give me? 750 words a day. 

I wager that is about 800 words a day more than what you have.

Here Lies Me

Gregor knelt at the grave. He didn't quite know what to expect. He thought returning here would give him closure, a meaning for all he'd gone through, maybe even the chance to escape it and move on to the next state. But instead, he just felt odd. Odd and slightly nauseous.

“Here lies Gregor Branson. 1971-2008. RIP,” he read, and sighed. “Really, mom and dad? That's the best you could come up with?” But he was more fixated at what was under the grave. Six feet down (unless they half-assed the grave, too,) was his own body, rotting away. Though after the bus hit him, he doubted it looked all the great anyway.

So much for this trip, and possibly his whole day off. Gregor shrugged and rose to his feet. At least the perpetual drizzle set the mood. He was hoping to see the sun again, though, just once. Before he had to go back.

He found Reastrom exactly where he left her, hanging out just in front of the front gates. Ah, Reastrom. His jailer, his tormentor, his greatest enemy. And, sadly enough, his only friend. Of course, she normally had the wings, horns, and talons to match her personality. Up here, she looked like just some goth girl hanging out by a cemetery.

“Are you done already?” she asked him. “Ready to go back?”

He knew she expected his eyes to widen, to tremble and beg not to go back, but he'd long since accepted it. Sure, he wasn't pleased when he died and found himself in Hell. Not many people would be. But it wasn't quite the way he expected. He assumed he would be tossed into a lake of fire, and maggots would eat his eyeballs. Something like that. But while they had a lake of fire and the eyeball maggots, they saved those for the truly evil people. Gregor wasn't evil. He was just kind of an asshole.

When the demons read the list, Gregor thought it sounded bad, but not eternal damnation bad. He cheated on his girlfriend. Well, on several girlfriends. And maybe he embezzled some money from his bosses. Big deal, like those millionaires would have even missed it. If anyone deserved to be down there, it was them. Frankly, he felt more sorry when he made fun of the fat girl in back in grade school than any of the other stuff. So he was more indignant about his fate than despairing. At least until Reastrom got to work on him. She wasn't the lashes and venom type. No she preferred the more ironic punishments. Feeling what his victims felt, escape attempts that failed due to one trivial thing. In time, he grew to accept it all. Maybe the gods or fates or whatever had a point, and he deserved what happened to him. For now.

But that was a concern for another day (and week, and month, and possibly every year until the end of time.) What the brochures about hell didn't mention was that every so often, the damned can get time off for good behavior. It's rare because well … not much good behavior down there. And even then, you only get a chance on an anniversary, like the tenth year after your death, and at the most, you get a day. Reastrom sounded as surprised as anyone when she gave him the news. And he was as surprised that he was already down there a decade as he was about getting to leave, however briefly.

“How much time do I have left?” he asked her.

Reastrom checked her watch. “About an hour. Not much time to do anything fun.”

Gregor shrugged. “I didn't expect much else. How about we just grab a burger or something before going … going back?” he asked. He almost caught himself saying “home,” and refused to think on the implication.

“Fine. Don't worry, I'm buying,” Reastrom offered. “Least I could do for the audit-torment. Some things are too low even for us. I'm just glad to get away from this awful place.”

“I was wondering about that,” Gregor said. “Why didn't you go in with me? Consecrated ground?”

She snorted. “As if. Graveyards just creep me out. I get depressed how many names I recognize from back at the office, and I hate thinking about work on these trips.”

Some time later, the two were at a booth in the closest diner they could find, munching on greasy fries and burned hamburgers dripping semi-congealed mayo. It was the best meal Gregor's ever tasted.

“So I have to ask,” Reastrom asked, her voice muffled by fry blockage, “Of all the places to go on your day off, why your own grave? Why not, I don't know, visit your parents or something? I told you they were still alive.”

“What would I have to say to them?” he said. “They're alive, they moved on, they have other children who are better than me, or at least less dead. Would I just walk up to them, offer a weak handshake, and tell them, 'so hey, about death, I have good news and bad news?'”

“So why not Vegas, a beach, a brothel, anything?”

“Yes, that's exactly what I need; the chance to add more sins to my list,” he muttered. He didn't know how that worked, but he wasn't about to risk it. “Look, we may not have always seen eye to eye about … tortures and such, but you've been more than fair to me. Even so, any chance at a normal life again was enough. I didn't need special, just this.”

“Okay, but you still didn't answer my question. Why a freaking grave?”

“I was hoping to find an answer, or some mystical whatsit. You know, the answer to life or something. Maybe learn if there were … other options, visitors from other places, I don't know. It doesn't matter. Nothing happened.”

“I could have told you all that,” she said between sips of liquified sugar. She checked her watch again. “Well, if there's anything else you want, you better do it soon. Get some pie? Use the bathroom? I should warn you, waiting to get back to piss on the fires won't help at all.”

“There's just one thing I want from you,” Gregor told her. “You never answered my question.”

Reastrom just glared at him. He didn't expect more than that. She never answered it before, either yes or no. Just gave an annoyed grunt and then upped the torment for a few days. She couldn't do that here, though of course she would remember it when back ho … in hell. But Gregor didn't care. That was the one answer he needed, the one thing that would satisfy him for any length of torture. Well, any length but one.

“Is there a point to it?” he asked her for the hundredth time. “Is it all just punishment, or is it something more? If you learn the lessons, are truly sorry, will without a doubt try to be a better person, can you … move on?” Punishment was one thing, after all. But infinite punishment? An eternity of it? Unlimited suffering in exchange for the limited list of crimes even the most evil person could do? That he couldn't bare.

So she glared. And he waited. They had, at most, five minutes left. He figured she would just run out the clock, and maybe give him the lake of fire treatment this time. Instead, she whispered something, so soft that he couldn't understand it.

“What did you say?”

“mmmm.”

“What?”

“I said 'maybe,' okay? And that's all you're getting, so shut up and get a damn pie or something.”

“Then why keep it a secret. Why not tell people that there's a chance, however slight, they might get out?”

“Because that ruins it,” she snarled at him. “It's not about being a better person so they might get out. It's about being a better person to not being a worse one. Otherwise, how will we know when people are ready, really ready to leave, and not just faking it? Gregor, the last thing I want is repeat customers.”

Gregor took all that in, wondering if by insisting on the truth, he just damned himself. Either way, as they left (they had leftovers, but Reastrom insisted they wouldn't need a doggie bag,) he insisted on giving the waiter a really generous tip.



Reastrom knelt at the grave. Gregor never did get another day off. Reastrom figured the bosses learned that she slipped up, let a moment of sympathy get to her. She had the same worry he did, that by learned the truth, she condemned him to be down there forever. But today, she revealed just one talon and carved a little something into his still-boring grave. It would be days before anyone even noticed, and even then, they had no idea what it meant. They just assumed some vandal was having a bit of fun, though they couldn't explain why the new words looked they were made from an animal's claw. Or why they glowed bright red. Whatever the reason, they figured that the grave's new epitaph, “Here lies Gregor Branson. 1971-2008. RIP - 2008-2079” meant something to somebody.

Dreamleaks 4: The DEMI Fires

This day had not been going well for old Toby. For starters, he planned on biking at least part of the way to work, but halfway there, he remembered he brought his laptop home to do some work on the weekend, and he wasn't about to risk that on a bike ride. Then he got to work and had almost his entire day wasted on meetings, busywork, and insipid office banter. Even right now, he had a half-dozen co-workers in his office, huddled together around a computer screen watching some stupid video while he was trying to get something finished. It had already gotten dark, and he just wanted to go home.

Of course, all of this seemed pretty trivial when the fires started.

Because he wasn't the only one staring at cats being morons, he noticed it before anyone else. The office complex just next to their own glowed from within, an intense light that shattered any remnants of a normal work day. For just a moment, as he saw the panicked figures screaming through the building's glass entrance way and even hotter blue flame build among the more “normal” red flames, Tobias could only stare in horror. And then he burst out of office, moments ahead of their own evacuation, while babbling “no, no, no, no, no!” to himself. Not fire, anything but fire. Not with what he knew about Data Efficiency Management, Inc., his employer, and the secrets he knew about his co-workers.

Both DEMI and the other office complex were some distance from the rest of the city, down the hill in a little side road all their own. Even so, as Toby and the rest of his office made their way outside, he could hear the wail of the incoming fire trucks, assuring Toby that no act of insane heroism on his part would be needed, that the actual professionals would take it from here. Even so, Toby could barely fathom the horrors he witnessed around him, too stark for even the endless blaring lights and sirens around him to drown out. He saw one EMT crew frantically try to save a man with a gaping hole blasted in his chest even going so far as to massage the poor victim's heart from the inside! And as the fire went out and the smoke cleared, he saw people sprawled out on the ground and stairwells, looking no different than if they were sleeping. Which, Toby tried to rationalized, they could be. It's not like the firefighters and ambulance crews would just leave people, not after the fires had stopped. Right?

Before he could think bout it more, he learned that his boss Irene had called a department-wide meeting to discuss the fire and what it meant. Toby, under the excuse of needing some fresh air, stayed behind as long as he could. The last thing he needed after all this was dealing with Irene. Irene was a hard-ass on her best days, and something like this would make her into a tyrant. Even worse, she wasn't in the loop about the important stuff. Toby was, and if Irene wanted answers, Toby might not be able to bluff his way out of it.

See, DEMI isn't just a mediocre network solutions company. They're secretly a safe harbor for refugees, refugees that most people wouldn't even believe existed. People with powers beyond what science can explain, perhaps, or with a heritage including some creature that shouldn't exist. He knows for a fact that the receptionist is, in fact, some kind of mer-creature. And his office friend Tessa, the one with the burn scars on her arms? That wasn't just the result of some childhood accident, it turned out. Tessa is a pyrokinetic who came about her powers at a really bad time. But Toby knows Tessa. She's harmless. There's no way she could be responsible for something like this. Could she?

As he pondered this, however, he saw flames billow up in the other building again. And this time, they flowed through the power and gas lines to his office as well. Since everyone was still returning after the last fire, they made it out safely this time. But two fires separated by mere hours? This couldn't be an accident.

The firefighters arrived even sooner this time. Hell, they probably didn't even all make it back to the station yet. But while this second fire was put out almost immediately and without any casualties as horrific as the first, it was clear that the firefighters had the same suspicions that Toby had, if not exactly the same theories about the cause. It was clear that the police would be here soon, and this time, Irene didn't even wait for people to get back into the office before she ordered her entire department into another meeting some distance from the building.

But Toby couldn't have imagined what she did next. As soon as they were out of sight, she pulled out a gun and yelled, “Everyone, on your knees! NOW!” Once they got over their shock, Toby and his coworkers complied, Tessa included. Toby couldn't say what would happen next, but he had two guesses. First, Irene was in fact responsible for the fires herself and she wanted to get everyone's silence before the police came asking, one way or another. But not even Irene could be so homicidal, Toby thought. Theory two is that she also believes these fires were started by someone, and so of course her first instinct was to blame it on her underlings. That's so Irene. Of course, Toby also knew she could be exactly right. So what would he do? What even counted as the right thing to do? Would he keep his friend's confidence, knowing that to expose her or her powers would likely be a death sentence or worse? Or keep quiet, risk his own life, and possibly let an arsonist go free do cause more death and destruction?

Toby had no idea what to do. But he knew that whatevre happened, it was going to get messy.

Cutting, part 2

Last time we met I expended some calories on the usefulness of cutting what you have written.  Today I thought I would provide some details on what I mean.

Here is a an opening to a short fiction (approx. 700 words) I've been working on as practice to keep as concise as possible.  It opens:

    It is easy to take a person; they won’t be missed right away. The key is to not break their timing. If they are out for a walk, they may be missed within an hour. Take them when they are going to the store, maybe two hours. A movie or church, three hours, (but really, who goes alone?). My personal favorite is shopping. No one know how long they will be gone, so that if you can take them when they first depart you can have upwards of six hours before someone starts to worry.

Originally the opening was much simpler: "It is easy to take a person."  In the early drafts this was important to me, and later I expounded on "why". In the cutting exercise I removed the why until it was time to reveal that part of the character and in its place set the "how".

Notice I have not written "How", as in "How" to actually take a person. In truth that is the "easy part" from the opening sentence. What I need is an emotional commitment from the reader, and I do this by providing common situations the reader may find themselves in. Everyone, at one time or another, goes to the store alone. When I plant that seed of belief in the mind of the reader, I then spring the trap, forcing the reader to see themselves in the situation.

   
Nobody sees a white minivan. Nobody.

...

the door slides open, a swift push of the cattle prod and they fall right in, rolled in plastic and taped shut. I drive off and no one ever sees them again.

Revealing the psychotic behavior in the voice I use, I rely on the reader to envision themselves in the position of the victim, and finding themselves in greater peril as I remove the rules of normal social behavior. This is someone among us, driving a plain white mini-van, watching for an opportunity. I have removed all the pretense and backstory of why. It doesn't need to be there, at least not yet.

From here I build a bit of backstory with only hints of "Why". The reason is two-fold:

• It cements the psychosis of the voice, allowing the reader an edge of comfort in their belief. (This is then immediately rewarded.)
• Set the stage for the final reveal.

The reward I mentioned comes in the next part of the story:

   
     The walls are gray and smell like disinfectant. The people wear white, some with many keys. I smile at all of them, but they don’t like me.

In a perfect world evil is locked away tight. I do not have to use the phrase mental hospital. I also do not have to explain how or why the voice was caught. It doesn't matter. The reader finds a moment of comfort that the evil is now locked away.

So now the voice of the story has shown that he is evil and that he is locked away. I am not expecting the reader to feel at all sorry for him, but I need to give a hint of insight before the end.

   
     Criminally insane. That’s the phrase I couldn’t remember. So much is a fog now, I shuffle across hard linoleum from one room to the next, my robe hanging open. Most times I don’t care. I like the colors on the quiet TV. I like the little candy pills in the paper cup. The water tastes funny and isn’t that cold. I can smell something decaying, but it is fleeting; vaporous.

I'm about 600 words into the story and thus far the voice has taken people and buried them away:

   
      I sit at the steel mesh window and watch the trees and sky. So clear and clean. The woods far off remind me of my other life, the cabin and my van, the people and all the holes I dug. So many holes. So many bones. The shovels were well worn.

And here I could end, evil tucked away from society and good prevails. But where is the fun in that? And are you sure you know the difference between good and evil?

I have about 100 words left to change your mind.

Other blog posts by Eric Michalsen

• Tools of the Trade part 1 Pen Paper / Sublime Text
• Tools of the Trade part 2 Open Office / Trello
• Tools of the Trade part 3 Ommwriter / Scrivener
• Website Development and SEO Basics for Writers
• Git and the Writer
• Twitter Tools for Writers
• Kickstarter :: How it is being used by writers
• Cut It Out

Follow Eric on Twitter @michalsen or catch up on his rantings at his blog.

Tele-Reality Conference Call

I figured I wrote enough stories from dreams lately, so it would make sense to mix things up and write a story about dreams this time.

Tele-Reality Conference Call

Melinda was not having the best day. It was the end of the quarter, profits were down, and the future of her business rode on the success of a single business venture. And Todd, the hypothetical brains behind the entire venture, was on the other side of the world, which rather inconveniently still lingered around 2 am while she and the rest of her department was ready for their afternoon business meeting.

Melinda looked around her office and sighed. Todd promised he would attend the meeting via remote access, but it's been almost twenty minutes since the meeting started and still no sign of him. She already called him twice and got no response. The fool must have fallen asleep, she figured. She looked over the table full of eager yet terrified underlines and said, “Sorry, people. I know we're days before deadline, but there's not much point in even having this discussion without Todd present. I'll just have to postpone the meeting and hope that...”

“No, wait! I'm here, I'm here!” Todd, or rather the monitor that Todd should be connected to, burst into life. Todd was visibly on the other end, but something looked … off about him. “Sorry I'm late, Melinda. I'm using a new networking tool and it took a while for me to figure it out.”

“Better late than never,” Melinda warned, “but not by much. I worried you fell asleep.”

“Oh, I did!” Todd said. “Still am, actually. But it's fine. I got the Dreamchat all set up last night, just in case that happened.”

The rest of the table turned into a cacophony of whispers and questions. Melinda did her best to ignore them. “I'm sorry, are you seriously trying to speak to us through your dreams?”

“Not through, exactly,” Todd insisted. “More like I happened to be in a dream, while talking to you. I assure you, my mind is as active and focused as always. The Dreamchat auto-initiates lucid dreaming. Just treat this as any other business chat, except I'm talking to you on the back of a flying purple walrus.”

Now that she thought about it, she did hear about this Dreamchat system. But she thought it was still in the prototype phase, waiting for enough idiots dumb enough to expose their inner minds to the world at large. And speaking of expose, she just realized what looked off about Todd.

“Todd, are you NAKED?”

He looked down and blushed. “Oh, crap,” he said. “I'm sorry. You know those dreams where you're back at school and suddenly have to take a test you didn't prepare for, and also you're naked? My subconsciousness must have thought this was one of those dreams.”

“Well, dream yourself some clothes,” Melinda demanded. “I don't care if you're in the office or on the back of a fantasy mammal, you will honor our dress code.” As she ordered her subordinate, however, Melinda noticed a dark figure looming over him. “Todd, look out!”

Todd whirled around, gasped, and fled away from the … camera. Melinda suddenly wondered how the camera could possibly work in this scenario, but they had bigger problems. The evil presence chased Todd to the edge of the walrus and drew ever closer, giggling in a sinister but scratchy voice.

“Todd, what the hell is that?”

“It's my childhood fear,” Todd explained. “Dirk Tinglestar, the evil cowboy clown.”

“That's right, little Toddy,” Dirk laughed. “Now reach for the sky! It's time for you to face me, or it's for you to die!”

Melinda tried to take this seriously, but she couldn't suppress the giggle. “Dirk Tinglestar? Really?”

“Yeah, you know, black hat, white face,” Todd nervously explained. “I've had nightmares about him ever since I was six, when I thought I saw him looming outside my bedroom one night. It turned out to just be a jacket hanging in the hallway, but try telling my subconscious that!”

Dirk, meanwhile, finally noticed Melinda and the rest of the increasingly confused businesspeople on the other side of reality, and left Todd alone to creep towards them. “Oh, we have guests for tonight's show! Just for them, I'll make sure you die extra slow.” As Dirk got closer to the camera though, he frowned. “What's all this?” he snarled.

“Sir, if you would please stop tormenting my director of new business!,” Melinda said, using her best executive tone of voice. “He is a grown man, not a child for you to bully, and we do not have the time for this. If we can't get this deal finished, then we'll be in the red, which will greatly displease me. And then you AND Todd will have a much bigger nightmare to deal with, capiche?”

Dirk drew even closer, until a single hideous eye dominated the screen. “Oh, no, this won't do at all,” Dirk said. “Little Toddy didn't account for growth in the public sector. If you ignore that, your profits will soon fall.”

“He didn't what?” Melinda turned back tot he table, where all the materials Todd should have needed for the presentation were scattered across the table. She gave them a cursory glance and realized the evil dream cowboy clown was right. “Oh, that's an excellent point,” she said. “What's your opinion on market change in the next fiscal year?”

Before Dirk could respond, though, he vanished, replaced again by Todd. “Sorry about that,” Todd shouted. “It's okay, I got away. Dirk shouldn't bother us again tonight.”

Melinda did her best to hide her disappointment. Besides, it sounded like Todd had another problem she would have to deal with. “Todd, I can barely hear you. What is all that whistling in the background?”

Todd looked around and shrugged. “Oh, I seem to be falling to my death,” he explained. “Not a problem. Judging by the distance to the ground, I should have a good five or ten minutes before I reach the ground. And everyone knows that you never actually die in a falling dream.”

“Well, when you wake up, would you care to join us on the call in the real world?” she asked.

“Oh, you don't want that,” Todd assured her. “I'm useless right after I wake up. Give me some time to get a few cups of coffee, and I'll call you back then.”

Melinda held her hand to her forehead. Twenty minutes late, ten minutes of this nonsense, and she knows that Todd would be at least half an hour before he can drag himself to a physical computer. “Never mind, Todd,” she told him. “Just go back to bed.”

“Oh, okay?” Todd said, confused. “But I thought this meeting was mandatory.”

“Oh, it is,” she told him. “So get your ass back here as soon as you start dreaming again. And could you do us a favor and dream of Dirk again? He sounded like he had some insights we could use.”

“Are you serious?” Todd yelled. “Ma'am, Dirk is a nightmarish apparition, the total of my darkest instincts and fears.”

“I'm an equal opportunity employer, Todd. I don't care about whether you technically exist or not. I just care if you can get results.”